A report published in March by the Cruise Lines International Association showed that since 2012 the number of mainland Chinese taking cruises, both on the nation's rivers and internationally, has grown by 79 percent every year.

From the 1980s to the start of the century, about 90 percent of cruise passengers on the Yangtze were foreign tourists, but in the past decade, the number of Chinese taking cruises has grown gradually, and now 75 percent of passengers hail from the mainland.

However, despite the growing popularity of river cruises rising among Chinese tourists, some operators on the Yangtze have been struggling to find paying customers.

The annual passenger capacity of the combined Yangtze cruise ship fleet is more than 1.5 million, but last year only 600,000 people took cruises on the river, according to the Chongqing tourism authorities.

"The whole industry has been through a hard time in the past decade because of declining demand and fierce price competition," Wang said. "As more and more cruise companies entered the market, many operators began to lose money."