Cruise Lines Sail Away from the Caribbean
29 October 2010
by Katherine
This is a great article about the trend in Caribbean cruise ships. Four major cruise ships will stop sailing out of Florida starting in 2011: Norwegian, Princess, Celebrity, and Holland-America. Only two very large 6000 passenger cruise ships from Royal Caribbean will continue to sail from Florida and a handful of older ships from Carnival Cruises.
Cruise Lines Sail Away from the Caribbean
It seems that the majority of customers for cruise ships is changing from Americans to Europeans and Asians. As a result, it’s more natural for these customers to want to take cruises on their own continents. There is also a bit of speculation that Americans have grown tired of the Caribbean because many destinations include large shopping malls or artificial beaches with limited local influences.
On the surface, this sounds like bad news for Cayman, but it could also be a great opportunity. According to this article on the economic benefits of cruise tourism, the cruise industry only contributes 5% – 6% to Cayman’s GDP. Most tourism dollars are obtained from visitors who visit for several days. I think if more efforts were focused on getting visitors to travel by air, the tourism sector wouldn't suffer any losses.
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