**Abstract**

Cruising has grown over 7% a year since 1980. Sustained rapid expansion in North America, followed by local expansion in Europe and Asia, has made cruising a global industry, with 365 ships and estimated sales of \$37.8 US billion (CIN, 2017). This global development has been fueled by innovation and introduction of market changing resident ships appealing to the mass traveler which were quickly matched by competitors, establishment of industry and port marketing organizations, awareness of cruising as a vacation option, and availability of suitable port and berthing facilities. When these four conditions coexisted the industry experienced rapid growth. Since 1966, the cruise industry has developed from a Miami-centered industry to a global industry centered in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia/New Zealand. Given the high cost of state-of-the-art ships, their deployment is a good indication of industry's confidence in market growth. This chapter chronicles the development of the Asian cruise industry from 1994 through 2017. Data from *Cruise Industry News Annual Reports* (CIN) and *Berlitz Complete Guide to Cruising and Cruise Ships* (Ward) are examined and conclusions are drawn.

**Keywords:** innovation, cruising, Asia, tourism, globalization

## **1. Introduction**

Shipping by its nature has always been global. With the development of alternative means of transporting passengers and mail and the subsequent demise of national fleets (ships built in the owner's country, registered in that country, crewed by citizens of that country, and in some cases constructed in that country), shipping has become even more global. Owners (cruise companies) are incorporated in and ships registered in the best countries from taxation purposes. Ships are constructed on a worldwide basis based on which shipyard offers the best deal. Crews are sourced on a worldwide basis according to who is willing to work for the salaries and under the conditions offered by the owners. Specific to the cruise industry, Oivind Mathisen, Editor of *Cruise Industry News Annual Report 2017–2018* (CIN 2017–2018) [1] writes:

*"Despite a variety of geopolitical events and incidents, the industry has prospered and grown with a nearly unbroken record of profitable years for the publicly traded companies.*

*The business model is unique. The cruise companies incorporate overseas as shipping companies to avoid U.S. corporate income tax; build ships in countries that have experienced shipyards and offer export financing; hire officers and crews from maritime nations and from an international labor pool; source passengers from different markets based on demand and ability to pay the highest rates; and deploy ships that generally follow the sun, all while delivering an exceptional product.*

#### *It is a formula that has worked successfully for 50 years, going on 51 (p. 6)."*

Cruising, unlike most shipping, including passenger shipping for transportation, is supply led versus demand led. In most shipping, demand grows and ship owners build new ships to meet that demand. In cruise shipping, the owners build new and innovative ships and then market them to create demand. Wood [2] writes "Definitions of globalization are legion and reflect the particular orientations and interests of researchers, as well as the complex and multidimensional nature of the phenomenon itself (p. 397)." He views the cruise industry from the perspective of deterritorialization in which "culture, social life and economic activity is no longer rooted primarily in the immediate physical geography of place (p. 398)." He sees cruise ships representing "a unique level of deterritorialization. Huge floating chunks of capital, they are intrinsically mobile and capable of being repositioned at a moment's notice. Unlike land resorts, cruise ships can change their locations to escape bad weather, political instability, or other things their owners may not like. Major events like September 11 can elicit massive redeployments of whole fleets (p. 398)." His article concentrates on the legal and regulatory aspects of this deterritorialization. Marti [3] also discusses globalization in the cruise industry. He writes, "Globalization is occurring due to a rising acceptance of the cruise product around the world as a tourism option. Cruise line strategies that promote globalization include: organic expansion, operating alliances, and mergers/takeovers. Organic expansion results when an established line places a vessel in a new regional market (other than North America) on a seasonal or permanent basis, while supporting the venture with its existing infrastructure. Operating alliances happen when two or more operators combine elements (usually marketing and sales) of their business with the joint aim of expanding into new regional markets. Mergers/takeovers occur when one company either takes a stake in another or assumes control, sometimes in stages and sometimes in one go [4]. According to Wood (2000), further evidence of globalization includes the following: an increasing internationalization of cruise company ownership, the use of flags of convenience (FOCs), registries that have no genuine link to the nationality of ownership, to circumvent home country labor laws, taxes, and maritime regulations and extremely heavy reliance on a global crew population, coming from 100 countries or more (p. 25)." Luthans and Doh [5] write "Globalization can be defined as the process of social, political, economic, cultural, and technological integration among countries around the world. Globalization is distinct from internationalization in that internationalization is the process of a business crossing national and cultural borders, while globalization is the vision of creating one world unit, a single market entity (p. 6)." "The vision of creating one world unit, a single market entity" is reflected in Cruise Lines International Association's (CLIA) [6] mission to "foster their members' success by advocating, educating and promoting the common interests of the cruise community." The community comprises cruise lines with over 95% of global capacity, key suppliers, ports, destinations, travel agencies, and travel agents. Initially focused on North America, CLIA has absorbed the regional cruise community organizations over the past

