Cruise Line Sustainability Pre-COVID-19 and Lessons from the Pandemic

Disclaimer: All views reflected herein are my own and do not reflect those of cruise line staff or management.

When we think of going on a cruise, dream destinations, ocean views, impeccable service and an all-round memorable travel experience come to mind. Globally, 272 cruise ships carry around 30 million passengers annually (1), making the cruise industry a big player in the international tourism sector. In 2020, however, everything changed. The COVID-19 pandemic stranded many of these ships with their passengers and crew at sea. While the entire tourism industry abruptly came to a halt, cruise lines were especially subjected to harsh restrictions, not to mention increased concerns from prospective guests and returning crew, which will only add to a difficult prospective road to recovery.

This pandemic, as with many industries worldwide, has placed additional question marks around the need to adapt to survive. For the cruise industry, addressing environmental concerns and increasing sustainability will potentially be a make or break. The question is: will the industry pivot to focus on #BuildingBackBetter, or will recovering profit margins play a singular role?

In this two part blog series, we will first look into the major sustainability challenges facing the cruising industry pre and post-COVID-19 in order to understand the current state of the industry. This will be followed on by part two, where we will assess possible solutions navigating forward from the open questions that we pose here in part one.

Challenges facing cruise line sustainability.

Cruise line profit margins are solely reliant on international and domestic travel and passengers and hence must meet customer expectations.

Since COVID peaked in April and even before, cruise lines have been sailing without guests and without profit. Now months later, major cruise lines are expecting to resume operations from September onwards at the earliest. Needless to say, an industry entirely dependent on international tourism has been stranded at sea.

This is primarily the result of restricted international travel combined with a lack of protocol and measures to eliminate the possibility of further outbreaks on board.

Share prices have fallen and some major cruise lines are being forced to sell ships in the fleet. This is a snapshot of the uncertainty ahead, since indicators point to shorter, lower-occupancy domestic cruises being the most viable option in the near future to compensate for long distance travel and mitigate the spread of COVID-19. With this in mind, will future resilience be prioritised in recovery, in order to ensure economic sustainability and stable jobs for staff and crew?

‘Floating Cities’ are major contributors to environmental damage.

The International Maritime Organisation aims to create a “carbon free industry” by the end of the century, leaving another 80 years for carbon emissions to continue warming our oceans. Carnival reports 97.4% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions come from fuel (2). Only a handful of ships have switched to partial fueling by Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) fuel, with 44% of new build construction primarily relying on this technology. Although, this fuel reduces GHG emissions by only 20% (3).

Besides their CO2 footprint, cruise lines have also been subject to fines for environmental mismanagement in the past, including discharging waste and other untreated chemicals into the ocean. After the financial impact of COVID-19, there are further questions as to whether investing in green technologies and mitigating waste will be a priority, or take a back seat to quickly recover margins.

Food, Food, Food…Waste, Waste, Waste.

“Time to eat again,” and “You don’t stop feeding us,” are commonly heard on cruise lines. Food is everywhere, all the time, and if you don’t enjoy one thing you will be offered something else. The on board buffet is any persons’ dream, but what passengers don’t see is the massive bins of food waste that accumulate daily. What may seem like a little waste from a plate too full or a dish you didn’t particularly enjoy, piles up into an astonishing food waste tragedy… it’s no wonder this is hidden behind closed doors.

For crew, food waste is being targeted via programs that are implemented on some ships to ‘put on your plate what you can eat,’ a term we have heard since we were children. Unfortunately, the awareness and drive to minimise food waste ends behind “crew-only” doors, a drop in the ocean when it comes to the magnitude of the problem. Systems exist to deal with this waste, but it prompts the question if so much should be offered in the first place?

Plates of appetisers are lined up ready for dinner (On board Holland America Line's Prinsendam, August 2017, Photo by Kim du Toit)

The big T…Transparency.

Transparency creates Trust. A major flaw in the response to COVID-19 by cruise lines was a break in transparency. Through the restrictions imposed by governments worldwide and the continually changing responses to the pandemic, cruise lines were limited in the information that could be shared with guests and crew while retaining a hold on accuracy. This response and the trust implications, extend through to all industries and communities worldwide.

Trust and transparency are cornerstones of social sustainability. Reasoning aside, these fundamentals have been placed under scrutiny and have arguably been absent/damaged in the past few months. With new policies and measures being implemented, will transparency be embraced to recover trust and reliability moving forward?

Pandemic Response.

