Tourism Economics 2002 9 (3 ) 337ndash350

DATABANK

Cruise tourism

J OHN G C K ESTER

Market Intelligence and Promotion Section World Tourism Organization (WTO ) CapitaacutenHaya 42 28020 Madrid Spain Tel +34 91 56 78 100 Fax +34 91 56 78 217+34 91 57 13 733 E-mail jkesterworld-tourismorg Website wwwworld-tourismorg

Cruise lines welcomed almost 10 million passengers in 2000 Eventhough its relative significance in the tourism sector is still rathermodest cruise tourism has been one of the fastest growing tourismsub-sectors over the past few decades The number of berths on offerhas increased from a mere 45000 in 1980 to 212000 in January2002 with more than a doubling of capacity in both the 1980s and1990s Demand and supply are still relatively concentrated in NorthAmerica with the Caribbean as the most important destination Inrecent years however Europe and to a lesser extent Asia and thePacific have been rapidly gaining in importance For destinationsvisited in particular for many islands cruises constitute a valuableadditional source of tourism receipts through the port services sup-plied paid for by the cruise operators and the on-land tourismconsumption generated by passengers and crew

Keywords cruise tourism cruise operators cruise passengers statisticstrends WTO-OMT Caribbean Alaska Europe Asia and the Pacific

Unlike traditional transatlantic travel on ocean liners modern cruise tourismis above all characterized by the transformation of the vessel from a mere meansof transport to a destination in itself The cruise ship serves as a floating hoteloffering an attractive convenient and hassle-free way to visit various destina-tions without having to change accommodation This kind of leisure tourismcan be traced back to the early 1970s when the first modern cruises began tooperate in the Caribbean with North American tourists In the 1990s the cruisephenomenon reached the UK and then the rest of Europe and Asia and thePacific Passengers are generally provided with full-board style accommodationand can enjoy a broad range of on-board facilities such as restaurants

The author wishes to thank Raymond R Bar-On and Manuel Butler for their useful comments

TOURISM ECONOMICS338

bars meeting rooms disco casino swimming pools sauna Jacuzzi gym andother sports facilities beauty services cinema theatre library childrenrsquos activi-ties and duty-free shops The trend towards ever-larger vessels with more andmore facilities has meant that cruise ships have in fact evolved from floatinghotels into floating resorts Thus a cruise operator considers its main competi-tors to be the land resorts rather than the other cruise lines

This lsquoDatabankrsquo article focuses on data concerning sea cruises (as opposed toriver and coastal cruises ) and is based mainly on a selection of information takenfrom an in-depth report on worldwide cruise ship activity recently publishedby the World Tourism Organization (WTO 2003 ) For this report consultantManuel Butler carried out a comprehensive analysis of the data available in thefield of cruise tourism from a large number of sources Divided into eightchapters the study analyses the current demand for cruises the supply andcruise line business structure the specialities of the cruise product the financialaspects the sustainability of the marine environment safety aspects and me-dium-term trends The report also includes a bibliography as well as a list ofaddresses and Websites of interest1

In addition in the last section of this article data will be presented on cruisearrivals in destination countries taken from the WTO database

Overview (Table 1 )

In 2000 worldwide cruise demand reached 96 million passengers With anaverage of 69 nights per cruise trip the total number of nights amounted to67 million In both cases the share of the cruise sector is calculated to be about15 of worldwide demand At the same time cruise operators had some200000 berths on offer corresponding to 06 of the total supply of beds inhotels and similar accommodation Revenue for cruise operators amounted toUS$13 billion As the average revenue per cruise trip is almost twice as highas the average receipts per tourist arrival (US$1341 compared to US$6852 )

Table 1 Cruise sector in comparison to international tourism worldwide 2000basic data

aIn the case of international tourism receipts averages are overestimated as they also include receipts from

same-day visits

Source own compilation from WTO and data from GP Wild (International) Limited used in WTO (2003)

339Databank

the share of cruise tourism in worldwide international tourism receipts (excludinginternational fare receipts ) rises to 27 Although the cruise sector in relativeterms still accounts for only a modest share of worldwide tourism it is noteworthythat when considered as a destination in itself cruise tourism already matchesup to established destination countries Viewed in this way it would ranktwentieth in the worldrsquos top tourism destinations by number of internationaltourist arrivals achieving similar results to countries such as Switzerland theNetherlands Malaysia Turkey or Thailand In ranking by receipts the cruisesector would take eighth position below China and above Canada

Demand and supply by region (Table 2 and Figure 1 )

North America is still by far the most important market for cruise productsDemand from the USA (with its three major sources of New York the SouthAtlantic and the Pacific) and Canada more than doubled between 1980 and1990 and almost doubled again in the 1990s to reach 69 million passengers

Table 2 Worldwide cruise demand

Source own compilation from WTO (2003) originally based on CLIA for the USA and Canada PSA for Europe

and GP Wild (International) Limited for the rest of the world

Figure 1 Capacities offered by season 2002Source complied for WTO by Manuel Butler from GP Wild (International ) Limited

terranean8

TOURISM ECONOMICS340

in 2000 However in 1990ndash2000 demand outside the region grew almost twiceas quickly but of course from much lower base volumes As a result the shareof the North American market declined from more than 80 in 1990 to lessthan 75 in 2000 Demand from Europe increased from 600000 passengersin 1990 to 19 million in 2000 raising its market share from 14 to 20The main European market is the UK with 740000 passengers in 2000followed by Germany Italy France and Spain while Scandinavia the Nether-lands Belgium and Switzerland are considered as secondary markets Theremaining 8 of demand corresponding to 800000 passengers originatemainly from Asia with Japan the Republic of Korea and Taiwan as theprincipal sources

The cruise itineraries offered largely reflect the current structure of demandas operators prefer to choose base ports relatively close to major source marketsThis trend has been reinforced as a response to peoplersquos reluctance to fly after 11September 2001 to the benefit of ports such as New York The Caribbean(including the east coast of Mexico and Central America ) mainly served from baseports in Florida is still by some distance the busiest cruise region in particularduring the winter months of the predominantly northern-hemisphere sourcemarkets A substantial relocation of fleets from one region to another from seasonto season can be observed One of the advantages of cruise operators over theirland-based competition is the flexibility to adapt itineraries to demand Seasonalityis thus hardly a problem for the cruise industry In summer cruise lines includenorthern destinations such as Alaska and Atlantic Europe while in winter theycan be found in (sub )tropical zones or in the southern hemisphere In summerthe Caribbean is only the second most popular destination region after theMediterranean (Figure 1 ) The third most popular summer region is AtlanticEurope (including the Baltic sea ) bringing the combined market share forEuropean destinations in the summer season close to half of the total supplyAnother 16 of itineraries are based on Alaska an attractive destination to visitby cruise given the limited possibilities for travel by other means and exclusivelyon offer in the summer season The European share decreases substantially inwinter to the benefit not only of the Caribbean but also of Western Mexico andAsia and the Pacific And Southern America and the Indian Ocean are also addedto the supply on offer as specific winter destinations

