scholarly journals Cruise industry in Romania – An emerging market

Author(s):  
Emanuela Anton

Abstract Cruise tourism has experienced an enormous growth in the last few decades and the future of this industry is also encouraging. The Caribbean and the Mediterranean Sea, the two major destinations, offer the most exciting itineraries since the beginning of this industry. The cruise passenger’s perception about destinations, onboard and onshore aspects have been less investigated in the past years but this information shall be used for planning and developing marketing materials, new cruise itineraries, ship designs and shore excursions. The following study was conducted in Romania and aims to clarify the Romanian passenger’s perception about cruise destinations and their preferences. Using a quantitative method, the research is based on some of the most representative international studies as well as a survey sent to the most active customers of a cruise travel agency in Romania, who have shown interest in this kind of trip at least once. As a qualitative research method, a convenience sample of participants were recruited through the researcher’s professional contacts in the cruise and travel industry. Among other conclusions following this research, the most important aspect for a Romanian guest is the itinerary of the cruise ship, followed by the price and the embarkation port. The number of sea days, the service quality onboard and the cruise line are also relevant when choosing a cruise vacation.

Author(s):  
Bingjie Liu-Lastres ◽  
Amy M Johnson

Serving as both a luxury hotel and a traveling city, the cruise line industry acts as one of the fastest growing sectors within the tourism and hospitality industry. With a 62% growth in demand from 2005 to 2015, the cruise line industry expects to welcome 28 million global passengers on board (Cruise Line International Association [CLIA], 2018). According to CLIA (2018), the top five source markets of the global cruise industry are the United States (11.5 million passengers in 2016), China (2.1 million passengers in 2016), Germany (2 million passengers in 2016), United Kingdom (1.9 million passengers in 2016), and Australia (1.3 million passengers in 2016). Although the United States ranks as one of the most important markets for the cruise industry, the number of domestic cruise line companies remains relatively small, which is due to the necessity of obtaining substantial capital investment, and the intense competition (Ryschka et al., 2016). Within such a competitive market, reputation has become one of the key assets that cruise line companies cannot simply overlook (Weaver, 2005). Reputation refers to “the prestige or status of a product of service, as perceived by the purchaser, based on the image of the supplier” (Petrick, 2002:125). Reputation helps distinguish a particular brand from others as well as affecting peoples’ attitude, perceptions, and purchasing intentions (Petrick 2002, 2011; Weaver, 2005). The strong relationship between reputation and consumer decisions and behaviors has been well reported by numerous empirical studies, including both the general marketing literature (e.g. Olshavsky & Granbois, 1979) and the cruise tourism literature (e.g. Perick, 2002, 2011).


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (02) ◽  
pp. 143-153
Author(s):  
Marina Zanne ◽  
Bojan Beškovnik

The cruise industry has been constantly growing since the 1970s and is considered the fastest growing travel vacation segment ever. Currently, Mediterranean is the second most visited region, just behind the Caribbean. One of the Mediterranean cruise markets is the Adriatic Sea, which is becoming an increasingly interesting destination, with Venice and Dubrovnik being the most popular spots. While a port of call destination mainly needs to offer certain attractions to be added to the cruise line itineraries, homeports must provide much more in particular in regards to infrastructure and passengers’ services offered. Currently, the port of Venice and Bari act as main home ports in the Adriatic, while the port of Trieste is growing in importance although at the moment it does not represent a considerable share in terms of number of exchanged cruise passengers. In this paper, the author will determine the advantages that these ports offer in terms of home port adequacy and examine the homeport potential of two Adriatic ports, namely the port of Koper and the port of Split. For this purpose, the list of influential factors will be created based on existing studies but shaped to meet the specific micro conditions and requirements. These factors will be examined.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
John E. Nyberg ◽  
Shachak Pe’eri ◽  
Susan L. Slocum ◽  
Matthew Rice

