Authorities in Taiwan have granted approval for Genting Hong Kong to resume domestic sailings via its Explorer Dream vessel.
According to the Taipei Times, Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai confirmed this week that the Central Epidemic Command Center had approved an application from Genting HK to restart cruises from January 2022.
However, island-hopping tours would not resume until the northern summer due to the monsoon season.
Genting HK had originally resumed cruises out of Taiwan, at reduced capacity, in July 2020 but was forced to halt operations in May 2021 following another outbreak of COVID-19. The company had previously been pushing for a September resumption but had been unable to gain approval until now.
It has been a busy few months for Genting Group’s cruise ship arm, which only this week secured a US$30 million injection of funds from its controlling shareholder, Lim Kok Thay.
The company announced an increase in ship capacity for sailings out of Hong Kong from 50% to 75% from 1 December, began accepting international travelers on its Singapore cruises around the same time and revealed it will also resume sailings out of Malaysia via Star Cruises from 22 December 2021.