Structure and capacity of the sector (Figure 2 amp 3 Table 3a and b )

In January 2002 cruise lines operated a fleet of 183 vessels with a combinedgross tonnage of 78 million and a total of 213000 berths The average cruiseship measures 43000 gross tons accommodates 1163 berths and is in opera-tion for almost 15 years

At the time the WTO study was carried out four main groups commonlyreferred to as the Big Four dominated the supply of the cruise market theCarnival Corporation (CCL ) Royal Caribbean Cruises (RCC ) the PampO PrincessGroup (POC) and the Star Cruises Group Together these companies accountedfor 76 of the world supply of berths in 2002 Fleets consist of comparativelyyoung ships with high capacity (average age is around 10 years and averagenumber of berths is 1500 ) Royal Caribbean operates the youngest fleet with

341Databank

Figure 2 Characteristics of cruise supplySource own compilation based on Manuel Butlerrsquos work for WTO

Figure 3 Market share of supply on offer by destination regionsSource Manuel Butler for WTO based on Christiania Bank og Kreditkasse ASA

Share of BerthsJanuary 2002

Share of BerthsOrder bo ok

Average age of FleetJanuary 2002

Average number of be rths

TOURISM ECONOMICS342

Table 3a Overview of cruise operators fleet and capacitytotal fleet (January 2002)

Source own compilation based on Manuel Butlerrsquos work for WTO

343Databank

Table 3b Overview of cruise operators fleet and capacityorder book

Source own compilation based on Manuel Butlerrsquos work for WTO

TOURISM ECONOMICS344

an average age of 56 years and over 2000 berths per vessel Each of thesegroups is the result of a process of horizontal concentration over the last decadeand markets a variety of cruise brands (In April 2003 the number of big groupswas reduced even further when Carnival Corporation and PampO Princess mergedforming a giant player that exceeds the combined share of the two other largegroups )

The remaining 24 of the berths on offer are operated by various smallercruise lines With the exception of Louis CruisesRoyal Olympic Cruises witha share if 56 none of the smaller companies exceeds 2 In the US andCanadian source markets several independent cruise lines concentrate on spe-ciality products (Disney for instance combines its theme parks with cruisesbased in Orlando ) These predominantly target the luxury end of the marketand represent around 5 of the world supply of berths The European marketis still rather fragmented with many smaller companies active only within theirown national borders Most operate just one or a few ships in general consid-erably older and of lower capacity than their competitors in the big groupsTheir combined share of the supply of worldwide berths is 16 Independentcruise lines in the Asia and the Pacific region operating from Japan theRepublic of Korea India and Australia account for slightly over 3 of thesupply of berths

By destination region it can be observed that Europe is still largely a playingfield for independent operators (Figure 3 ) Carnival is the market leader in boththe Caribbean and Alaska and is the only one of the Big Four that has asubstantial share in Europe PampO has a modest presence in all regions but itsspeciality is Alaska where its share almost equals that of Carnival With abouta quarter of the berths on offer Royal Caribbean is the second largest operatorin the Caribbean and the third in Alaska Star Cruises has a clear hegemonyin the Far East but only minor shares in the other regions Except for theirlarge share in Europe smaller independent operators account for a little morethan one-fifth in both the Caribbean and the Far East while in Alaska theyrepresent only 3

Cruise capacity has risen substantially over time and there are not as yet signsof an end to the expansion The number of berths on offer increased from 45000in 1980 to 93000 in 1990 and to 213000 in 2002 corresponding to anaverage annual growth rate of 75 between 1980 and 1990 and 71 between1990 and 2002 This rate is expected to continue for at least the coming yearsas the order book already contains 37 new cruise ships with almost 80000additional berths for the period to 2006 The actual growth rate can of coursevary as older vessels can be withdrawn and orders can be delayed or cancelleddepending on market circumstances Nevertheless the potential for growth isconsidered to be substantial with demand sometimes currently exceedingsupply Cruise operators in particular the big groups in general enjoy very highoccupancy rates ndash typically of 90ndash100 The tourist cruise product is not yetconsidered to have entered its maturity phase not even in the more developedUS source market Hence additional capacity is expected to be easily absorbedby the market As the big groups are expanding more rapidly than theirindependent competitors concentration in the sector will continue to increaseeven without further mergers and acquisitions

345Databank

Destinations visited (Table 4 )

In most cruise trips passengers travel to a base port to embark on a vessel thatsails to a number of destinations calling at ports where they can disembark tovisit land-based sites The number of ports visited during a trip depends onthe itinerary In many itineraries ships call at a different port every day whilein others they sail on the sea without calling at a port or stay in a port forseveral days Cruise trips can start and finish in the same base port but mayalso have two different base ports

Table 4 Arrivals of cruise passengers (for countries and territories reporting thistype of data)

continued

TOURISM ECONOMICS346

Table 4 continued

Data as collected by WTO August 2003

Source World Tourism Organization (WTO) copy

For destinations visited cruises constitute a relevant primary or additionalsource of tourism receipts On one hand there is the revenue from the portservices supplied generally depending on ship tonnage and number of pas-sengers and paid for by the cruise operators Depending on the size and type

347Databank

of port services and supplies such as provisions fuel maintenance and repairsalso add to the benefits to a greater or lesser extent On the other handdestinations receive revenue from the on-land tourism consumption generatedby passengers and crew related to activities such as sightseeing tours shop-ping eating and drinking etc According to data on the on-land activitiesof US and Canadian cruise passengers over 80 participate in panoramicvisits shopping and sightseeing 50ndash80 participate in excursions culturalvisits beach activities and gastronomy and about 10 engage in tennis andgolf Although most cruise packages are based on full-board it is surprisingto note that over half of cruise passengers nevertheless visit restaurants at thedestination Average on-land expenditure in various Caribbean destinationsranged from US$15 to US$270 per passenger in 2001 (CTO 2003 p 100 )with shopping constituting an important variable Compared to overnighttourism receipts from cruise tourism will be generally lower but theinvestment needed is also more modest An adequate port infrastructure isof course an absolute prerequisite but it is not necessary to invest as heavilyin for instance (air ) transport infrastructure or accommodation For base portsthe situation is different as a comparatively sophisticated infrastructure isneeded to accommodate air arrivals and overnight stays in hotels before orafter the cruise Furthermore the majority of the ship services will generallytake place at the base port Accordingly the economic impact will also begreater

According to the UNWTO Recommendations on Tourism Statistics for thedestinations visited cruise passengers (who arrive in a country on board shipand return to the ship each night to sleep on board even if the ship remainsin port for several days ) are considered as a specific category of internationalsame-day visitors As they do not strictly spend the night in a collective orprivate accommodation in the country visited from the statistical point of viewthey are not included in the category of tourists (overnight visitors ) For baseports the situation is generally more complicated because cruise participantsmay stay overnight in a hotel before or after the trip and should thus be countedas tourists Also in most cases some passengers will not be internationalvisitors but will originate from the domestic market

