Contemporary Issues In Cruise Tourism Essay.

Assessment brief : In-depth analysis of one contemporary issue of your choice.

This essay is an in-depth discussion of one contemporary issue of your choice that has not been presented in your group presentation but can include topics covered by guest lecturers. The essay should include an introduction to the topic and contemporary issues in tourism in general; a main part that critically analyses the literati. (positives and negatives), linked with real life examples, and possible links to other contemporary issues in tourism. The conclusion requires an integration of the main arguments and reflection on the relevance of the topic for contemporary tourism with implications for the future.

Globalization

Cruise tourism is the rapid growing division of the holiday tourism industry and can contribute immensely to a journey's end economy.

Tourism in general has its own issues and some are beyond the industry leader’s control. Tourism business is extremely taxed especially on the part of the travelers in terms of a rental car, an airline ticket and a hotel room which is significant to a local economy. The tourism industry is highly dependent on the cost fuel. A rise in the price of fuel will lead to many tourists to adjust their spending to accommodate the additional charges in fuel or even reduce the length of their holiday (Radic, 2017).

Globalization has led to standardization of the tourism industry meaning the same product is offered worldwide which is a challenge to a tourist who wants to have an experience that is unique and different which makes tourism exciting. Security is also a challenge in the tourism industry due to lack of contact with the local police department. There is lack of tourism oriented police officers in most of all of the police departments. Very few local governments provide security agencies with the manpower and economic resources to protect the visitor and tourism facilities (Benur & Bramwell, 2015).

The new world of telecommunication has changed the tourism industry and it means that tourists are no longer just on vacation instead they expect to be connected to business and family at all times. This also means that business meetings may be conducted online or through satellite instead of face to face and this eliminates the need of business tours hence it affects tourism in a big way. Safety is also a concern in the tourism industry (Del Chiappa, Lorenzo-Romero & Gallarza, 2016).

The current population is aging especially the baby boom population are refusing to slow down by engaging in all sorts of physical activities. This means that tourism officials will have to provide mobile medical units and readily available pharmacy to cater for their safety (Visser, 2017).

Health issues such as pandemics can also affect the tourism industry. Pandemic scare coupled with media stories can cause an immense damage to the viability of tourism. Also the public can connect a health event with a potential act of terrorism which can lead to a massive drop in tourism numbers. Political conditions of a country is a challenge for the tourism industry (De Grosbois, 2016).

A complicated and confusing political reality is upon us whereby governments claim they support tourism yet visa restrictions continues to become more complicated. There is the threat of street demonstrations, acts of terrorism, politically motivated riots and wars in every country which damages the country’s publicity and tourism (Van bets, Lamers & Tatenhove, 2017).

Travel stress is also a challenge brought about by poor travel conditions. Travel is no longer stress free and air travel in particular, is increasingly becoming difficult. Greater restrictions has led to an increase in prices. Consequently, there is the issue of limited personnel or poor customer service which leads to the decline of the tourism industry (Udunuwara & Sanders, 2016).

Travel Stress

Cruise tourism can offer opportunities to developing countries with harbor facilities and an interesting hinterland as cruise lines are looking for new destinations. However, there is barriers as cruise tourism requires a lot of investment in accessibility and competition is aggressive (Dawson, Stewart, Johnston & Lemieux, 2016).

Cruise tourism can bring about environmental pollution by producing a number of waste streams. For ocean-going vessels, oily bilge water, ballast water and air emissions from fuel are common. However, for cruise ships specifically, waste streams include solid waste, volume of human waste and grey water and incinerator emissions and ash (Sharpley & Telfer, 2015).

Treatment structures on board vacation ships are frequently less useful in treating grey water and sewage. Grey water has been released overboard unprocessed and through international control it’s considered legitimate (Chen, 2015).

More disturbing is that vacation ships have diverse approaches based on authority. Instead of applying a mutual policy of duty to be adopted across places, the approaches are built on what guidelines allow. For instance, Celebrity Voyages’ Mercury in the year two thousand and five dumped a half million gallons of sewage and untreated gray water into Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca ten times over nine days in September and October. The company initially denied the claim but it acquiesced when shipboard documents indicated otherwise. It then appealed to state officials for relief from the one hundred thousand dollar fine since the abuses happened thrice taking place in the Canadian part of the global borderline plus the United States government didn’t have authority; vacation business reasoned the releases, though damage of its Memorandum of Understanding with the United States government, wasn’t unlawful now . The resident criticism was foreseeable with some classifying British Columbia as the business’s lavatory bowl (Pratt & Harrison, 2015).

