The purpose of the present is to suggest strategies to activate marine tourism in Korea. A total of 165 cruise tourists participated and were asked to answer questionnaires about their reason of choice for a cruise tour. Data collection was performed from December, 2017 to the end of March, 2018. Importance-performance analysis and t-test showed that there were statistically significant differences on the selection of a cruise tour among the study participants. Overall, the cruise tourists selected a tour based on four catogories: cruise tourism and culture, cruise route and products, cruise quality of service, and cruise accessibility and transportation. In particular, there were 20 attributes of their choice which vary according to their age, occupation and experiences of participation. Among the attributes, the mean score of the items of the importance selection attributes(i.e., a port of nature and tourism attraction) was the highest(4.35) and also following the mean score of the performance selection attributes(i.e., a beautiful sea; 4.27). The findings of the present study suggested important factors to be considered in activating and marketing cruise tour business.