Table 4 provides an overview of the number of international cruise passengersas reported by the various destination countries This data series is regularlyincluded in the WTO Compendium of Tourism Statistics as well as in the countryprofile tables in the regional volumes of the WTO Tourism Market Trends series(since the 2002 edition ) In analysing this information notice should be takenof the fact that it reflects only data for countries providing this series Coverageis currently rather limited with many major cruise destinations not reporting(including among others the USA the UK Italy Spain France Egypt theRepublic of Korea and Japan) Furthermore data may partly relate to rivercruises and some countries include yacht passengers andor leisure visits offoreign navies Visits to two ports in a destination country are often recordedas one arrival (for example in the Bahamas )

As may be expected many of the destinations in the Americas in particularin the Caribbean record substantial numbers of cruise passengers3 Five des-tinations reported over a million arrivals each in 2001 Mexico with 38 million(both to the Caribbean coast with Cozumel as the most important port and

TOURISM ECONOMICS348

to the Mexican west coast ) the Bahamas with 26 million the US Virgin Islandswith 19 million Puerto Rico with 14 million (with the port of San Juan notonly serving as destination port but also as a major base port for itineraries inthe southern part of the Caribbean ) and the Cayman Islands with 12 millionThe ratio of cruise passengers to tourists staying overnight ranges up to 36times as many cruise passengers Cruise passengers exceed the number oftourists by two to one in the Cayman Islands Dominica Haiti Saint LuciaSaint Kitts and Nevis Saint Maarten Saint Vincent and the Grenadines andthe US Virgin Islands Many destinations recorded double-digit growth ratesbetween 1990 and 2001 tripling or quadrupling passenger numbers Thestrongest growers receiving over 100000 passengers a year have been Domi-nica (36 a year between 1990 and 2001 to 208000 from a low base ) SaintKitts and Nevis (20 a year to 255000 ) Saint Lucia (15 a year to 490000 )Haiti (15 a year to 357000 ) Mexico (14 a year ) the Dominican Republic(14 a year to 211000 ) Aruba (13 a year to 487000 ) Costa Rica (12a year to 189000 ) and the Cayman Islands (12 a year )

Cruise data on the USA is unfortunately scarce and far from homogeneousAccording to the Survey of International Air Travelers (IFS ) some 6ndash7 ofoverseas travellers to the USA indicated cruise as an activity in 2000ndash01corresponding to roughly 15 million travellers4 Furthermore it can be expectedthat the majority of the 69 million cruise passengers from North America in2000 (Table 2 ) of which some 300000 were from Canada visited one or moreAmerican ports during their trip Florida is home to the four main cruise portsserving as a base for the Caribbean Miami is the worldrsquos most important cruisebase port (34 million passengers in 2000 ) Port Everglades (27 million pas-sengers in 2000 ) Port Canaveral and Tampa Galveston (Texas ) and NewOrleans (Louisiana ) are also used as base ports for the Caribbean while KeyWest is included as destination port in a number of itineraries On the EastCoast more Northern ports such as New York are gaining in importance TheWest Coast ports of Los Angeles Long Beach San Diego Seattle Anchorageand Seward (Alaska) serve as base ports (starting andor ending ) for trips thatinclude the pacific coast of Mexico (with Ensenada Cabo San Lucas PuertoVallarta and Mazatlan as the most important ports ) Canada and Alaska (withJuneau Ketchikan Skagway Glacier Bay Sitka Hubbard Glacier and CollegeFjord as the most important ports ) However the major base port for Alaskais the Canadian port of Vancouver Canada (both Atlantic and Pacific coasts )reported 636000 cruise passengers in 2000 The major base port on Hawaiiis Honolulu used either for round trips or as the start or finish port for tripsto or from ports on the American Pacific coast including Ensenada and Van-couver

For destinations outside the Americas it is even more difficult to get a properpicture of the number of cruise passengers The various Mediterranean countriesthat reported data for 2001 generally showed substantially lower numbers thanthe Caribbean destinations Greece 621000 Malta 259000 (an average growthof 17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Morocco 207000 Tunisia 276000(17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Portugal 169000 (mainly to theAtlantic ports of Lisbon and Madeira ) Cyprus 106000 and Israel 23000 (but255000 in 2000 ) Spain Italy and France did not report but port data for 2001from the Association of Mediterranean Cruise Ports Medcruise show the

349Databank

following numbers of cruise passenger movements for Spain Barcelona 655000Palma de Mallorca 531000 Malaga 128000 for Italy Venice 526000 Genoa471000 Naples 470000 Civitavecchia 392000 (2000 ) Livorno 264000Palermo 181000 Messina 126000 (2000 ) Savona 120000 (2000 ) and forFrance Nice-Villefranche 251000 Marseille 165000 (2000 ) Ajaccio 117000(2000 ) Cannes 99000 Port data for Egypt indicate for Port Said 438000cruise passengers and for Alexandria 93000 Outside the Mediterranean it isworth noting the 840000 cruise passengers attracted by the fjords of NorwayAsian destinations that provide data show rather low figures as none of themajor cruise countries is included (Singapore Japan Republic of Korea ChinaThailand Malaysia Australia etc ) Vietnam reported 285000 cruise arrivalsbut it does not make a distinction between cruise passengers and tourist arrivalsby sea

Endnotes

1 For the index and further information see wwwworld-tourismorgcgi-bininfoshopstorefrontENproduct1296-1 WTO also gives information on cruise tourism in the World Overview ampTourism Topics volume of Tourism Market Trends Edition 2001 (WTO 2001a) as well as in theregional volumes of Tourism Market Trends Eidtion 2002 (WT ) 2002) See furthermore section48 of WTOrsquos long-term forecast Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of MarketSegments Volume 7 WTO (2001b)

2 With regard to these figures it should be taken into account that the average receipt per touristarrival is only a rough approximation obtained by the simple division of the total internationaltourism receipts by the number of international tourist arrivals The average obtained in thisway will always be overestimated as international tourism receipts except for receipts relatedto overnight tourism also include receipts related to same-day tourism Cruise revenue on theother hand is expected to be underestimated as it takes into account only the part earned bythe cruise operator and does not include additional touristsrsquo expenses for example for on-landactivities and shopping which are not controlled by the cruise operator

3 See the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO wwwonecaribbeanorg) for additional informa-tion on cruise tourism in the Caribbean (CTO 2003) For a previous review of data on cruisearrivals in the Americas see Bar-On 2001

4 See the Website of the US Department of Commerce International Trade Administration (ITA)Office of Travel and Tourism Industries (OTTI ) at wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2001-07-001indexhtml and wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2000-07-001indexhtml

References

Information on the various WTO publications listed can be found in the Infoshop on the WTO Website atwwwworld-tourismorginfoshop

Bar-On RR (2001) lsquoDatabank ndash The Americas Part 1rsquo Tourism Economics Vol 7 No 4 pp 413ndash428

