Cruise ship Celebrity Solstice made its maiden voyage to Hong Kong on Thursday after choosing the city to be its home port for the next five months, with its operator calling for increased local flight capacity to boost bookings.

Adrian Au Ka-lun, director of sales and marketing in Asia for operator Celebrity Cruises, said the limited aviation capacity restricted options for visitors flying to the city and increased competition with tourist attractions.

“With the constraints in this flight capacity situation, it makes it harder for people to get to Hong Kong,” Au said, adding it also drove up airfares and made holidays on land more enticing.

“For North Americans to fly all the way to Hong Kong, sometimes the airfare is more expensive than the cruise itself,” he said. “That is when the consumer has a choice to take a land-based holiday somewhere else, so we are not just competing with other cruise lines, we are actually in competition with land-based tourist attractions.”

Au said some sailings for the vessel were almost fully booked, but reservations would further improve if more flights were on offer.

Airlines, including those based out of Hong Kong, have struggled to return to pre-pandemic operating levels following the outbreak of Covid-19.

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Celebrity Solstice, which is part of Royal Caribbean Group’s Celebrity Cruises brand, arrived at Kai Tak Cruise Terminal for the first time on Thursday with 2,700 guests on board.

The ship has chosen Hong Kong to be one of its two home ports, alongside Singapore, from November to March.

Explaining the cruise operator’s decision, Au said the city was well known internationally and its status as a global aviation hub also made it easy for their passengers to transit to and from other cities around the world.

Celebrity Solstice is one of two vessels the company has deployed in Asia. The other, Celebrity Millennium, is set to stop in the city on November 24 as it relocates from Yokohama in Japan to Singapore.

During a ceremony to mark the maiden voyage, Assistant Commissioner for Tourism Henry Lai said the 12 trips the ship would make between the city and Singapore, and two port calls by Celebrity Millennium, would bring in 25,000 to 30,000 international visitors.

Hong Kong has been keen to develop cruise tourism, with Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu addressing the issue in his policy address last month. He called for the city to spur demand in source markets, develop its offerings and improve supporting infrastructure near the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal.

Authorities will also announce an action plan on developing cruise tourism in the first half of next year.

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Wendy Yamazaki, regional vice-president for government relations in Asia at Royal Caribbean Group, said it was a “good sign” the city was stepping up as the cruise industry in Asia was still largely underdeveloped.

“Many countries in the region are still kind of falling behind in terms of infrastructure [and] policy … but I think the Hong Kong government is moving in the right direction,” she said.