Four foreign cruise ships plan to call at ports in Ibaraki Prefecture from April 2019 to April 2021, a chance for overseas tourists and other passengers to visit various places in the prefecture. The Ibaraki government sees this as an opportunity to promote Ibaraki to the world as an attractive tourist destination.
This will be the first time for cruise ships run by foreign companies to call at Ibaraki ports. The local government started working in fiscal 2015 to bring in more cruise ships, inviting ship company executives in the prefecture for a tour of local tourism resources and participating in business meetings organized by the central government.
Gov. Kazuhiko Oigawa also promoted features unique to Ibaraki, such as nemophila flowers (baby blue eyes) at the Hitachi Seaside Park in Hitachinaka to a cruise ship company executive.
The passenger capacity of the four ships ranges from 684 to 1,916. Their visits are set for the Hitachinaka district of Ibaraki Port on April 28, 2019; April 26, 2020; and April 21, 2021; and the Oarai district of the port on June 13, 2020.
The ships' sailing routes include locations in Japan, as well as other destinations in places including the United States, Russia and Canada, on cruises lasting from 20 to 180 days. Each of the ships will spend one night at an Ibaraki port on their way north from the Tokyo metropolitan area.
Three of the four ships plan to call in late April. An official at the port division of the prefecture said, "The ships might be timing their visits to see the nemophila flowers."
"Tourist sites in Ibaraki might get a lot of attention from foreign tourists," Oigawa said. "I hope good reports of Ibaraki will spread through word of mouth." The governor also stated a policy to improve and develop ports to make them accessible for larger cruise ships.
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