CTO Caribbean Tourism Statistical Report 2001ndash2002 Caribbean Tourism Organization Barbados(annual publication ndash 2003 edition used here)

WTO (2001a) Tourism Market Trends 2001 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid (seeWTO (2002) for structure of the series)

WTO (2001b) Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of Market Segments World TourismOrganization Madrid (available in English French and Spanish)

WTO (2002) Tourism Market Trends 2002 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid A seriesof 6 volumes published in English and partly in French and Spanish consisting of Tourism MarketTrends 2002 Edition World Overview and Tourism Topics (also in French and Spanish) Tourism

339Databank

the share of cruise tourism in worldwide international tourism receipts (excludinginternational fare receipts ) rises to 27 Although the cruise sector in relativeterms still accounts for only a modest share of worldwide tourism it is noteworthythat when considered as a destination in itself cruise tourism already matchesup to established destination countries Viewed in this way it would ranktwentieth in the worldrsquos top tourism destinations by number of internationaltourist arrivals achieving similar results to countries such as Switzerland theNetherlands Malaysia Turkey or Thailand In ranking by receipts the cruisesector would take eighth position below China and above Canada

Demand and supply by region (Table 2 and Figure 1 )

North America is still by far the most important market for cruise productsDemand from the USA (with its three major sources of New York the SouthAtlantic and the Pacific) and Canada more than doubled between 1980 and1990 and almost doubled again in the 1990s to reach 69 million passengers

Table 2 Worldwide cruise demand

Source own compilation from WTO (2003) originally based on CLIA for the USA and Canada PSA for Europe

and GP Wild (International) Limited for the rest of the world

Figure 1 Capacities offered by season 2002Source complied for WTO by Manuel Butler from GP Wild (International ) Limited

terranean8

TOURISM ECONOMICS340

in 2000 However in 1990ndash2000 demand outside the region grew almost twiceas quickly but of course from much lower base volumes As a result the shareof the North American market declined from more than 80 in 1990 to lessthan 75 in 2000 Demand from Europe increased from 600000 passengersin 1990 to 19 million in 2000 raising its market share from 14 to 20The main European market is the UK with 740000 passengers in 2000followed by Germany Italy France and Spain while Scandinavia the Nether-lands Belgium and Switzerland are considered as secondary markets Theremaining 8 of demand corresponding to 800000 passengers originatemainly from Asia with Japan the Republic of Korea and Taiwan as theprincipal sources

The cruise itineraries offered largely reflect the current structure of demandas operators prefer to choose base ports relatively close to major source marketsThis trend has been reinforced as a response to peoplersquos reluctance to fly after 11September 2001 to the benefit of ports such as New York The Caribbean(including the east coast of Mexico and Central America ) mainly served from baseports in Florida is still by some distance the busiest cruise region in particularduring the winter months of the predominantly northern-hemisphere sourcemarkets A substantial relocation of fleets from one region to another from seasonto season can be observed One of the advantages of cruise operators over theirland-based competition is the flexibility to adapt itineraries to demand Seasonalityis thus hardly a problem for the cruise industry In summer cruise lines includenorthern destinations such as Alaska and Atlantic Europe while in winter theycan be found in (sub )tropical zones or in the southern hemisphere In summerthe Caribbean is only the second most popular destination region after theMediterranean (Figure 1 ) The third most popular summer region is AtlanticEurope (including the Baltic sea ) bringing the combined market share forEuropean destinations in the summer season close to half of the total supplyAnother 16 of itineraries are based on Alaska an attractive destination to visitby cruise given the limited possibilities for travel by other means and exclusivelyon offer in the summer season The European share decreases substantially inwinter to the benefit not only of the Caribbean but also of Western Mexico andAsia and the Pacific And Southern America and the Indian Ocean are also addedto the supply on offer as specific winter destinations

Structure and capacity of the sector (Figure 2 amp 3 Table 3a and b )

In January 2002 cruise lines operated a fleet of 183 vessels with a combinedgross tonnage of 78 million and a total of 213000 berths The average cruiseship measures 43000 gross tons accommodates 1163 berths and is in opera-tion for almost 15 years

At the time the WTO study was carried out four main groups commonlyreferred to as the Big Four dominated the supply of the cruise market theCarnival Corporation (CCL ) Royal Caribbean Cruises (RCC ) the PampO PrincessGroup (POC) and the Star Cruises Group Together these companies accountedfor 76 of the world supply of berths in 2002 Fleets consist of comparativelyyoung ships with high capacity (average age is around 10 years and averagenumber of berths is 1500 ) Royal Caribbean operates the youngest fleet with

341Databank

Figure 2 Characteristics of cruise supplySource own compilation based on Manuel Butlerrsquos work for WTO

Figure 3 Market share of supply on offer by destination regionsSource Manuel Butler for WTO based on Christiania Bank og Kreditkasse ASA

Share of BerthsJanuary 2002

Share of BerthsOrder bo ok

Average age of FleetJanuary 2002

Average number of be rths

TOURISM ECONOMICS342

Table 3a Overview of cruise operators fleet and capacitytotal fleet (January 2002)

Source own compilation based on Manuel Butlerrsquos work for WTO

343Databank

Table 3b Overview of cruise operators fleet and capacityorder book

Source own compilation based on Manuel Butlerrsquos work for WTO

TOURISM ECONOMICS344

an average age of 56 years and over 2000 berths per vessel Each of thesegroups is the result of a process of horizontal concentration over the last decadeand markets a variety of cruise brands (In April 2003 the number of big groupswas reduced even further when Carnival Corporation and PampO Princess mergedforming a giant player that exceeds the combined share of the two other largegroups )

The remaining 24 of the berths on offer are operated by various smallercruise lines With the exception of Louis CruisesRoyal Olympic Cruises witha share if 56 none of the smaller companies exceeds 2 In the US andCanadian source markets several independent cruise lines concentrate on spe-ciality products (Disney for instance combines its theme parks with cruisesbased in Orlando ) These predominantly target the luxury end of the marketand represent around 5 of the world supply of berths The European marketis still rather fragmented with many smaller companies active only within theirown national borders Most operate just one or a few ships in general consid-erably older and of lower capacity than their competitors in the big groupsTheir combined share of the supply of worldwide berths is 16 Independentcruise lines in the Asia and the Pacific region operating from Japan theRepublic of Korea India and Australia account for slightly over 3 of thesupply of berths

By destination region it can be observed that Europe is still largely a playingfield for independent operators (Figure 3 ) Carnival is the market leader in boththe Caribbean and Alaska and is the only one of the Big Four that has asubstantial share in Europe PampO has a modest presence in all regions but itsspeciality is Alaska where its share almost equals that of Carnival With abouta quarter of the berths on offer Royal Caribbean is the second largest operatorin the Caribbean and the third in Alaska Star Cruises has a clear hegemonyin the Far East but only minor shares in the other regions Except for theirlarge share in Europe smaller independent operators account for a little morethan one-fifth in both the Caribbean and the Far East while in Alaska theyrepresent only 3

