Tourism Management: Impacts of Cruise Tourism on Destinations

This report delves into the multifaceted impacts of cruise tourism on various stakeholders, including destination management organizations, the transportation sector, local tourism businesses, residents, environmental organizations, and cultural groups. It explores both the positive contributions, such as economic benefits from passenger spending and job creation, and the negative consequences, like environmental pollution from waste and emissions, the strain on local infrastructure, and potential cultural clashes. The report highlights the crucial role of destination managers in balancing economic growth with sustainable practices, the logistical challenges faced by local businesses in catering to cruise passengers, and the importance of fostering positive interactions between tourists and residents. It underscores the need for environmental regulations to mitigate pollution and the significance of cultural organizations in preserving local heritage amidst the influx of visitors. The report emphasizes the necessity of a holistic approach to tourism management that considers the long-term sustainability and well-being of the destination and its community.

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Tourism Management
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Contribution and Negative Socio-Economic, Cultural and Environmental
Impact:
a. Destination Management and Marketing Organizations
The destination manager plays a very important role for the development of sustainable
tourism. To ensure that the location is being able to generate growth in the number of visitors
alone with maximizing the benefit to the economy, proper management of these destinations
need to be in place (Lasserre and Tetu 2015). This is where the role of the management along
with the marketing of the location becomes very significant because the increasing number of
visitors affects the economy in many other ways than just generating money; rise in
employment in the tourist sector. With great management and marketing, it becomes easier
for the destination to attract investment, grow the number of value-added jobs, be able to
recruit fresh talent and develop on the innovation locally. Destination managers are required
to coordinate and integrate the different elements that are contribute to the destination mix for
a specific location, geographically. They are also in charge of clearly defining a destination
management plan (Wang et al. 2018). The role of a destination manager extends to being in
charge of the branding and marketing of the specific location, and planning communication
activities that will make the offerings of the location known to the visitors. The marketing of
the specific destination needs to be driven by pure professionalism along with a mission and
vision that has been clearly defined.
When an individual is deciding whether to go on a cruise or not, their decision is based on
many complex factors (Jordan and Vogt 2017). The individual first must decide if they want
to go on a cruise trip at all, instead of a normal and conventional holiday, then comes their
decision in choosing the cruise line, where to go and then the choice of the ship. Cruise
destination managers must understand these factors and address their marketing strategies not

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towards certain individuals but towards the type of individuals that will positively contribute
to the economy of the destinations. However, based on these considerations it is almost
important to realize the reality of the situation where cruise ships usually market themselves
in order to ensure that the passengers are spending money on board, thereby rendering any
potential economic gain that a destination may experience obsolete.
b. Transportation Sector:
Transportation in the tourism industry refers to the movement of tourists from the place
that they are living in to the tourist attraction locations. It is important to note that the
transportation the starting and end point for the travel and tourism experience of an
individual. The rapid development of the transportation industry and the application of the
different forms of transportation has been a result of the overall increase in the international
tourists. Cruise travel has proven to have a very vital place in the tourism industry, because it
is the most expensive mode of travelling (Hung and Petrick 2016). This method of travelling
is considered to be a very investment heavy industry present in the world. In ten years since
1990, there has been an overall increase of 7.2% in the number of passengers taking cruise
vacations. Since cruising does not supply anything to any tourism destination, it is the
responsibility of the countries to make sure that they pay attention to security issues and the
creating of investment environment for the cruise companies to invest in their destination.
The port and city shuttles introduce many logistical and financial issues for many cruise
companies and their service providers. The only way that the cruise guests can avail efficient
supply of shuttles is if the cruise company has funded them in a way that each passenger has
to pay an individual ticket or it’s a provision provided by the destination and cruise line for
the passengers. Many individuals who are familiar with cruise trips agree that for there to be
a provision on the shore it will either be one where the passenger pays or the cruise pays, and

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it usually happens that when the cruise has to pay then they will not want to dock in those
destinations anymore.
c. Local Tourism Businesses:
The cruising industry has a great potential to contribute positively to the economic
benefits to the local port state. This contribution comes from many factors such as the
spending by the cruise passengers and the crew in the local port, the people who are staffed
by the cruise to be on the shore side when the ship docks for marketing and tour operation
purposes, expenditure by the cruise ship companies for the goods and services that are
required for the operations of the cruise, expenditure of the cruise ship company for the
various port services and finally, the spending by the cruise ships for overall maintenance
(Dawson, Johnston and Stewart 2017).
For a local port to be able to accommodate growing size of cruise ships, they will need to
spend a significant amount of capital in building the infrastructure along with the consequent
maintenance costs (Dai, Hein and Zhang 2019). However, a downside to tourism scenarios
such as these that have complex infrastructure, a rapid growth in the tourists coming in to the
destination might cause a stagnation, maybe even decline, of the GDP. Significant foreign
investment into this sector would be the only possible way for the ship terminals that host
large ships to pass the benefit-cost analysis.
Many services that are available to the cruise guests on shore that need to be adjusted in
some ways to be able to cater to them, these components of the service industry is the retail
and restaurants. Port destinations need to be able to create a welcoming retail environment,
which includes staying open on the days that the ships are in the port, and the prices not being
increased during the duration of the port calls and making sure that all the retailers are able to
provide high level of customer service (Lyu et al. 2017). The various different restaurants and

