HTT 683 – Sustainable tourism

Madam Siti Sabariah binti Haji Ismail

Issues and Challenges in Caribbean Cruise Ship Tourism

INTRODUCTION

According to Collins English Dictionary, 2008, a cruise is a trip by sea on a liner for
leisure, unusually docking at various ports during its journey. Mostly, the tourists who are on
cruise ship are for leisure purpose, less likely using cruise ship as point-to-point
transportation.

According to Hall J.A and Braithwaite R. (1990), the development of cruise industry is
beyond expectation in growth in 1980s. The rapid growth indicated by the large number of
cruise ships, cruise lines and the arrival of cruise corporations (Dowling R. K. 2006). From
400 passengers capacity cruise to 3,400 passengers’ capacity in 30 years time, this shows
how rapid the growth is.

Speaking of cruise ship tourism, it is undeniable that Caribbean is among the famous
place for cruise ship, considering after the decline of the transatlantic trade in the late 50s. It
was recorded that in 1998, 71 cruise ships from 24 lines plied the Caribbean Sea.

The high number of cruise ship tourist in Caribbean might somehow lead to several
issues and problems whereas they affect the host community, the tourists themselves and the
environment. Thus, further reading will discuss about the issues and some solutions to solve
the issues faced by cruise ship tourism in Caribbean.

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 HTT 683 – Sustainable tourism
Madam Siti Sabariah binti Haji Ismail
Issues and Challenges in Caribbean Cruise Ship Tourism

ISSUES AND CHALLENGES IN CRUISE SHIP INDUSTRY

1. Concentration of the industry

The cruise ship industry is highly dominated by three huge companies which are
Carnival which is the largest cruise ship company, Royal Caribbean and Star Cruises.
These big companies had come up with associations that aim to promote the interests of
cruise ship companies. For example is Florida Caribbean Cruise Association (FCCA)
which assertively promotes the cruise ship industry and also focuses on issues
regarding law, tourism development, taxation, port safety and security issues and many
other issues that have direct or indirect impacts on cruise ship industry.

Ironically, neither Caribbean governments nor Caribbean port authorities have

come up with regional cruise port association. The problem is the authorities cannot do
anything regarding cruise ship because of no establishment of association. In other
words, they are powerless. Examples of this include the Organisation of Eastern
Caribbean States (OECS) environmental levy or the Caribbean Community
(CARICOM) proposal for a US$ 20 head tax. The negotiating position is further
weakened when cruise ship companies own private islands or when they own and
operate cruise ship ports.

2. Increase in capacity

The increase in capacity stems from two sources. The first is the increase in ship
size and the second is an increase in the number of berths operating in the Caribbean
region.

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 HTT 683 – Sustainable tourism
Madam Siti Sabariah binti Haji Ismail
Issues and Challenges in Caribbean Cruise Ship Tourism

Seatrade in its website reported that the ship size is increasing from 8000 GT in
1966 to 100,000 GT 30 years later. The capacity also rises from 400 passengers to
3,400 passengers. This required expansion of port facilities to accommodate larger
vessels and possibilities of overcrowding is high. Not only is the average size of a
cruise ship increasing, total capacity expressed as number of berths is also increasing.

3. Congestion

The increase in capacity of cruise ship had led to congestion whereby

overcrowding occurred in port facilities, the urban setting and attractions. The
congestion has two components that are areas of concern. The first concern is
exceeding environmental thresholds and the second one is the perception of
overcrowding by residents, tourists and cruise ship visitors.

In terms of environmental thresholds, infrastructure and attraction can be

controlled but when it comes to natural areas, the physical impacts are hard to be
controlled due to difficulties in carrying capacity analysis.

In addition, high number of cruise ship passengers will cause overcrowding from
the tourists, residents and cruise ship visitors themselves. The overcrowding has
actually results in less tourist arrival and consequently less tourism expenditure. In
British Virgin Island (BVI) for instance, the people there were against the increase in
cruise ship visitors (from 122,000 in 1995 to 466,000 in 2005) as it was perceived that
these numbers would have a negative impact on the BVI tourism product and earnings.

4. Earnings and employment

The aims of tourism industry are maximizing tourism revenues and employment.
At time, government is trying to maximising the number of visitor arrivals and

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 HTT 683 – Sustainable tourism
Madam Siti Sabariah binti Haji Ismail
Issues and Challenges in Caribbean Cruise Ship Tourism

conveniently add the number of cruise ship visitors to the number of hotel tourists. But
after considering the expenditures of visitors from cruise ship and visitors from hotels
or yachting, their expenditures are relatively lower than those from hotels and yachting
visitors.

In terms of employment opportunities, it provides less employment for West

Indians since most of the staffs are Asian and officers and senior staff tend to be
European or North American.

