Cruise Shipping: Behind the fantasy

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Page context: Home > Transport International Magazine > Issue 1 June 2000 > Cruise Shipping: Behind the fantasy

Why the ITF is aiming to tackle the exploitation and discrimination that flourishes in this booming sector of the shipping industry.

Boom time as jumbo ships enter service

The cruise ship market continues to boom, creating record profits and providing one of the shipping industry’s most buoyant sectors. Growth predictions, based on ships already on order, show a further rise in capacity in the order of 50 per cent within the next three years. Most of the new ships are huge vessels in excess of 100,000 tonnes and offering more than 2,500 berths. The Voyager of the Seas, launched last year by Royal Caribbean Lines is of 142,000 tonnes with a capacity to carry 3,000 passengers and 900 crew.

These larger and newer ships offer lower running costs per passenger with a passenger/crew ratio of 3:1 compared to the traditional 2:1.

Occupancy rates for the big three companies in the industry – Carnival Cruises, Royal Caribbean Lines and Princess Cruises – are currently running at 100 per cent.

Since the mid 1980s, cruise shipping has outstripped all other maritime sectors with an average growth rate of 9.6 per cent a year, compared with the average of all types of vessels of 2.76 per cent ( Table 1 ).

The number of cruise ships (1,000 gt and over) has risen from 147 in 1980 to 225 in 1998. But these ships are also bigger and carry more passengers so the total gross tonnage increased from 2,045,000 in 1980 to 6,307,000 in 1998 and the passengers carried from 1.5 million in 1980 to over 7.5 million in 1998 ( Table 2 ).

However, the industry is still relatively immature in the leisure market, even in the United States where cruising represents under three per cent of the holiday market.

The Caribbean has the highest concentration of cruise ships, given its proximity to the US, where 5.4 million Americans went cruising in 1998, with 6.2 million expected this year. By comparison, only 1.2 million Europeans took a cruise and the Mediterranean is constrained by a shorter season.

The only non-Caribbean ports to reach the world’s top 10 ( Table 3 ) are Los Angeles on the US West Coast and Singapore.

A typical cruise ship has a crew of several hundred, with a mixture of about 40 different nationalities. Most cruise ships are registered under a flag of convenience (FOC), bearing no relation to the true ownership of the vessel. The big three register their vessels in Liberia and Panama, while Disney Cruises uses the Bahamas flag.

The cruise sector is very labour intensive and the rapid expansion of the fleet has led to a great increase in demand for seafarers ( Table 4 ). It has been estimated that the industry presently employs about 100,000 seafarers, the majority (70 per cent) being hotel and catering staff. At least another 31,000 seafarers will be needed by 2004. If all the 34 vessels currently on order are delivered, with 1.95 million gross tonnage and a capacity of 45,980 crew berths, this figure would double to 60,400.

A hidden world of long hours, low pay, insecurity and exploitation >>

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