Shanghai to build new tourist resort at Wusongkou estuary

Imaginechina

A new international tourist resort will be built at Shanghai's north Wusongkou estuary, at the juncture of the Huangpu and Yangtze rivers, to cater to cruise ships and yachts.

The master plan for Shanghai International Cruise Liner Resort was released on Friday at the 2021 Wusongkou Forum at Wusongkou cruise liner port in Baoshan District.

The resort, featuring cruise liners, water sports and riverside travel, will cap Shanghai's ambition to become a world-famous tourism city, Baoshan government said at the forum.

It will become another international tourist resort apart from Shanghai International Resort in the Pudong New Area, with Shanghai Disney Resort at its core.

The cruise liner resort will cover about 12.48 square kilometers and have 13.5 kilometers of waterfront along the Huangpu and Yangtze rivers.

Four key docks will be the key facilities of the resort, including the existing Wusongkou International Cruise Liner Port, a new cruise ship port for tours along the Yangtze River, a sightseeing port for visitors to view the scenery of the estuary and a port for yachts and sailboats.

Three theme parks, the Yangtze River Estuary Culture Park, the existing Paotaiwan Wetland Park and a military port exposition park, will be dotted along the rivers.

Tourists will mainly be attracted by the opportunity for various water sports and recreational events, such as yachting and sailboating. A water sports products center will be developed with other commercial facilities, including a new outlets shopping center.

Baoshan plans to revitalize the cruise liner port and bring back the crowds after its activity was suspended for more than a year due to the pandemic, the district's riverside development commission said.

Cruise ships around the world were the sites of the earliest clusters of infection, forcing operators to shut down tours and countries to close their ports of welcome.

At Shanghai port, once the busiest in Asia and the world's No. 4, all cruise liner operations have been suspended since January 30, 2020 to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

The terminal received its last eight luxury cruise liners between January 22 and 29, 2020. They carried 30,595 inbound and outbound passengers, along with more than 10,000 crew.

Since opening in October 2011, the Wusongkou terminal has welcomed 2,200 cruise ships carrying over 14 million passengers. Several liners from the world's top cruise companies – Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, MSC and Genting – have made their maiden voyages in Asia from the terminal. It is able to receive four luxury liners at the same time after a major expansion in 2019.

Officials and experts shared their opinions on the development of the future tourism resort at the terminal on Friday at the first Wusongkou Forum, which will be held regularly to guide development of the estuary site.

Wusongkou is a historic landmark of Shanghai. Its lighthouse was once the tallest site of the city and remains a national geological landmark.

In 1842, when a British fleet attacked the wharf, General Chen Huacheng (1776-1842) led an army to repel the invaders. Though the cannons at the fort managed to sink several ships, the defenders still lost the battle and Chen lost his life.

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