Influenza and Norovirus are common in the cruise setting and cruise lines employees are some of the best at responding to outbreaks. The outbreak of COVID-19 on board cruise lines was inevitable as the virus spread around the world, and it likely won’t be the last.

As a result of needing to generate revenue, cruise lines made the determination to cease operations too late. Claims of inadequate screening prior to boarding, and late response to symptom presentation have led to the initiation of lawsuits against cruise lines. It is worth noting that these lawsuits largely hold no ground for two main reasons, namely since passengers were offered options to cancel cruises and chose instead to travel, and because the response was in line with issued regulations by major health authorities, namely the CDC.

In these cases, cruise lines have been a mere extension of the global response to the pandemic, solving emergent challenges as they arose. Unfortunately, cruise lines have faced additional discrimination in terms of response. Governments controlling ports worldwide, as well as health authorities such as the CDC, have issued restrictions and policies which severely hindered and slowed disembarkation of guests and crew, even when declared healthy.

As an example, while people flocked to the beaches in Florida, ships with healthy crew watched on, denied the opportunity to return to their families. This has created a humanitarian crisis of its own especially concerning crew-repatriation procedures, which call crew rights into question and have yet to be solved. Still, like the rest of the world, the cruise industry has learned lessons based on their level of preparedness. How these lessons translate into solutions will determine future response.

cruiseship COVID19 stranded guests reputation safety environment

Countless ships sit at anchor in the Bahamas (one of a handful of anchorage locations) manned by crew only, waiting for news on where and how crew will be disembarked (Taken from Holland America Line's Zaandam, April 2020, Taken by Kim du Toit).

Crew Welfare.

The foundation of any company are the employees that support smooth and successful operations. Cruise lines have some of the best, friendliest employees in the world, able to adapt to change and highly diverse, fast-paced working conditions. A constantly changing international passenger and team demographic, as well as the nature of the cruise hospitality industry itself, has led to the development of specific challenges.

These include discrimination and lack of crew support in passenger-interaction cases, an ‘I am replaceable’ complex in crew morale, salary and working hour inconsistencies and lack of opportunities for professional growth. This is on top of overall contract conditions for the majority of crew which are far from what is traditionally viewed as normal [on average minimum 10 hours a day (often more), 7 days a week, for months at a time]. Since the salary offer is usually better than many crew can earn at home, crew face de-empowerment when responding to what may seem to us on the outside as unacceptable conditions in a normal working environment. All with a smile.

The “no worries” nature of the cruise industry itself.

The ease of travel is what draws people from all over the world to cruising, especially for elderly tourists, who embrace the ease and convenience of cruise travel. Recently cruises have also attracted more and more young tourists, primarily to shorter cruises.

Cruising provides a potentially more affordable means of visiting many places at once without the need to continually “pack up and go”. People come to relax without any worries, their every need catered for by the crew. Since this is the norm, the question is, how can we change/adapt the very nature of the cruise industry to meet these expectations and COVID safety measures inclusive of food safety and sanitation.

Difficulties can come from people refusing to sanitise their hands, to having to ask them to wear a mask at all times. Can crew be expected to be enforcers of policy in this environment, in addition to being service-focused? Will policies stringent enough to actually promote health and safety fit into the “no worries” cruise model?

Sustainable destinations and ports-of-call.

Ports worldwide are starting to question the social and environmental impact of their inclusion into itineraries by large capacity cruise ships. Each time a cruise ship (enough to house an entire small town) is docked, a huge strain is placed on infrastructure, local cultures, communities and ecosystems, through the influx of tourists in the thousands.

Tour operators are under huge pressure to expand tour capacities. In many cases, traditions are transformed simply into “cultural performances,” and hikes through nature evolve into dangerous activities for people that seek experiences overstretching personal capabilities. This is all in order to provide extra seats on the bus and extra income on both sides. The bottom line is that operators and cruise staff feel the need to cater to having something for everyone. Can this continue at the expense of destination sustainability?

Beaches such as this one in Grand Turk are lined with beach chairs, as larger ships bring more and more passengers to these destinations (Taken in February 2018, where Holland America Line's Nieuw Amsterdam was docked, Taken by Kim du Toit)

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Cruise lines form a small, yet sizable, component of international tourism. However, as they hold a growing position in the mass tourism market, there is huge need and potential to learn from sustainable challenges facing them today.

In part two, we will dive deep into the questions posed in this blog and address these challenges through insight into possible solutions moving forward. There has never been a more urgent or more valuable time to integrate sustainability into the foundation of operations, as cruise lines, passengers and crew will soon return to the sea.

Reference Materials