Abstract. The Cruise Line industry (CLI) is working on plans to recover from the economic impacts of COVID-19. Along with the expected benefits of a post COVID19 surge in cruise tourism, destination ports have an opportunity to mitigate potential impacts that come with the tourist economy. In this study, we expand on our previous work on four CLI destination sites (two in the Caribbean and two meso-American) to a larger regional study area in the Caribbean Sea and investigate the sustainability of destination marine infrastructure and near port transportation resilience. Twenty- Eight destinations were analyzed in the study. All the CLI destinations ports in the study are considered mature for cruise tourism and have tourist attractions of interest (including historic, natural, shopping, and other areas with sociocultural authenticity), which can be reached during a one day ship visit. An analysis of the marine traffic and geographic settings provides a more complete picture on key parameters that can potentially impact the commerce and livelihoods of local communities near destination ports. The results of the study also provide potential solutions for mitigating these impacts. As a baseline for fully operational cruise industry in the Caribbean Sea, the 2019 cruise year was analyzed since it was the last full year without impact from COVID-19. This paper offers a wider empirical view of CLI impacts on the Caribbean region once the industry resumes to full capacity following the COVID-19 pandemic, and it presents results and recommendations to build a framework for continued study of CLI sustainability.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yue Jiao ◽  
Yating Hou ◽  
Yui-yip Lau

After around four decades of fast growth, the cruise industry has become the most profitable and dynamic segment in the entire global leisure and tourism sector. Behind this growth is a significant shift in the profile of cruise consumers/passengers/tourists, with growth rates twice as fast as those of other types of tourists. China has become a strategic emerging market for the global cruise industry, quickly developing their cruise reception business and holding about 10% of the market share of global cruisers. In this paper, we examine and categorize various travel motivations of Chinese cruise tourists by means of a questionnaire via factor analysis, mean analysis, and K-cluster analysis. The results of the study indicate that Chinese cruise tourists are primarily encouraged to participate in cruise tourism by the motivational dimensions of family leisure/relaxation, natural and cultural exploration, bond/communication, social respect, tourism shopping, and cruise-promotion information sources. The strongest motivations for Chinese cruise tourists were found to be family leisure/relaxation and natural/cultural exploration. We identify four types of cruisers using the K-means cluster method. We find that for all cruiser demographics, leisure/relaxation is the most important motivational factor. Based on these results, we propose some specific solutions for expanding the customer pool in the Chinese cruise market.


Tourism ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-100
Author(s):  
Doris Peručić ◽  
Marijana Greblički

Cruises were the fastest growing sector in the travel industry. The rapid growth in demand was created originally by demand from North America, more recently Europe, and finally the rest of the world, China and Australia in particular. One of the main reasons for the rapid development and growth in popularity of cruises is that the cruise lines were successfully adapting to new travel trends delivering cruise ships with facilities and experiences tailored to the needs of travellers from all market segments. The corona crisis hit the cruise industry heavily and disrupted all plans, schedules and forecasts. This paper aims to analyze which factors were driving the demand for cruising on the world's leading source markets and the challenges facing the industry in a post-pandemic world. The findings show that the rapid growth in demand of cruise tourism was due to several factors, including the long-term growth in consumers’ disposable income, the adaptation of products to the requirements of new source markets and different market segments, more cruise capacity in new regions, and the development of national cruise brands.


Societies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Eva Martin-Fuentes ◽  
Sara Mostafa-Shaalan ◽  
Juan Pedro Mellinas

There is a lack of comprehensive international studies on accommodations for people with disabilities; only small, local-level studies exist. This study aims to show the status of the tourist accommodation sector through the online distribution channel in terms of accessibility to offer more inclusive tourism. A descriptive analysis has been carried out with more than 31,000 hotels from the online travel agency Booking.com, in the 100 most touristic cities in the world. For the first time, an accurate picture of adaptation in the hotel sector for people with disabilities is presented. Results show that the adapted hotel infrastructures by countries are uneven. The main adaptations are those that help to avoid mobility barriers, and in contrast, hotels offer very few adaptations for sensory disabilities such as visual disabilities. Moreover, this study shows that, worldwide, countries with the highest income per capita, such as the United States of America, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Qatar or the United Arab Emirates, have the highest degree of hotel adaptation.


