This paper focuses on the analysis of the COVID-19 effects on passenger shipping in Danish waters as an example and aims to analyse the differences in passenger vessel activities and emissions before and after the COVID-19 outbreak. Two sets of Automatic Identification System (AIS) data for the passenger ships sailing in Danish waters associated with the whole year respectively for 2020 and 2019 are used for a comprehensive evaluation of the passenger shipping activities in the region by means of the analysis of variance and bottom-up emission models. A comparison of those results based on the two datasets shows that the COVID-19 pandemic has a major impact on cruise ships, with a significant reduction in the number of ships, average speed, and average draught. In contrast, the pandemic has a smaller impact on ferry-pax only and ferry-ro pax vessels. The effects can also be seen from the fact that, after the COVID-19 outbreak, SOx emissions from cruise ships, ferry-pax only and ferry-ro pax vessels were reduced by 50.71%, 0.51% and 0.82%, respectively. This investigation provides an important reference for policy makers in the marine environment sector.

Starting from the late 1960s, the cruise industry has appeared in two key regions, namely Europe and North America. However, the cruise industry has undergone fundamental changes which implies that the number of frequent cruisers is growing, with western travelers supposedly travelling to diverse cultures, attractive cruising destinations and exotic experiences in Southeast Asia for western travelers, and thus cruising in the Asian region has been happening at an enormous growing rate. Among the Asian regions, China is experiencing the fastest growth rates. Both Hong Kong and Shanghai established two cruise terminals which can be described as homeport cities in the 21st centuries. However, Hong Kong and Shanghai cruise terminals need to deal with neighboring competitors like Singapore, Japan, Vietnam, just to name but a few, in a challenging and dynamic environment. In order to examine Hong Kong and Shanghai’s potential evolution into an international cruise terminal hub, we suggest Connectivity, Regional Competitiveness, Utilization, Infrastructure, Security, Environmental Management (CRUISE) framework to seize attainable prospect of the external environment and investigate locational characteristics of cruise terminals in Hong Kong and Shanghai respectively. The first mover and sustainable competitive advantage will be performed. Academic and managerial implications of the research findings for cruise terminals are elaborated.