**239**

**Table 1.**

*Top five cruise companies.*

*Globalization of the Cruise Industry: A Tale of Ships Part II - Asia Post 1994*

10 years. CLIA's regions are Australasia, Brazil, Europe, North America, the UK, Ireland, Asia, and Canada. Working together with the Seatrade Organisation out of the UK, CLIA has been spreading the gospel of cruising as a vacation form

The Cruise Industry can be likened to a three-legged stool. One leg is hospitality, another is shipping, and the third is tourism. According to Cruise Industry News (2017–2018) [1], the industry had estimated sales of \$37.8 billion US in 2017 and capacity for 25.2 million passengers on 365 ships. In comparison, the UNWTO [7] estimated that tourism represents 5% of global GDP, approximately \$3.2 trillion US in 2010. According to Stopford [8], there were 74,000+ ships in 20,007 including 3600+ ferries. Thus, while large in absolute terms, the cruise industry is

The geographical extent of the current cruise industry is illustrated in **Figure 1.** According to *Cruise Industry News Annual Report 2017–2018* [1], p. 8 there were 365 cruise ships with a capacity of 25.2 million passengers and an estimated sales revenue of \$37.8 billion US worldwide. **Figures 2**–**5** show the distribution in 2017 in comparison with 2004 and 1998. 1998 is chosen for comparison since it is the first year that CIN Annual recognized the importance of the Asian market by including

The trend has been a substantial growth in the European and Asian market shares and a corresponding decline in the North American market share. Coggins [9] chronicled the development of the modern cruise industry from a secondhand fleet in a tertiary port into a global industry centered in North America and the

The industry is dominated by 5 international corporations, Carnival Corporation with 10 brands, Royal Caribbean Cruises Limited with 6 brands, Norwegian Cruise Line with 3 brands, MSC Cruises with 1 brand, and Genting Hong Kong with 3 brands. The relationship between the five companies, based on

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88157*

CIN (2017–2018) (p. 6) [1], is shown in **Table 1**.

growth of Europe into the industry's second global center.

since 1975.

relatively small.

Asia in their statistics.

*Globalization of the Cruise Industry: A Tale of Ships Part II - Asia Post 1994 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88157*

*Education, Human Rights and Peace in Sustainable Development*

*The business model is unique. The cruise companies incorporate overseas as shipping companies to avoid U.S. corporate income tax; build ships in countries that have experienced shipyards and offer export financing; hire officers and crews from maritime nations and from an international labor pool; source passengers from different markets based on demand and ability to pay the highest rates; and deploy ships that generally follow the sun, all while delivering an exceptional product.*

*It is a formula that has worked successfully for 50 years, going on 51 (p. 6)."*

Cruising, unlike most shipping, including passenger shipping for transportation, is supply led versus demand led. In most shipping, demand grows and ship owners build new ships to meet that demand. In cruise shipping, the owners build new and innovative ships and then market them to create demand. Wood [2] writes "Definitions of globalization are legion and reflect the particular orientations and interests of researchers, as well as the complex and multidimensional nature of the phenomenon itself (p. 397)." He views the cruise industry from the perspective of deterritorialization in which "culture, social life and economic activity is no longer rooted primarily in the immediate physical geography of place (p. 398)." He sees cruise ships representing "a unique level of deterritorialization. Huge floating chunks of capital, they are intrinsically mobile and capable of being repositioned at a moment's notice. Unlike land resorts, cruise ships can change their locations to escape bad weather, political instability, or other things their owners may not like. Major events like September 11 can elicit massive redeployments of whole fleets (p. 398)." His article concentrates on the legal and regulatory aspects of this deterritorialization. Marti [3] also discusses globalization in the cruise industry. He writes, "Globalization is occurring due to a rising acceptance of the cruise product around the world as a tourism option. Cruise line strategies that promote globalization include: organic expansion, operating alliances, and mergers/takeovers. Organic expansion results when an established line places a vessel in a new regional market (other than North America) on a seasonal or permanent basis, while supporting the venture with its existing infrastructure. Operating alliances happen when two or more operators combine elements (usually marketing and sales) of their business with the joint aim of expanding into new regional markets. Mergers/takeovers occur when one company either takes a stake in another or assumes control, sometimes in stages and sometimes in one go [4]. According to Wood (2000), further evidence of globalization includes the following: an increasing internationalization of cruise company ownership, the use of flags of convenience (FOCs), registries that have no genuine link to the nationality of ownership, to circumvent home country labor laws, taxes, and maritime regulations and extremely heavy reliance on a global crew population, coming from 100 countries or more (p. 25)." Luthans and Doh [5] write "Globalization can be defined as the process of social, political, economic, cultural, and technological integration among countries around the world. Globalization is distinct from internationalization in that internationalization is the process of a business crossing national and cultural borders, while globalization is the vision of creating one world unit, a single market entity (p. 6)." "The vision of creating one world unit, a single market entity" is reflected in Cruise Lines International Association's (CLIA) [6] mission to "foster their members' success by advocating, educating and promoting the common interests of the cruise community." The community comprises cruise lines with over 95% of global capacity, key suppliers, ports, destinations, travel agencies, and travel agents. Initially focused on North America, CLIA has absorbed the regional cruise community organizations over the past