Air emissions from ship engines is another issue that is polluting the environment. Cruise ships have a difficulty as they operate supplementary machines while in seaport to determine their on the ship power plant this has led to some ports introducing ‘cold ironing’ but the practice is still limited (Chaperon & MacLeod, 2017).

 Also there is the problem of solid misuse whereby a vacation ship yields large amounts of harmless solid misuse that includes wood, glass, food waste, large volumes of plastic and paper disposed of by passengers. With focus on waste reduction the volume of waste discharged has reduced but the figure is still significant a moderate sized cruise ship discharges more than eight tons of waste in a week. Cruise ships produce a quarter of the decay manufactured via boats globally (Powell, Ramshaw, Ogletree & Krafte, 2016).

Glass plus aluminum are detained onboard plus landed aground for reusing but this is merely dependent on whether the sea port has reception services otherwise it is released at marine environment. Foodstuff plus other wastes that are not simply burnt is crushed and released to the sea but lawfully within a distance from ashore. This increases chemical oxygen demand, biological oxygen demand, diminish water value, negatively affect marine life and increase turbulence. This will be harmful to fish health plus digestion and result to nutrient contamination. There is also the problem with the discharge of plastics which is strictly prohibited everywhere since they pose a risk to marine life that perhaps ingest it. Some plastics are burnt then the burnt ash is discarded into the sea. The incinerated ash can contain dioxin which is established to be cancer-causing in addition to toxic residue (Musa, Higham, 2015).

Environmental Pollution

Sociocultural issues is another that affects cruise tourism. People pollution is where the carrying size of a port is surpassed. This has turned to a major issue since the figure of vacation ships has improved and the magnitude of these ships have developed over time. This is a problem as local citizens must compulsory deal with congestion and any other issue. (Castillo-Manzano, Castro-Nuño & López-Valpuesta, 2018).

The United Countries Committee on Maintainable Tourism records that once the social shifting capability of an isle is exceeded, cost of existing increases along by overloading, traffic congestion, besides noise contamination. A lower average of living effects for an important section of the populace and an outlook shift befalls whereby the visitor is blamed in lieu of the bulk of social difficulties. For example, this defines in fragment the citizen repercussion in Key West, Florida subsequently cruise tourism outdid the city’s shifting capacity, destructively impacting customary, land-based travel and local people alike, besides contributing towards the town’s ‘getting ugly’ tag by National Geographical Vacationer in the year two thousand and four. There were resident forums, a litigation advocating on the urban to embark on the value of life training, broadcast besides publicity crusades. The value of life research was completed in the year two thousand and five and the amount of vacation ship visits was minimal (Liu, Pennington-gray & Krieger 2016).

Also there is the problem of the homogenization of the port experience which has brought great benefits to outside corporations but has it has taken its dragged for the local people. For example, in Ketchikan, Alaska, with a populace of less than eight thousand, it had forty three jewelry stores downtown in two thousand and four; ten years prior there were only a few. Not only have these supplies transformed the personality of the inner city, which is mostly embarked up from the end of a vacation period besides start of the subsequent, nevertheless the capacity of vacation travelers creates the downtown unappealing to indigenous residents, who must be compelled to delay till the conclusion of the duration to once more relish their silent town. Additionally, most store staff come back from ‘the lower forty-eight states’, winning their reserves by the conclusion of the duration (Lamers & Pashkevich, 2018).

In addition there is the problem of sociocultural authenticity whereby the main concern is for visitors get to relate with besides understand the local culture and that it is treated in a respectable manner. The large volume of cruise passengers can alter the experience of the two concerns (Jordan & Vogt, 2017).

 For example in Belize, locals warn guests to not holiday in Xunantunich on ‘vacation day,’ one among the most Mayan places in Central American country for vacation travelers. Travelers’ expertise of the blessed site is proscribed by each the distance of your time consumed besides through the amount of alternative vacation travelers distributing the location — mostly the eras is silent. Vacation time is particularly hectic for the worker of the hand-cranked channel that passes the stream to induce to the location, and for a few of the craftspeople commercialism merchandises at the passage purpose, however otherwise travelers continue their bus besides square measure beaten somewhere else. Another drawback underneath sociocultural validity is that the accuracy and information delivered by those leading tours besides aboard port lectures. Travelers incline to rely on these vacation ship workers for correct info, but it often is proscribed or improper. associate example may be a story of a Native Hawaiian in Hilo within the year two thousand and three whereby he was among a gaggle that was upset as a result of Norwegian Vacation Line discharged altogether the artists enjoying the song inside boats in Hawaii then replaced them with artists from Philippines enjoying the music. The artist from Philippines charge less, operated a lot of hours, and seem Hawaiian once wearing the shirts. Furthermost travelers identified no completely diverse, however to the inborn locals it absolutely was an offense on numerous heights (Lamers, Eijgelaar & Amelung 2015).