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cafes are facing two issues when catering their services towards cruise guests that is, being
able to understand the passenger’s eating habits and more importantly, cost. There are many
guests that would prefer the location’s authentic cuisine at any cost, majority of the guests
seek out food that has the best value for money because they know that they can return to the
ship and eat whatever they want.
A lack of leadership and structure can seriously hamper the economic success,
sustainability and competitiveness of a certain destination’s cruise sector (Udunuwara and
Sanders 2016). Other areas of concern include the staff within the local region having a high
turnover rate and the fact that many local business in the destination are more catered towards
dealing with tourists that land by air, and not by sea.
d. Locals:
The interaction between the residents of the local port and the cruise passengers have
many positive effects on the local scenario because both the parties are being able to learn
about the world and exploring the perspectives of life in another place. Similarly, the increase
in the cruising related activities may be result in the residents being pushed towards adapting
newer moral conducts because of the increasing inflow of tourists.
However, just because the cruise guests want to enrich their knowledge does not always
mean that the local residents mirror the same positive intention (Wall-Reinius, loannides and
Zampoukos 2017). Cruise guests predominantly are viewed with a negative sense by the local
residents because it is the believe of the latter group that the cruise guests pose a much worse
than the land tourist because they only spend very less time in the location. In addition,
because they spend very little time in each of these destinations, they end up spending all
their money on the on-board activities and spend close to nothing in the destinations. Within
the local community, it is important for the community’s response to be welcoming in order

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to have a positive port call rather than a negative one. Communities that are known to exhibit
negativity towards the tourists coming in from the sea risk losing the overall economic
benefits which they can enjoy from the business that cruise ships can bring them. This causes
a big gap in the tourist-local relationship because the locals do not try to concern themselves
with the tourists whereas the tourists want to get close to the locals in order to have a better
cultural experience.
e. Local environmental organizations:
The cruise industry has severe impacts on the environment because of the way that it is
required to function (MacNeill and Wozniak 2018). It has been reported that the carbon
footprint of each passenger triples when they are on a cruise, than what it would be on land.
Cruise ships generate huge amounts of waste streams that result in the deterioration of the
marine environment. The cruises also emit many toxic air pollutants to the air and water that
they are travelling through. Even though it is not only cruise ships that generate this much of
pollutants in the environment, it stands the same for other big ships, which are being used for
other reason. However, the cruising industry has captured the world’s attention because of the
industry’s motivation to promote a positive image of the cruise ships. Cruise ships can be
easily defined as floating cities, and it will be saddening to hear that most of them generate
just as much waste as a city if not more (Hyun and Han 2015). Cruise ships also contribute
the highest quantity of CO2 production as compared to any other sector of the tourism
industry. The waste that is generated in the cruise ships is usually dumped into the oceans and
this has an adverse contribution in the ruining condition of the marine ecosystems and the
destruction of coral reefs. The sewage that is generated on the ship contains many
components that can badly harm the aquatic life and wellbeing of the marine animals.

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f. Local cultural organizations:
Destinations that want to build a sustainable cruise sector need to be able to recognize the
importance of this sector of tourism. If a destination wants to develop its cruise culture, they
need to have a high degree of proactivity in the introduction of this culture which is to be
supported by the locals support spearheaded by excellent leadership by tourism industry of
the location, the private businesses and most importantly the local community itself (Lopes
and Dredge 2018).
It is important to note that the social and cultural impacts involve an existing relationship
between two primary stakeholders, which in this case is the locals at the cruise destination
and the cruise tourists. The relationship between the local residents and visitors of the
destination has been a popular argument for many years, and this also applies to the cruise
tourists because when more than 5000 people descend on the port at one time, there is bound
to be a significantly adverse effect on the overall situation of the destination (Zhang 2019).
The role of the local cultural organizations in the destination is to enrich the visitors in the
culture and give them a little taste of how differently people live in this place. The cruise
tourists’ main attraction may be the location, but it usually always is an aim to get the full
experience of the local culture because they want to experience something different, and
enrich their knowledge and experience. The bringing together of the two stakeholders has
been said to enable a positive cultural exchange and creating a mutual understanding,
tolerance and consequent sympathy between both the cruise visitors and the local residents
(Buhalis, Kavoura and Cooper 2017).
An increase inflow of guests from around the world into a certain destination leads to the
westernization of the place in order to cater to the various nationalities of people arriving
there, and this in turn causes an overall inauthenticity of the cultural experience of the cruise
guests (Li and Kwortnik 2017). However, this is not to say that it is completely impossible to

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achieve a state of harmony between the two stakeholders, excellent quality planning
management from the side of the cruise companies and the local government will help
dampen the negative side effects of increased tourism.

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