This week has been a public relations disaster for the cruise lines and the travel industry.
A Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) crew member from the Norwegian Pearl was gunned down in Roatan after he walked off the ship to call his wife and check on his child back in the Philippines (suspect photo below right).
This week I have read a couple of articles about the Cruise Lines International Association’s (CLIA) "Cruise 3 Sixty" conference in Fort Lauderdale. I read an article in the Sun Sentinel (Cruise Execs Talk About Industry’s Future) and an article in Travel Weekly (CEOs Say Cruise Lines Must Wow Travelers).
CLIA’s Christine Duffy
A Harris Poll released today reveals that the public has a lack of confidence in the reliability and safety of the cruise lines. Although the cruise industry was improving the public’s perception of cruising, the numerous norovirus outbreaks aboard cruise line ships this year seem to have "effectively stolen the wind from the industry’s collective
KTOO in Alaska published an article today entitled "Is Juneau Ready for a Cruise Ship Security Threat?
The article states that Juneau, which receives over 1,000,000 cruise passengers a year, is conducting an emergency exercise today involving a "cruise ship security threat."
The article quotes Emergency Programs Manager Tom Mattice saying that the
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is beginning a two-day meeting today in Washington D.C. regarding the topic of passenger safety aboard cruise ships. The meeting was requested and largely organized by the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA), the trade group for the cruise lines, to showcase the cruise industry.
Participating in the meeting will
This week I listened to the multi-millionaire cruise executives praise the cruise industry at the "state of the cruise industry" at the Cruise Shipping Miami (CSM 2014) trade show.
As anticipated, Carnival’s CEO and former Monsanto chemical executive Arnold Donald said cruise ship accidents are "so rare . . . cruising is safe." Royal Caribbean’s
Last year at Cruise Shipping Miami, all of the cruise CEO’s talking at the "State of the Cruise Industry" presentation covered the CLIA talking points that cruising was "safe" and the cruise industry is also supposedly "highly regulated."
The hyperbole was extraordinary.
CLIA’s Christine Duffy began the cheerleading by first announcing that the Carnival Triumph
A number of news sources are reporting that the Tunisian government prohibited Israeli passengers from disembarking from a cruise ship at a stop at the Port of Tunis.
Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL), a U.S.-based cruise line, told the Israeli citizens that they were not welcome by the Tunisian government and had to stay aboard the
Cruise Shipping Miami (“CSM 2014”) has officially started.
Formerly known as “Seatrade,” CSM is a huge trade show in the Miami Beach Convention Center with all types of cruise vendors, tourism delegates and port representatives. You can appreciate just how dynamic and wealthy the cruise industry is by attending the show.
Here’s the official schedule
Lawyers involved in a trial are not suppose to make comments during trial which are likely to affect the jury or trier of fact. The theory is that trials are suppose to be decided based on the testimony and exhibits introduced into evidence, and not by PR statements which are not subject to the rules
After the Costa Concordia capsized, travel agents began telling their clients that such incidents were "rare" and that cruising was "absolutely safe." Some travel agents went as far as to claim that the last time a cruise ship sank was over a 100 years ago when the Titanic struck an iceberg.
Of course this was
The March 2014 edition of Popular Mechanics is out. It has an interesting article about cruising.
The article is entitled "Troubled Waters – Cruise Lines Have Stumbled Badly Over Safety. Here’s What They Need to Do."
The article takes a look at some of the disasters and debacles over the last few years, including
Yesterday a television station in Louisiana reported that the infamous "poop cruise" ship Triumph suffered a power story.
Carnival told KATC that the power outage was extremely brief – "8 minutes."
Because it was Friday evening, no major news stations covered the story. We published a short article and reported the Carnival quote that the
Yesterday Travel Weekly ("travel industry’s trusted voice") published an article entitled The New Wave of Attacks on the Cruise Industry.
A vacation consultant/travel agent type and contributor to the travel magazine, Richard Turen, identified me and Dr. Ross Klein (a sociologist in Canada who has written and testified before Congress extensively about cruising) as
Travel Weekly published an article today entitled The New Wave of Attacks on the Cruise Industry. It was written by a contributing editor, Richard Turen, who runs a travel agency and a marketing group.
Its an interesting article which discusses who Mr. Turen views as the critics of the cruise industry.
He discusses cruise
On Twitter today, a travel agent bemoaned that a video entitled "Cruise Ship Nightmares" was airing. What particularly perturbed the travel agent was the fact that the CNN video first aired last summer and was recirculating as fresh news.
This particular video was well produced and quite provocative. Images of burned cruise ships
This weekend, the Royal Caribbean Blog (an unofficial Royal Caribbean fan website) quoted Royal Caribbean President and CEO Adam Goldstein saying that the "last two or three years" of cruise ship mishaps are just an "anomaly."
Goldstein made his comments to CNBC’s Simon Hobbs who excitedly told the television audience that there was a disconnect
Yesterday several passengers from the Holland America Line Veendam contacted us because they were upset that a passenger went overboard during a cruise to the Mexican Riviera. They returned from the cruise knowing that someone had died at the end of the cruise as the ship sailed back to SanDiego, but they did not know