5. Environment

Cruise ship tourism had largely impact the environment and the industry itself is
sensitive to the environment especially natural disaster. In United States for example,
Royal Caribbean Cruises had paid US$18 million under a plea agreement for the
discharge of oil, discharge of hazardous waste and for falsifying records; likewise
Carnival Corporation was fined US$18 million in 2002 and Norwegian Cruise Line
US$1.5 million in 2002.

A part from that, cruise ship industry is also subject to natural disasters. The
cruise ship company has to stop their service for a while whenever natural disasters
such as hurricanes or tropical storm struck. For example the impact of Katrina caused
the cancellation and shortening of cruises, relocation of cruise ships that used the port
of New Orleans as home port and the chartering of cruise ship vessels to the United
States Government for a period of six months. This disruption is likely to have
repercussions in the Western Caribbean.

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 HTT 683 – Sustainable tourism
Madam Siti Sabariah binti Haji Ismail
Issues and Challenges in Caribbean Cruise Ship Tourism

6. Product diversification

The latest cruise ships offer an ever increasing range of attractions and services.
Therefore, increasingly, cruises become attractions in their own rights and port of calls
become ever less important, a move, incidentally stimulated by the cruise lines
themselves, due to their efforts to increase on board revenues.

7. Competition with hotels

The cruise ship lines in the Caribbean region made 34.9 million beds per night
available in 2004. That covers about 25 to 30 per cent of total available room capacity
of the region. Arguably therefore competition with the hotels and its implications on
earnings, tax and employment, should be the most important challenge that faces the
Caribbean. The hotel player states that cruise ship industry has unfair advantage while
in cruise line defence, their customers will return as hotel guest.

The high cost of providing land-based tourism services has resulted in a loss of
market share and possibly may have contributed to the high growth rate of cruise ship
tourism and cruise ship visitor arrivals. Moreover, cruise ship tourist is lightly taxed,
hence providing the rise in guest as compared to hotels.

8. Lack of a regional policy

At regional level, there is lack of policy available to be agreed at. In national

level, for example in Bermuda, it has strict control over the cruise ship industry by
setting limits and charging a head tax per passenger that is significantly higher than that
charged by Caribbean governments.

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 HTT 683 – Sustainable tourism
Madam Siti Sabariah binti Haji Ismail
Issues and Challenges in Caribbean Cruise Ship Tourism

Yet, there is a need of standardization of policy so that the whole Caribbean

region can agree upon the same policy. The World Travel and Tourism Council
(WTTC) report (WTTC, 2004) states that regional authorities should undertake to
develop and agree on a regional cruise ship tourism policy.

9. Lack of data and previous study

Even though the cruise ship tourism industry is growing and expanding, yet very
few independent studies have been carried out in the region, except for Artherley who
highlights some of the challenges that face the Caribbean in dealing with cruise ship
tourism.

Additionally, lack of data had also becoming one of the issues in cruise ship
tourism whereas there is insufficient data on actual tourist arrival and expenditures. The
only way to find out is from industry sources and estimates.

10. Crime

Crime has become among the small yet important issue in cruise ship industry. It
includes crimes occurring on board and against cruise passengers on land as well as
anti-terrorism. So far, there has been no case recorded in Caribbean since bombing of
an Air Cubana Flight in 1976. However, The Achillo Laura, a cruise ship was hijacked
in the Mediterranean in 1985 and pirates, off the coast of Somalia, attempted to board
the Sherbourn Spirit in November 2005.

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 HTT 683 – Sustainable tourism
Madam Siti Sabariah binti Haji Ismail
Issues and Challenges in Caribbean Cruise Ship Tourism

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 HTT 683 – Sustainable tourism
Madam Siti Sabariah binti Haji Ismail
Issues and Challenges in Caribbean Cruise Ship Tourism

RECOMMENDATIONS AND SOLUTIONS

1. Policy

With the rapid growth of cruise ship tourism, there is a need of establishment of
regional cruise ship policy. Policy is meant to control any unwanted activities among
industry players as well as guide them in right track.

2. Concentration

The region needs to strengthen its bargaining position with the cruise lines and
the FCCA; an effective association of the region’s cruise port authorities should be
established with urgency.

3. Tourism competitiveness

The region should carry out an in-depth study of the strengths and weaknesses of
its tourism product with an emphasis on improving the operating environment of the
region’s hotel and yachting sectors.

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 HTT 683 – Sustainable tourism
Madam Siti Sabariah binti Haji Ismail
Issues and Challenges in Caribbean Cruise Ship Tourism

4. Research and data collection

The Caribbean region should come up with a programme, in form of applied

research on cruise ship tourism to assist in policy formulation. All bodies including
CTO, the VEMS and cruise ship port should play their roles in research and data
collection for future benefits.

5. Employment

Since Caribbean region is still facing with unemployment and underemployment,

it should focus more efforts on improving them by increasing the employment on cruise
ships.