Cruise capacity has risen substantially over time and there are not as yet signsof an end to the expansion The number of berths on offer increased from 45000in 1980 to 93000 in 1990 and to 213000 in 2002 corresponding to anaverage annual growth rate of 75 between 1980 and 1990 and 71 between1990 and 2002 This rate is expected to continue for at least the coming yearsas the order book already contains 37 new cruise ships with almost 80000additional berths for the period to 2006 The actual growth rate can of coursevary as older vessels can be withdrawn and orders can be delayed or cancelleddepending on market circumstances Nevertheless the potential for growth isconsidered to be substantial with demand sometimes currently exceedingsupply Cruise operators in particular the big groups in general enjoy very highoccupancy rates ndash typically of 90ndash100 The tourist cruise product is not yetconsidered to have entered its maturity phase not even in the more developedUS source market Hence additional capacity is expected to be easily absorbedby the market As the big groups are expanding more rapidly than theirindependent competitors concentration in the sector will continue to increaseeven without further mergers and acquisitions

345Databank

Destinations visited (Table 4 )

In most cruise trips passengers travel to a base port to embark on a vessel thatsails to a number of destinations calling at ports where they can disembark tovisit land-based sites The number of ports visited during a trip depends onthe itinerary In many itineraries ships call at a different port every day whilein others they sail on the sea without calling at a port or stay in a port forseveral days Cruise trips can start and finish in the same base port but mayalso have two different base ports

Table 4 Arrivals of cruise passengers (for countries and territories reporting thistype of data)

continued

TOURISM ECONOMICS346

Table 4 continued

Data as collected by WTO August 2003

Source World Tourism Organization (WTO) copy

For destinations visited cruises constitute a relevant primary or additionalsource of tourism receipts On one hand there is the revenue from the portservices supplied generally depending on ship tonnage and number of pas-sengers and paid for by the cruise operators Depending on the size and type

347Databank

of port services and supplies such as provisions fuel maintenance and repairsalso add to the benefits to a greater or lesser extent On the other handdestinations receive revenue from the on-land tourism consumption generatedby passengers and crew related to activities such as sightseeing tours shop-ping eating and drinking etc According to data on the on-land activitiesof US and Canadian cruise passengers over 80 participate in panoramicvisits shopping and sightseeing 50ndash80 participate in excursions culturalvisits beach activities and gastronomy and about 10 engage in tennis andgolf Although most cruise packages are based on full-board it is surprisingto note that over half of cruise passengers nevertheless visit restaurants at thedestination Average on-land expenditure in various Caribbean destinationsranged from US$15 to US$270 per passenger in 2001 (CTO 2003 p 100 )with shopping constituting an important variable Compared to overnighttourism receipts from cruise tourism will be generally lower but theinvestment needed is also more modest An adequate port infrastructure isof course an absolute prerequisite but it is not necessary to invest as heavilyin for instance (air ) transport infrastructure or accommodation For base portsthe situation is different as a comparatively sophisticated infrastructure isneeded to accommodate air arrivals and overnight stays in hotels before orafter the cruise Furthermore the majority of the ship services will generallytake place at the base port Accordingly the economic impact will also begreater

According to the UNWTO Recommendations on Tourism Statistics for thedestinations visited cruise passengers (who arrive in a country on board shipand return to the ship each night to sleep on board even if the ship remainsin port for several days ) are considered as a specific category of internationalsame-day visitors As they do not strictly spend the night in a collective orprivate accommodation in the country visited from the statistical point of viewthey are not included in the category of tourists (overnight visitors ) For baseports the situation is generally more complicated because cruise participantsmay stay overnight in a hotel before or after the trip and should thus be countedas tourists Also in most cases some passengers will not be internationalvisitors but will originate from the domestic market

Table 4 provides an overview of the number of international cruise passengersas reported by the various destination countries This data series is regularlyincluded in the WTO Compendium of Tourism Statistics as well as in the countryprofile tables in the regional volumes of the WTO Tourism Market Trends series(since the 2002 edition ) In analysing this information notice should be takenof the fact that it reflects only data for countries providing this series Coverageis currently rather limited with many major cruise destinations not reporting(including among others the USA the UK Italy Spain France Egypt theRepublic of Korea and Japan) Furthermore data may partly relate to rivercruises and some countries include yacht passengers andor leisure visits offoreign navies Visits to two ports in a destination country are often recordedas one arrival (for example in the Bahamas )

As may be expected many of the destinations in the Americas in particularin the Caribbean record substantial numbers of cruise passengers3 Five des-tinations reported over a million arrivals each in 2001 Mexico with 38 million(both to the Caribbean coast with Cozumel as the most important port and

TOURISM ECONOMICS348

to the Mexican west coast ) the Bahamas with 26 million the US Virgin Islandswith 19 million Puerto Rico with 14 million (with the port of San Juan notonly serving as destination port but also as a major base port for itineraries inthe southern part of the Caribbean ) and the Cayman Islands with 12 millionThe ratio of cruise passengers to tourists staying overnight ranges up to 36times as many cruise passengers Cruise passengers exceed the number oftourists by two to one in the Cayman Islands Dominica Haiti Saint LuciaSaint Kitts and Nevis Saint Maarten Saint Vincent and the Grenadines andthe US Virgin Islands Many destinations recorded double-digit growth ratesbetween 1990 and 2001 tripling or quadrupling passenger numbers Thestrongest growers receiving over 100000 passengers a year have been Domi-nica (36 a year between 1990 and 2001 to 208000 from a low base ) SaintKitts and Nevis (20 a year to 255000 ) Saint Lucia (15 a year to 490000 )Haiti (15 a year to 357000 ) Mexico (14 a year ) the Dominican Republic(14 a year to 211000 ) Aruba (13 a year to 487000 ) Costa Rica (12a year to 189000 ) and the Cayman Islands (12 a year )

Cruise data on the USA is unfortunately scarce and far from homogeneousAccording to the Survey of International Air Travelers (IFS ) some 6ndash7 ofoverseas travellers to the USA indicated cruise as an activity in 2000ndash01corresponding to roughly 15 million travellers4 Furthermore it can be expectedthat the majority of the 69 million cruise passengers from North America in2000 (Table 2 ) of which some 300000 were from Canada visited one or moreAmerican ports during their trip Florida is home to the four main cruise portsserving as a base for the Caribbean Miami is the worldrsquos most important cruisebase port (34 million passengers in 2000 ) Port Everglades (27 million pas-sengers in 2000 ) Port Canaveral and Tampa Galveston (Texas ) and NewOrleans (Louisiana ) are also used as base ports for the Caribbean while KeyWest is included as destination port in a number of itineraries On the EastCoast more Northern ports such as New York are gaining in importance TheWest Coast ports of Los Angeles Long Beach San Diego Seattle Anchorageand Seward (Alaska) serve as base ports (starting andor ending ) for trips thatinclude the pacific coast of Mexico (with Ensenada Cabo San Lucas PuertoVallarta and Mazatlan as the most important ports ) Canada and Alaska (withJuneau Ketchikan Skagway Glacier Bay Sitka Hubbard Glacier and CollegeFjord as the most important ports ) However the major base port for Alaskais the Canadian port of Vancouver Canada (both Atlantic and Pacific coasts )reported 636000 cruise passengers in 2000 The major base port on Hawaiiis Honolulu used either for round trips or as the start or finish port for tripsto or from ports on the American Pacific coast including Ensenada and Van-couver

