With 2013 ending, I’ve gone back over the 400 articles I have written this year to determine which one was the most popular.
The winner, by a landslide, was What Cruise Lines Don’t Want You to Know.
I wrote this article in February, ten days after the Carnival Triumph became forever known as the
The coverage of the fire-stricken Triumph was brutal earlier this year. CNN aired the disgusting story of the powerless poop cruise ship adrift in the Gulf of Mexico literally 24 hours a day. Never before in the history of the televised world have the words "feces" and "urine" been broadcast so many times in such
Travel Weekly recently published an article titled "Lax Regulations of Cruise Lines is a Myth."
I’m used to reading articles from Travel Weekly which lean over backwards to be nice to the cruise lines. After all, Travel Weekly is a travel magazine which caters to people who love to cruise and travel around
Last week the public was transfixed on the incredible spectacle of the "parbuckling" project which, at a cost of $800,000,000 and rising, finally but successfully righted the capsized Costa Concordia in the port of Giglio.
The major news networks offered live streaming video of the event. Social media, especially Twitter, provided non-stop, second-by-second updates
Beleaguered Carnival Cruise Line, which in just a few months turned itself into the "poop cruise line," has hired a new marketing firm to turn its image around.
The Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal reports that Carnival Cruise Lines has named the Lacek Group (TLG) as its new customer marketing agency.
The Journal explains that the
Carnival scored some much needed public relations points during an interview with CBS News’ travel expert Peter Greenberg. Following several high-profile mishaps (the Costa Concordia disaster and the Carnival Triumph "poop cruise"), the cruise giant is reportedly spending more than half-a-billion dollars for improvements on its fleet of cruise ships.
Of particular interest during
The cruise industry is being pummeled in the world of social media. The endless stories of cruise ship fires, propulsion issues, engine failures, and, most recently, elderly passengers abandoned ashore after suffering serious injuries seem to come at a non-stop pace. The bad news affects the public’s perception of cruising. A Harris Poll conducted this spring
"Royal Caribbean In Hot Water Over Couple’s Cruise Medical Ordeal" reads the internet headline on CBS News. This morning CBS Morning News covered the story of a 89 year-old cruise passenger, on the Azamara Journey luxury cruise ship, who broke his hip on the ship.
Although the couple was initially satisfied with their
Today the Wall Street Journal published an article about the cruise industry’s efforts to overcome damage to its reputation while battling off criticism by a consumer group and efforts by Congress to regulate the industry.
The WSJ points out that the cruise lines have a lot to be concerned with, including "stranded vessels, fires, people
The cruise industry’s reputation is under siege.
Cruise line presidents used to be able to appear on cable news business shows and trot out their new products and intineraries and pontificate at length without a hint of controversy.
But as you can see in this interview on FOX BUSINESS, Royal Caribbean Cruises CEO and
Yesterday Royal Caribbean and a couple of other cruise lines "voluntarily" posted a limited amount of data on their websites regarding cruise crimes and disappearances of people from cruise ships.
Of course there was nothing remotely "voluntary" about the cruise lines’ conduct.
Last week Senator Rockefeller convened a hearing where he introduced legislation intended to
Cruise fans have largely praised Royal Caribbean’s public relations efforts in responding to the fire which erupted aboard the Grandeur of the Seas early Monday morning.
Royal Caribbean tweeted updates from its new Twitter PR feed @RoyalCaribPR and updated its Facebook page. It uploaded one photo showing a portion of the damage to to fire
One of the interesting things about social media is that there are numerous services which track "what’s tending now." Certain applications can also track words or phrases which are dominating the news.
I like to use TweetDeck as well as Monitter to follow trends involving the cruise industry.
"Carnival cruise" has been trending all week
I have always wondered how the cruise industry PR people do it.
They face non-stop bad cruise news. The Splendor fire. The Concordia deaths. The Allegra fire. The Triumph fire. Plus another 10 cruise ship fires, 50 norovirus outbreaks and more shipboard rapes than you can count in just 3 years.
Yet, the cruise
The U.S. and international media covered the saga of the stricken poop-filled Triumph cruise ship non-stop last week. CNN led the coverage with its "ceaseless, rigorous reporting" on what some newspapers are characterizing as essentially "inconvenienced cruise passengers without working toilets." CNN enjoyed a 74 percent increase from its recent prime time numbers according
It has been a brutal week for the cruise industry. Consider the developments over the last week:
A 24 year old dancer from Massachusetts died aboard the Seven Seas Voyager. Her body was found when the cruise ship docked in Australia.
Two passengers went overboard from MSC cruise ships in the last couple of
The Costa Concordia in January disaster set off a seemingly endless avalanche of stories on cable news this year about ship fires, sinkings and other cruise disasters, as well as a steady stream of articles and videos about sexual assaults during cruises, drunken brawling passengers, and the disappearance of women at sea.
I’m just one of
This year has been a public relations mess for the cruise industry.
2012 started off with the January Costa Concordia disaster, followed by a series of articles and TV specials about cruise ship engine failures, fires, sexual assaults and controversy over the cruise industry’s manipulation of the new cruise safety law.
Just the other week
