Tiding over the pandemic: The prospects of cruise tourism

Abstract

Cruise tourism, which was achieving an average growth always higher than the global economic growth, had a global presence and saw participation from all the continents during this decade. The COVID-19 pandemic very adversely affected the global travel and tourism sector perhaps more than the other sectors of the economy. Since the time COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, in March 2020, the cruise tourism market went into a swift decline. The prospects of recovery of this market crucially hinges on how the pandemic is overcome and thereafter measures taken to rebuild confidence in the minds of the passengers. We present a sweep of cruise tourism in this paper covering the nature of the cruise market, demographic composition of passengers, challenges, and opportunities, and show the relevance of cruise tourism as an industry contributing to global tourism. We also dwell upon the internal and external risks and uncertainties experienced by the cruise industry. In the light of several measures taken all over the world to address the pandemic, we examine the measures taken by the cruise companies to rebuild the lost confidence as the cruise industry operates in an elastic market.