In the first quarter of 2017, Penang Port and Royal Caribbean announced their intention to form a joint venture to expand Swettenham Pier Cruise Terminal in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of George Town, Penang. The project is posed to be a world class cruise destination as the location has all the ingredients for success. The terminal has jetty facilities in naturally deep waters and has heritage buildings on the shore side ripe for redevelopment within 15 minutes walking distance of major tourist hot spots. The JV was formalised in the third quarter of 2018.
We had worked on the site with Royal Caribbean, facilitating the formation of the master plan as well as drawing up a working financial model from which to take the project to the next stage. The initial phase of development will begin late 2018 and involves extending the jetty to almost double its present length and enabling it to handle the largest cruise ships in the world simultaneously with the current cruise mainstays in Southeast Asia. This improves the terminal's ability to balance homeporting calls that are important for the project's sustainability with international calls that fulfil the state and country's tourism agenda and boosts the cruise industry's role in Penang's growth story.
We were involved in the planning of and project oversight for the expansion of Chan May port in Vietnam to enable it to accommodate Oasis-class vessels. Delivery of the project in mid-2015 enabled the maiden call of Voyager of the Seas in August 2015.
Follow-up expansion work to optimise the berth further was completed in 2018. Chan May is now the primary port of call for mega cruise vessels calling to the Danang Area.
We developed a proposal for a marina off a popular bay waterfront location in Penang, Malaysia for a local government agency. The location presented various challenges for a marina development, not the least of which was the lack of natural depth closer to shore. We also had to consider the sensitivities of residents who were understandably protective of their waterfront. The solution was to reclaim an island off the coast linked by a bridge, that would turn the bay into a watersports haven. A feasibility study for the commercial viability of the marina was carried out and the best phasing plan for its development was established. Unfortunately, the approval process was over-extended, and we decided to move on.
A new cruise terminal is being developed in Manila as part of an ongoing effort to tap into the Hong Kong and Shenzen source market through offering more options for short itineraries favoured by Asians. The location itself is also an attractive homeporting option especially for cruise lines that prefer island-hopping exotic itineraries.
We are working with an international port operator to develop a pre-existing site that will eventually form an integrated waterfront development. We have carried out the necessary financial modelling and market studies and will eventually carry out technical feasibility studies once the initial approvals have been obtained.
We have also conducted studies for other Philippines destinations that will eventually connect with Manila to form a more flexible itinerary selection for short and long cruises. The first such port developed under this initiative is Salomague in the Ilocos region.
Ilocos Cruise Port was launched in the December 2019 with the arrival of the largest cruise ship deployed in Asia at the time, Spectrum of the Seas. The ship called again in the following month to great success. With just a one-year turnaround from inception to delivery, Ilocos Cruise Port was our fastest progressing project and showed how transformative a simple plan can be if executed by the right minds.
