Cruise Tourism Development and Management

Cruise tourism research examines how large-scale passenger shipping intersects with ports, destinations, and coastal economies, tracing the flows of money, waste, and people that follow a vessel from embarkation to shore excursion and back. Because a single cruise ship can deposit thousands of visitors into a port town within hours and depart without most spending the night, the balance between economic benefit and environmental or social strain is genuinely difficult to calculate and remains contested. Researchers are currently working through how the industry's near-total collapse during COVID-19 reshaped passenger expectations, corporate risk strategies, and port dependencies—particularly in Caribbean destinations where cruise arrivals had become central to local livelihoods. Open questions include how sustainability commitments translate into measurable reductions in marine waste and carbon emissions, and whether destination satisfaction among cruise passengers actually feeds back into the kind of longer-stay, higher-spending return visits that host communities need.

Works

59,583

Total citations

133,260

Keywords

Cruise TourismEnvironmental ImpactEconomic ContributionSustainabilityPort ManagementPassenger Behavior