For destinations outside the Americas it is even more difficult to get a properpicture of the number of cruise passengers The various Mediterranean countriesthat reported data for 2001 generally showed substantially lower numbers thanthe Caribbean destinations Greece 621000 Malta 259000 (an average growthof 17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Morocco 207000 Tunisia 276000(17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Portugal 169000 (mainly to theAtlantic ports of Lisbon and Madeira ) Cyprus 106000 and Israel 23000 (but255000 in 2000 ) Spain Italy and France did not report but port data for 2001from the Association of Mediterranean Cruise Ports Medcruise show the

349Databank

following numbers of cruise passenger movements for Spain Barcelona 655000Palma de Mallorca 531000 Malaga 128000 for Italy Venice 526000 Genoa471000 Naples 470000 Civitavecchia 392000 (2000 ) Livorno 264000Palermo 181000 Messina 126000 (2000 ) Savona 120000 (2000 ) and forFrance Nice-Villefranche 251000 Marseille 165000 (2000 ) Ajaccio 117000(2000 ) Cannes 99000 Port data for Egypt indicate for Port Said 438000cruise passengers and for Alexandria 93000 Outside the Mediterranean it isworth noting the 840000 cruise passengers attracted by the fjords of NorwayAsian destinations that provide data show rather low figures as none of themajor cruise countries is included (Singapore Japan Republic of Korea ChinaThailand Malaysia Australia etc ) Vietnam reported 285000 cruise arrivalsbut it does not make a distinction between cruise passengers and tourist arrivalsby sea

Endnotes

1 For the index and further information see wwwworld-tourismorgcgi-bininfoshopstorefrontENproduct1296-1 WTO also gives information on cruise tourism in the World Overview ampTourism Topics volume of Tourism Market Trends Edition 2001 (WTO 2001a) as well as in theregional volumes of Tourism Market Trends Eidtion 2002 (WT ) 2002) See furthermore section48 of WTOrsquos long-term forecast Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of MarketSegments Volume 7 WTO (2001b)

2 With regard to these figures it should be taken into account that the average receipt per touristarrival is only a rough approximation obtained by the simple division of the total internationaltourism receipts by the number of international tourist arrivals The average obtained in thisway will always be overestimated as international tourism receipts except for receipts relatedto overnight tourism also include receipts related to same-day tourism Cruise revenue on theother hand is expected to be underestimated as it takes into account only the part earned bythe cruise operator and does not include additional touristsrsquo expenses for example for on-landactivities and shopping which are not controlled by the cruise operator

3 See the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO wwwonecaribbeanorg) for additional informa-tion on cruise tourism in the Caribbean (CTO 2003) For a previous review of data on cruisearrivals in the Americas see Bar-On 2001

4 See the Website of the US Department of Commerce International Trade Administration (ITA)Office of Travel and Tourism Industries (OTTI ) at wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2001-07-001indexhtml and wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2000-07-001indexhtml

References

Information on the various WTO publications listed can be found in the Infoshop on the WTO Website atwwwworld-tourismorginfoshop

Bar-On RR (2001) lsquoDatabank ndash The Americas Part 1rsquo Tourism Economics Vol 7 No 4 pp 413ndash428

CTO Caribbean Tourism Statistical Report 2001ndash2002 Caribbean Tourism Organization Barbados(annual publication ndash 2003 edition used here)

WTO (2001a) Tourism Market Trends 2001 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid (seeWTO (2002) for structure of the series)

WTO (2001b) Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of Market Segments World TourismOrganization Madrid (available in English French and Spanish)

WTO (2002) Tourism Market Trends 2002 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid A seriesof 6 volumes published in English and partly in French and Spanish consisting of Tourism MarketTrends 2002 Edition World Overview and Tourism Topics (also in French and Spanish) Tourism

TOURISM ECONOMICS340

in 2000 However in 1990ndash2000 demand outside the region grew almost twiceas quickly but of course from much lower base volumes As a result the shareof the North American market declined from more than 80 in 1990 to lessthan 75 in 2000 Demand from Europe increased from 600000 passengersin 1990 to 19 million in 2000 raising its market share from 14 to 20The main European market is the UK with 740000 passengers in 2000followed by Germany Italy France and Spain while Scandinavia the Nether-lands Belgium and Switzerland are considered as secondary markets Theremaining 8 of demand corresponding to 800000 passengers originatemainly from Asia with Japan the Republic of Korea and Taiwan as theprincipal sources

The cruise itineraries offered largely reflect the current structure of demandas operators prefer to choose base ports relatively close to major source marketsThis trend has been reinforced as a response to peoplersquos reluctance to fly after 11September 2001 to the benefit of ports such as New York The Caribbean(including the east coast of Mexico and Central America ) mainly served from baseports in Florida is still by some distance the busiest cruise region in particularduring the winter months of the predominantly northern-hemisphere sourcemarkets A substantial relocation of fleets from one region to another from seasonto season can be observed One of the advantages of cruise operators over theirland-based competition is the flexibility to adapt itineraries to demand Seasonalityis thus hardly a problem for the cruise industry In summer cruise lines includenorthern destinations such as Alaska and Atlantic Europe while in winter theycan be found in (sub )tropical zones or in the southern hemisphere In summerthe Caribbean is only the second most popular destination region after theMediterranean (Figure 1 ) The third most popular summer region is AtlanticEurope (including the Baltic sea ) bringing the combined market share forEuropean destinations in the summer season close to half of the total supplyAnother 16 of itineraries are based on Alaska an attractive destination to visitby cruise given the limited possibilities for travel by other means and exclusivelyon offer in the summer season The European share decreases substantially inwinter to the benefit not only of the Caribbean but also of Western Mexico andAsia and the Pacific And Southern America and the Indian Ocean are also addedto the supply on offer as specific winter destinations

Structure and capacity of the sector (Figure 2 amp 3 Table 3a and b )

In January 2002 cruise lines operated a fleet of 183 vessels with a combinedgross tonnage of 78 million and a total of 213000 berths The average cruiseship measures 43000 gross tons accommodates 1163 berths and is in opera-tion for almost 15 years

At the time the WTO study was carried out four main groups commonlyreferred to as the Big Four dominated the supply of the cruise market theCarnival Corporation (CCL ) Royal Caribbean Cruises (RCC ) the PampO PrincessGroup (POC) and the Star Cruises Group Together these companies accountedfor 76 of the world supply of berths in 2002 Fleets consist of comparativelyyoung ships with high capacity (average age is around 10 years and averagenumber of berths is 1500 ) Royal Caribbean operates the youngest fleet with

