Cruise Tourism: Development, Growth, and Major Corporations

Running head: CRUISE TOURISM
Cruise Tourism
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1CRUISE TOURISM
Introduction
The tourism industry, over the decades, have grown significantly, in the global
scenario, in terms of its geographical expanse, revenue generation, operational framework as
well as in terms of an increasing number of people across the world, availing these services.
Cruise tourism is one of the fastest growing component of this already flourishing industry,
which has contributed in huge development of the cruise ship industry over the years (Chin,
2008). The essay tries to discuss the development of the global cruise ship industry in the
light of the impressive growth of tourism industry in general and cruise tourism in particular.
It also tries to highlight the three major cruise corporations present in the global scenario,
namely the Carnival Corporation, the Royal Caribbean Cruises and the Norwegian Cruise
Holdings, comparing them with one another and in the last section the essay tries to provide a
detailed overview of one of the prominent cruise lines in the contemporary period, namely
the Carnival Cruise Line.
Tourism industry
International phenomena like Globalization, internationalization of businesses,
awareness about different places and their utilities, technological innovations and building up
of robust communication and transport channels both intra-countries as well as inter-
countries have been increasingly facilitating domestic as well as international tourism, which
in turn has resulted in the extraordinary growth of the industry in the global framework, as
can be seen from the following figure:

2CRUISE TOURISM
Figure 1: Contribution of the tourism industry in the global economy (2006-2017)
(Source: Statista, 2018)
As is evident from the above figure, over the years, the industry has grown
significantly, thereby contributing increasingly and consistently to the growth of the global
economy. Currently, the tourism industry is considered to be one of the fastest growing
industries in the global scenario, generating nearly 12% of the international Gross Domestic
Product (Cabiddu, Lui & Piccoli, 2013). The industry is also one of the primary employment
generator across the globe, both directly as well as indirectly, as is evident from the following
figure:

3CRUISE TOURISM
Figure 2: Global employment generated by tourism industry over the years
(Source: Itb-berlin.de, 2018)
The number of employment being nearly 260 million (8.7% of total global
employment) in 2012, is expected to rise as to almost 328 million (9.8% of total global
employment) by 2022.
As can be seen from the above discussion, the tourism industry has been consistently
growing at an impressive pace and with time, the industry is incorporating huge variations,
genres and types of tourism with the changing preferences and tastes of the customers across
the globe (Brotherton, 2012). One of such genres of tourism, which has gained immense
popularity and experienced considerable dynamics over the years, is cruise tourism.
Growth of the cruise ship industry and cruise tourism
Cruise tourism is the fastest growing component of the global tourism industry.
Although travelling by ship is not a new phenomenon and was once the only way to travel
across counties, however, in the recent years, cruise travelling has taken the shape of mainly
pleasure travelling and vacationing, thereby gaining immense popularity, especially among
the millennials, who tend to seek for new experiences (Papathanassis, 2009). The economic