International travelers make over 470,000 visits to Nansha last year

The last cruise in 2018 departs from Nansha Port on Dec 30, bringing Nansha’s cruise tourism for the year to a successful close. Nansha Cruises has made remarkable achievements in recent years, which can be attributed to its upgraded inspection services.

As of Dec 30, the Nansha Exit-Entry Frontier Inspection Station has inspected more than 470,000 cruise passengers, an increase of 18 percent over the previous year and the third highest cruise passenger volume in China.

In light of the large numbers of passengers at the cruise port, the short berthing time and many elderly and infant passengers, the Nansha Exit-Entry Frontier Inspection Station has innovated the traditional ways of frontier inspection and adopts the following methods to improve inspection efficiency and the quality of passenger experience:

New technologies are used to speed up the customs clearance. Through technological innovation, the Nansha Exit-Entry Frontier Inspection Station simplified the inspection and clearance system for cruise passengers in February of last year. 

Police forces will be stationed at the port one day before the arrival of cruise ships. A QR code will also be combined with big data and other technologies to shorten the inspection time from “twenty to thirty seconds” to “eight to ten seconds”.

Besides, the Nansha Exit-Entry Frontier Inspection Station takes the lead in the implementation of self-service clearance at the cruise port, and sets up sixteen self-service channels for the entry and exit of passengers through face and fingerprint recognition. 

At the same time, self-service inspection is made applicable to ten types of travelers, including mainland residents whose fingerprint information has been collected in their electronic passports, Hong Kong and Macao residents, Taiwan residents with MTP (Mainland Travel Permits), and foreigners holding foreign passports or Chinese permanent residence permits.

In September this year, the National Immigration Bureau implemented online inspection procedures for international navigation vessels. 

Since then, information about entry-exit cruise ships and crews can be declared through a “single window” of international trade online. There is no need to submit paper materials such as a General Declaration Form, a Crew List or a Passenger List. 

When the cruise ship arrives at the port, passengers can get off instantly, which shortens the time needed for arrival and departure and saves costs.