341Databank

Figure 2 Characteristics of cruise supplySource own compilation based on Manuel Butlerrsquos work for WTO

Figure 3 Market share of supply on offer by destination regionsSource Manuel Butler for WTO based on Christiania Bank og Kreditkasse ASA

Share of BerthsJanuary 2002

Share of BerthsOrder bo ok

Average age of FleetJanuary 2002

Average number of be rths

TOURISM ECONOMICS342

Table 3a Overview of cruise operators fleet and capacitytotal fleet (January 2002)

Source own compilation based on Manuel Butlerrsquos work for WTO

343Databank

Table 3b Overview of cruise operators fleet and capacityorder book

Source own compilation based on Manuel Butlerrsquos work for WTO

TOURISM ECONOMICS344

an average age of 56 years and over 2000 berths per vessel Each of thesegroups is the result of a process of horizontal concentration over the last decadeand markets a variety of cruise brands (In April 2003 the number of big groupswas reduced even further when Carnival Corporation and PampO Princess mergedforming a giant player that exceeds the combined share of the two other largegroups )

The remaining 24 of the berths on offer are operated by various smallercruise lines With the exception of Louis CruisesRoyal Olympic Cruises witha share if 56 none of the smaller companies exceeds 2 In the US andCanadian source markets several independent cruise lines concentrate on spe-ciality products (Disney for instance combines its theme parks with cruisesbased in Orlando ) These predominantly target the luxury end of the marketand represent around 5 of the world supply of berths The European marketis still rather fragmented with many smaller companies active only within theirown national borders Most operate just one or a few ships in general consid-erably older and of lower capacity than their competitors in the big groupsTheir combined share of the supply of worldwide berths is 16 Independentcruise lines in the Asia and the Pacific region operating from Japan theRepublic of Korea India and Australia account for slightly over 3 of thesupply of berths

By destination region it can be observed that Europe is still largely a playingfield for independent operators (Figure 3 ) Carnival is the market leader in boththe Caribbean and Alaska and is the only one of the Big Four that has asubstantial share in Europe PampO has a modest presence in all regions but itsspeciality is Alaska where its share almost equals that of Carnival With abouta quarter of the berths on offer Royal Caribbean is the second largest operatorin the Caribbean and the third in Alaska Star Cruises has a clear hegemonyin the Far East but only minor shares in the other regions Except for theirlarge share in Europe smaller independent operators account for a little morethan one-fifth in both the Caribbean and the Far East while in Alaska theyrepresent only 3

Cruise capacity has risen substantially over time and there are not as yet signsof an end to the expansion The number of berths on offer increased from 45000in 1980 to 93000 in 1990 and to 213000 in 2002 corresponding to anaverage annual growth rate of 75 between 1980 and 1990 and 71 between1990 and 2002 This rate is expected to continue for at least the coming yearsas the order book already contains 37 new cruise ships with almost 80000additional berths for the period to 2006 The actual growth rate can of coursevary as older vessels can be withdrawn and orders can be delayed or cancelleddepending on market circumstances Nevertheless the potential for growth isconsidered to be substantial with demand sometimes currently exceedingsupply Cruise operators in particular the big groups in general enjoy very highoccupancy rates ndash typically of 90ndash100 The tourist cruise product is not yetconsidered to have entered its maturity phase not even in the more developedUS source market Hence additional capacity is expected to be easily absorbedby the market As the big groups are expanding more rapidly than theirindependent competitors concentration in the sector will continue to increaseeven without further mergers and acquisitions

345Databank

Destinations visited (Table 4 )

In most cruise trips passengers travel to a base port to embark on a vessel thatsails to a number of destinations calling at ports where they can disembark tovisit land-based sites The number of ports visited during a trip depends onthe itinerary In many itineraries ships call at a different port every day whilein others they sail on the sea without calling at a port or stay in a port forseveral days Cruise trips can start and finish in the same base port but mayalso have two different base ports

Table 4 Arrivals of cruise passengers (for countries and territories reporting thistype of data)

continued

TOURISM ECONOMICS346

Table 4 continued

Data as collected by WTO August 2003

Source World Tourism Organization (WTO) copy

For destinations visited cruises constitute a relevant primary or additionalsource of tourism receipts On one hand there is the revenue from the portservices supplied generally depending on ship tonnage and number of pas-sengers and paid for by the cruise operators Depending on the size and type

347Databank

of port services and supplies such as provisions fuel maintenance and repairsalso add to the benefits to a greater or lesser extent On the other handdestinations receive revenue from the on-land tourism consumption generatedby passengers and crew related to activities such as sightseeing tours shop-ping eating and drinking etc According to data on the on-land activitiesof US and Canadian cruise passengers over 80 participate in panoramicvisits shopping and sightseeing 50ndash80 participate in excursions culturalvisits beach activities and gastronomy and about 10 engage in tennis andgolf Although most cruise packages are based on full-board it is surprisingto note that over half of cruise passengers nevertheless visit restaurants at thedestination Average on-land expenditure in various Caribbean destinationsranged from US$15 to US$270 per passenger in 2001 (CTO 2003 p 100 )with shopping constituting an important variable Compared to overnighttourism receipts from cruise tourism will be generally lower but theinvestment needed is also more modest An adequate port infrastructure isof course an absolute prerequisite but it is not necessary to invest as heavilyin for instance (air ) transport infrastructure or accommodation For base portsthe situation is different as a comparatively sophisticated infrastructure isneeded to accommodate air arrivals and overnight stays in hotels before orafter the cruise Furthermore the majority of the ship services will generallytake place at the base port Accordingly the economic impact will also begreater

According to the UNWTO Recommendations on Tourism Statistics for thedestinations visited cruise passengers (who arrive in a country on board shipand return to the ship each night to sleep on board even if the ship remainsin port for several days ) are considered as a specific category of internationalsame-day visitors As they do not strictly spend the night in a collective orprivate accommodation in the country visited from the statistical point of viewthey are not included in the category of tourists (overnight visitors ) For baseports the situation is generally more complicated because cruise participantsmay stay overnight in a hotel before or after the trip and should thus be countedas tourists Also in most cases some passengers will not be internationalvisitors but will originate from the domestic market

Table 4 provides an overview of the number of international cruise passengersas reported by the various destination countries This data series is regularlyincluded in the WTO Compendium of Tourism Statistics as well as in the countryprofile tables in the regional volumes of the WTO Tourism Market Trends series(since the 2002 edition ) In analysing this information notice should be takenof the fact that it reflects only data for countries providing this series Coverageis currently rather limited with many major cruise destinations not reporting(including among others the USA the UK Italy Spain France Egypt theRepublic of Korea and Japan) Furthermore data may partly relate to rivercruises and some countries include yacht passengers andor leisure visits offoreign navies Visits to two ports in a destination country are often recordedas one arrival (for example in the Bahamas )

As may be expected many of the destinations in the Americas in particularin the Caribbean record substantial numbers of cruise passengers3 Five des-tinations reported over a million arrivals each in 2001 Mexico with 38 million(both to the Caribbean coast with Cozumel as the most important port and

