The Environmental, Social and Economic Impacts of Cruising and Corporate Sustainabilty Strategies

As the popularity and geographical reach of ocean cruising continues to increase so its environmental, social and economic impacts are growing in scale. With this in mind the aims of this paper are to offer an exploratory review of the extent to which the leading ocean cruise companies are addressing and reporting on their sustainability strategies and achievements and to offer some reflections on sustainability within the cruising industry. The paper begins with an outline of cruising and the cruising industry and a short commentary on the sustainability challenges the industry faces. The information on which the paper is based is drawn from the leading cruise companies' corporate web sites. The findings of the paper reveal a marked variation in the extent to which the leading cruise companies publicly report on their sustainability strategies and achievements. While the two leading cruise companies, namely the Carnival Corporation and Royal Caribbean Cruises, published extensive sustainability reports which covered a number of environmental social and economic issues, the other leading cruise companies published more limited information on sustainability. More critically the authors argued that the cruise companies' commitments to sustainability are driven by the search for efficiency gains and are couched within existing business models centred on continuing growth than on maintaining the viability of natural ecosystems and communities.