1998 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
TIMOTHY R. McCLANAHAN ◽  
NYAWIRA A. MUTHIGA

Many coral reefs in the Caribbean, and elsewhere, have undergone changes from hard coral to fleshy algal dominance over the past two decades which has often been interpreted as a localized response to eutrophication and fishing. Here, data on the abundance of hard corals and algae from lagoonal patch reefs distributed throughout a large (260 km2) remote reef atoll located approximately 30 km offshore from the sparsely-populated coast of Belize, Central America, are compared with a study of these patch reefs conducted 25 years previously. Data and observations indicate that these patch reefs have undergone a major change in their ecology associated with a 75% reduction in total hard coral, a 99% loss in the cover of Acropora cervicornis and A. palmata, and a 315% increase in algae, which are mostly erect brown algae species in the genera Lobophora, Dictyota, Turbinaria and Sargassum. Such changes have been reported from other Caribbean reefs during the 1980s, but not on such a remote reef and the present changes may be attributed primarily to both a disease that began killing Acropora in this region in the mid 1980s and a reduction in herbivory. The low level of herbivory may be attributable to the disease-induced loss of the sea urchin Diadema antillarum in 1983, or fishing of herbivorous fishes, but both explanations are speculative. The present density of fisherfolk is low, and their efforts are not targetted at herbivorous fishes, and population densities of D. antillarum 14 years after the mortality are <1 individual per 1000 m2, but there is no comparative data from before the die off. There is, however, no indication that these major changes occurred on the fore reef, because A. palmata is abundant and erect algal abundance is low. We suggest that reported changes in other Caribbean reefs are not necessarily or exclusively influenced by local human factors such as localized intense eutrophication or fishing.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Booth

Some psychologists have viewed sadness and depression as reactions to past loss, while regarding fear and anxiety as responses to future threat. Such assumptions conflict with common experience of gloom about the future and worry about the past. Recent research on these issues by experiment and/or by questionnaire remains inconclusive. The psychometric questionnaires purport to be situation-free and the laboratory experiments use artificial tasks; hence, neither approach addresses realities in the present, past or future. In recent psychometrics, the distinction between anxiety and depression has been dissolved into one category of negative affect. One widely used inventory for separating the two emotions conflates depression with the absence of a good mood. These deficiencies were addressed in a diverse convenience sample (N = 379) by running an experiment entirely within a questionnaire. Each of the 40 question items was a miniature vignette, describing a past or future emotive situation while in bad or good mood. Five categories of situation varied in proportion of threat to loss. Strength and valence of affective response were measured by degree of autobiographical assent to or dissent from an item. This inventory provides fully affect-balanced situation-oriented depression / anxiety scaling.Effect sizes from analysis of variance showed that anxiety arises from past as well as future threats, while depression is at least as strongly oriented to losses in the future as in the past. Variation in category of situation or in valence of mood also had substantial effects. It is concluded that worry and gloom travel freely across time and situations, whether present mood is bad or good. Both laboratory experiments and psychometric scales come closer to actual processes of emotion and motivation when they revivify familiar situations using valence-balanced verbal stimuli.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 58
Author(s):  
Robert Alexander Pyron

We live in an unprecedented age for systematics and biodiversity studies. Ongoing global change is leading to a future with reduced species richness and ecosystem function (Pereira, Navarro, & Martins, 2012). Yet, we know more about biodiversity now than at any time in the past. For squamates in particular, we have range maps for all species (Roll et al., 2017), phylogenies containing estimates for all species (Tonini, Beard, Ferreira, Jetz, & Pyron, 2016), and myriad ecological and natural-history datasets for a large percentage of species (Meiri et al., 2013; Mesquita et al., 2016). For neotropical snakes, a recent synthesis of museum specimens and verified localities offers a fine-grained perspective on their ecogeographic distribution in Central and South America, and the Caribbean (Guedes et al., 2018).


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