**238**

10 years. CLIA's regions are Australasia, Brazil, Europe, North America, the UK, Ireland, Asia, and Canada. Working together with the Seatrade Organisation out of the UK, CLIA has been spreading the gospel of cruising as a vacation form since 1975.

The Cruise Industry can be likened to a three-legged stool. One leg is hospitality, another is shipping, and the third is tourism. According to Cruise Industry News (2017–2018) [1], the industry had estimated sales of \$37.8 billion US in 2017 and capacity for 25.2 million passengers on 365 ships. In comparison, the UNWTO [7] estimated that tourism represents 5% of global GDP, approximately \$3.2 trillion US in 2010. According to Stopford [8], there were 74,000+ ships in 20,007 including 3600+ ferries. Thus, while large in absolute terms, the cruise industry is relatively small.

The industry is dominated by 5 international corporations, Carnival Corporation with 10 brands, Royal Caribbean Cruises Limited with 6 brands, Norwegian Cruise Line with 3 brands, MSC Cruises with 1 brand, and Genting Hong Kong with 3 brands. The relationship between the five companies, based on CIN (2017–2018) (p. 6) [1], is shown in **Table 1**.

The geographical extent of the current cruise industry is illustrated in **Figure 1.** According to *Cruise Industry News Annual Report 2017–2018* [1], p. 8 there were 365 cruise ships with a capacity of 25.2 million passengers and an estimated sales revenue of \$37.8 billion US worldwide. **Figures 2**–**5** show the distribution in 2017 in comparison with 2004 and 1998. 1998 is chosen for comparison since it is the first year that CIN Annual recognized the importance of the Asian market by including Asia in their statistics.

The trend has been a substantial growth in the European and Asian market shares and a corresponding decline in the North American market share. Coggins [9] chronicled the development of the modern cruise industry from a secondhand fleet in a tertiary port into a global industry centered in North America and the growth of Europe into the industry's second global center.


#### **Table 1.**

*Top five cruise companies.*

#### **Figure 1.**

*World cruising regions 2017.*

**Figure 2.** *Cruise ships by region 1998, 2004, and 2017.*

**241**

**Figure 4.**

**Figure 5.**

*Sales revenue by region 1998, 2004, and 2017.*

1966 is illustrated in **Figure 6**.

*Market share by region 1998, 2004, and 2017.*

*Globalization of the Cruise Industry: A Tale of Ships Part II - Asia Post 1994*

**2. Development of the North American and European cruise industries**

Most of North America's growth followed Marti's [3] definition of organic expansion throughout the Caribbean and then to Alaska and the Mexican Riviera and eventually to Europe. The major exception was Princess Cruises. Their 1974 acquisition by London-based P&O Lines provided an infusion of capital leading

The modern cruise industry can be said to have begun with the sailing of the *Sunward* in 1966. Seeing her alongside the quay in Nassau late December 1966, her crisp modern lines and large windows accented with potted plants stood in sharp contrast to the aged former coastal liners that were characteristic of the Miami cruise trade. The modern cruise industry was concentrated in North America though the early 1990s. The geographical distribution of the industry in

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88157*

**Figure 3.** *Market capacity by region 1998, 2004, and 2017.*

*Globalization of the Cruise Industry: A Tale of Ships Part II - Asia Post 1994 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88157*

**Figure 4.**

*Education, Human Rights and Peace in Sustainable Development*

**240**

**Figure 3.**

**Figure 1.**

**Figure 2.**

*World cruising regions 2017.*

*Market capacity by region 1998, 2004, and 2017.*

*Cruise ships by region 1998, 2004, and 2017.*

*Sales revenue by region 1998, 2004, and 2017.*

**Figure 5.** *Market share by region 1998, 2004, and 2017.*