6. Competition with land-base tourism

The region should carry out an in-depth study of the strengths and weaknesses of
its tourism product with an emphasis on improving the operating environment of the
region’s hotel and yachting sectors.

7. Congestion

Limiting number of visitors allowed at one time can be one of the brilliant ideas
in controlling congestion and overcrowding. For that, local authorities especially
governments have to come up with strict regulations or policy regarding the carrying
capacity of cruise ship.

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 HTT 683 – Sustainable tourism
Madam Siti Sabariah binti Haji Ismail
Issues and Challenges in Caribbean Cruise Ship Tourism

OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS

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 HTT 683 – Sustainable tourism
Madam Siti Sabariah binti Haji Ismail
Issues and Challenges in Caribbean Cruise Ship Tourism

1. Law enforcement

Law enforcement is important in controlling problems associated with cruise ship

tourism industry. The governments in Caribbean region should come up with strict
legislation towards the cruise ship industry in order to reduce problems that might
impact from the industry. High fines might be one of the examples of law enforcement
that should be undertaken.

2. Enhancing tourism awareness

Tourism awareness has to be nurtured among tourist and industry players as well.
Once the tourist are aware of the impact of cruise ship tourism towards the environment
(for examples are the impact of the industry towards the water pollutions, destruction of
marine life and overcrowding) will lead to lower demand towards cruise ship tourism.
The same goes to the cruise ship companies whereas high level of awareness will lead
to the feel of their corporate responsibility. Therefore, the companies might think of the
impact of whatever they are doing if they have the awareness.

3. Voluntary sectors role

There should be voluntary sectors that play their role in fighting against the cruise
ship companies that are bad. For example is Tourism Concern, which is the only
organisation in Europe that actively campaigning on tourism and human right issues.
Such voluntary sectors should be increases. Thus, there is an importance of giving
lessons to public about sustainable tourism. Specific voluntary sector in cruise ship
tourism should be existed.

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 HTT 683 – Sustainable tourism
Madam Siti Sabariah binti Haji Ismail
Issues and Challenges in Caribbean Cruise Ship Tourism

CONCLUSIONS

In a nutshell, issues of cruise ship tourism should be solved in order to promote

sustainable tourism. The industry player is the one who plays important role in sustaining
tourism. They have to be responsible in whatever they do considering the impact of the cruise
ship industry towards the local community, the environment and the tourist. The most
important thing is awareness of every people towards sustainable tourism. Without self
awareness among every people, we could not achieve the objective in solving the issues.

Certain issues such as congestion can be solved by legislation or tourism policy by the
authorities. In this case, the policy makers are responsible in doing some researches on the
methods in solving the congestion problems in Caribbean. They also have to identify which
methods is the best used for handling the congestion in commonly visited area.

Facing with ignorant cruise ship companies have to be settled by law enforcement and
policy making. Additionally, some voluntary sectors can join in terms of fighting against the
industry players that are against law. They are indirectly help controlling and avoiding any
law breaking activities among cruise ship companies.

Whilst cruise tourism presents a potential market opportunity for destinations, mobile
mass tourism challenges sustainable tourism ideals. Evidence from this sector to date
suggests the need to continue to take a long-term view fostering holistic integrated
management planning involving international agencies, cruise line operators and host
communities. There is also a need for both operators and destinations to raise their
customers’ environmental awareness. Thus, this will promote healthy and sustainable
tourism, for the better future ahead.

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 HTT 683 – Sustainable tourism
Madam Siti Sabariah binti Haji Ismail
Issues and Challenges in Caribbean Cruise Ship Tourism

REFERENCES

About The FCCA: Florida Caribbean Cruise Association. (n.d.). Retrieved February 19,
2011, from Florida Caribbean Cruise Association: http://www.f-cca.com/about.html

Dowling, R. K. (2006). Cruise Ship Torism. Joondalup, Australia: CAB International.

Home: Tourism Concern. (n.d.). Retrieved February 20, 2011, from Tourism Concern:
http://www.tourismconcern.org.uk/

(2005). Issues and Challenges in Caribbean Cruise Ship Tourism.

J. Anthony Hall, Ron Braithwaite. (1990). Caribbean Cruise Tourism: A Business of

Transnational Partnership. Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd.

Johnson, D. (2002). Environmentally Sustainable Cruise Tourism: a Reality Check. Marine

Policy , 26, 261-270.

L. J. Lawton, R. W. Butler. (1987). Cruise Ship Industry - Patterns in the Caribbean 1880-
1986. Butterworth & Co(publishers) Ltd.

News: Save Our SPIT.com. (n.d.). Retrieved February 19, 2011, from Save Our SPIT.com:
http://www.saveourspit.com/No_Terminal/news/NewsArticle.jsp?News_ID=22

Wood, R. E. (2000). Caribbean Cruise Tourism: Globalization at Sea. Annals of Tourism

Research , 27 (2), 345-370.

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