Cruise Tourism: From Regional Saturation Towards Global Dynamic Equilibrium

Abstract

Cruise industry is a supply based industry and the comparative advantage with any other type of tourism is its possibility to rapidly converge potential demand by simply repositioning cruise vessels. Cruise companies are discovering new markets rapidly, involving every part of the world in cruise tourism and continually changing themselves in order to ensure growth. Therefore, the transition in cruise tourism can be observed from different points of view: clustering of the companies, gigantism in shipbuilding, models of repositioning vessels, cruising itineraries patterns, on-shore and off-shore products for tourists, cross-cultural sensitivity, target markets, environment friendly policy, various marketing ideas, human resources management, etc. In the Mediterranean, within only four full years of operation—season 2011/’12 to 2015/’16, the numbers of cruise vessels present annually in the Mediterranean region, number of main embarkation ports, cruise trips (calls), sailing routes within itineraries, different sailing routes, total days in which the cruise vessels are present in the Mediterranean region, and average length of cruise decreased. Overall results testify the change of focus from the entire Mediterranean basin in 2012 to Western Mediterranean sub region in 2016.