Political Conditions

Cruise tourism growth presents many aspects of the future considering the interaction of cruise tourism with local communities. One of the foremost reasons is that the moveable kind of vacation ships since its travelers are day guests besides therefore the vessel isn’t a part of the groups it visits. Its influences should be measured in terms of the attitude of the port public. This becomes additional vital as vessels continue being larger leading to larger amounts of waste and as a result the increasing range of visitors. A spotlight going on accountable vacation industry prioritizes on advantages being fairly distributed across a community. As seen with environmental issues, there is need for more transparency about environmental practices and the need to pay more attention to not generalizing innovations of one set of ships to others. Also, the industry can be more transparent about its environmental practices, taking pride where achievements have been made and admitting where achievements have not been made (Hughes, Weaver & Pforr, 2015).

Also sociocultural impacts was mentioned in three main subtopics the matter of congestion, blend of the harbor expertise, plus therefore the have to be compelled to honestly represent traditional and ancient sites. In addressing individual’s pollution ports and cruise lines along have to be compelled to confirm the realistic carrying capability of port, traveler attractions and port cities and so style travel plan and harbor calls that keep inside these restricts. A harbor will engage solely numerous travelers at a time, plus may bear solely a precise range of times being overwhelmed by vacation travelers. An accountable method to vacation business enterprise would supplement these components to the calculation once vacation companies or the vacation business decides whether or not it's accountable.

References.

Benur, A. M., & Bramwell, B. (2015). Tourism product development and product diversification in destinations. Tourism Management, 50, 213-224.

Castillo-Manzano, J. I., Castro-Nuño, M., & López-Valpuesta, L. (2018). When Las Vegas takes to the sea: New trends in cruising. Tourism Economics, 24(1), 135-140.

Chaperon, S., & MacLeod, N. (2017). Tourism in contemporary cities: Proceedings of the International Tourism Studies Association Conference (ITSA 2016).

Chen, J. S. (2015). Tourism stakeholders attitudes toward sustainable development: A case in the Arctic. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 22, 225-230.

Dawson, J., Stewart, E. J., Johnston, M. E., & Lemieux, C. J. (2016). Identifying and evaluating adaptation strategies for cruise tourism in Arctic Canada. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 24(10), 1425-1441.

De Grosbois, D. (2016). Corporate social responsibility reporting in the cruise tourism industry: a performance evaluation using a new institutional theory based model. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 24(2), 245-269.

Del Chiappa, G., Lorenzo-Romero, C., & Gallarza, M. (2016). Host community perceptions of cruise tourism in a homeport: A cluster analysis. Journal of destination marketing & management.

Hughes, M., Weaver, D., & Pforr, C. (Eds.). (2015). The practice of sustainable tourism: resolving the paradox. Routledge.

Jordan, E. J., & Vogt, C. A. (2017). Residents’ perceptions of stress related to cruise tourism development. Tourism Planning & Development, 14(4), 527-547.

Lamers, M., Eijgelaar, E., & Amelung, B. (2015). The environmental challenges of cruise tourism. The Routledge handbook of tourism and sustainability, 430-439.

Lamers, M., & Pashkevich, A. (2018). Short-circuiting cruise tourism practices along the Russian Barents Sea coast? The case of Arkhangelsk. Current Issues in Tourism, 21(4), 440-454.

Liu, B., Pennington-Gray, L., & Krieger, J. (2016). Tourism crisis management: Can the Extended Parallel Process Model be used to understand crisis responses in the cruise industry?. Tourism Management, 55, 310-321.

Musa, G., Higham, J., & &, A. (Eds.). (2015). Mountaineering tourism. Routledge.

Powell, R. B., Ramshaw, G. P., Ogletree, S. S., & Krafte, K. E. (2016). Can heritage resources highlight changes to the natural environment caused by climate change? Evidence from the Antarctic tourism experience. Journal of Heritage Tourism, 11(1), 71-87.

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Udunuwara, M., & Sanders, D. (2016). Trends and Issues in Hospitality and Tourism. Colombo Business Journal: International Journal of Theory and Practice, 7(2).

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