TOURISM ECONOMICS348

to the Mexican west coast ) the Bahamas with 26 million the US Virgin Islandswith 19 million Puerto Rico with 14 million (with the port of San Juan notonly serving as destination port but also as a major base port for itineraries inthe southern part of the Caribbean ) and the Cayman Islands with 12 millionThe ratio of cruise passengers to tourists staying overnight ranges up to 36times as many cruise passengers Cruise passengers exceed the number oftourists by two to one in the Cayman Islands Dominica Haiti Saint LuciaSaint Kitts and Nevis Saint Maarten Saint Vincent and the Grenadines andthe US Virgin Islands Many destinations recorded double-digit growth ratesbetween 1990 and 2001 tripling or quadrupling passenger numbers Thestrongest growers receiving over 100000 passengers a year have been Domi-nica (36 a year between 1990 and 2001 to 208000 from a low base ) SaintKitts and Nevis (20 a year to 255000 ) Saint Lucia (15 a year to 490000 )Haiti (15 a year to 357000 ) Mexico (14 a year ) the Dominican Republic(14 a year to 211000 ) Aruba (13 a year to 487000 ) Costa Rica (12a year to 189000 ) and the Cayman Islands (12 a year )

Cruise data on the USA is unfortunately scarce and far from homogeneousAccording to the Survey of International Air Travelers (IFS ) some 6ndash7 ofoverseas travellers to the USA indicated cruise as an activity in 2000ndash01corresponding to roughly 15 million travellers4 Furthermore it can be expectedthat the majority of the 69 million cruise passengers from North America in2000 (Table 2 ) of which some 300000 were from Canada visited one or moreAmerican ports during their trip Florida is home to the four main cruise portsserving as a base for the Caribbean Miami is the worldrsquos most important cruisebase port (34 million passengers in 2000 ) Port Everglades (27 million pas-sengers in 2000 ) Port Canaveral and Tampa Galveston (Texas ) and NewOrleans (Louisiana ) are also used as base ports for the Caribbean while KeyWest is included as destination port in a number of itineraries On the EastCoast more Northern ports such as New York are gaining in importance TheWest Coast ports of Los Angeles Long Beach San Diego Seattle Anchorageand Seward (Alaska) serve as base ports (starting andor ending ) for trips thatinclude the pacific coast of Mexico (with Ensenada Cabo San Lucas PuertoVallarta and Mazatlan as the most important ports ) Canada and Alaska (withJuneau Ketchikan Skagway Glacier Bay Sitka Hubbard Glacier and CollegeFjord as the most important ports ) However the major base port for Alaskais the Canadian port of Vancouver Canada (both Atlantic and Pacific coasts )reported 636000 cruise passengers in 2000 The major base port on Hawaiiis Honolulu used either for round trips or as the start or finish port for tripsto or from ports on the American Pacific coast including Ensenada and Van-couver

For destinations outside the Americas it is even more difficult to get a properpicture of the number of cruise passengers The various Mediterranean countriesthat reported data for 2001 generally showed substantially lower numbers thanthe Caribbean destinations Greece 621000 Malta 259000 (an average growthof 17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Morocco 207000 Tunisia 276000(17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Portugal 169000 (mainly to theAtlantic ports of Lisbon and Madeira ) Cyprus 106000 and Israel 23000 (but255000 in 2000 ) Spain Italy and France did not report but port data for 2001from the Association of Mediterranean Cruise Ports Medcruise show the

349Databank

following numbers of cruise passenger movements for Spain Barcelona 655000Palma de Mallorca 531000 Malaga 128000 for Italy Venice 526000 Genoa471000 Naples 470000 Civitavecchia 392000 (2000 ) Livorno 264000Palermo 181000 Messina 126000 (2000 ) Savona 120000 (2000 ) and forFrance Nice-Villefranche 251000 Marseille 165000 (2000 ) Ajaccio 117000(2000 ) Cannes 99000 Port data for Egypt indicate for Port Said 438000cruise passengers and for Alexandria 93000 Outside the Mediterranean it isworth noting the 840000 cruise passengers attracted by the fjords of NorwayAsian destinations that provide data show rather low figures as none of themajor cruise countries is included (Singapore Japan Republic of Korea ChinaThailand Malaysia Australia etc ) Vietnam reported 285000 cruise arrivalsbut it does not make a distinction between cruise passengers and tourist arrivalsby sea

Endnotes

1 For the index and further information see wwwworld-tourismorgcgi-bininfoshopstorefrontENproduct1296-1 WTO also gives information on cruise tourism in the World Overview ampTourism Topics volume of Tourism Market Trends Edition 2001 (WTO 2001a) as well as in theregional volumes of Tourism Market Trends Eidtion 2002 (WT ) 2002) See furthermore section48 of WTOrsquos long-term forecast Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of MarketSegments Volume 7 WTO (2001b)

2 With regard to these figures it should be taken into account that the average receipt per touristarrival is only a rough approximation obtained by the simple division of the total internationaltourism receipts by the number of international tourist arrivals The average obtained in thisway will always be overestimated as international tourism receipts except for receipts relatedto overnight tourism also include receipts related to same-day tourism Cruise revenue on theother hand is expected to be underestimated as it takes into account only the part earned bythe cruise operator and does not include additional touristsrsquo expenses for example for on-landactivities and shopping which are not controlled by the cruise operator

3 See the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO wwwonecaribbeanorg) for additional informa-tion on cruise tourism in the Caribbean (CTO 2003) For a previous review of data on cruisearrivals in the Americas see Bar-On 2001

4 See the Website of the US Department of Commerce International Trade Administration (ITA)Office of Travel and Tourism Industries (OTTI ) at wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2001-07-001indexhtml and wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2000-07-001indexhtml

References

Information on the various WTO publications listed can be found in the Infoshop on the WTO Website atwwwworld-tourismorginfoshop

Bar-On RR (2001) lsquoDatabank ndash The Americas Part 1rsquo Tourism Economics Vol 7 No 4 pp 413ndash428

CTO Caribbean Tourism Statistical Report 2001ndash2002 Caribbean Tourism Organization Barbados(annual publication ndash 2003 edition used here)

WTO (2001a) Tourism Market Trends 2001 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid (seeWTO (2002) for structure of the series)

WTO (2001b) Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of Market Segments World TourismOrganization Madrid (available in English French and Spanish)

WTO (2002) Tourism Market Trends 2002 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid A seriesof 6 volumes published in English and partly in French and Spanish consisting of Tourism MarketTrends 2002 Edition World Overview and Tourism Topics (also in French and Spanish) Tourism

341Databank

Figure 2 Characteristics of cruise supplySource own compilation based on Manuel Butlerrsquos work for WTO

Figure 3 Market share of supply on offer by destination regionsSource Manuel Butler for WTO based on Christiania Bank og Kreditkasse ASA

Share of BerthsJanuary 2002

Share of BerthsOrder bo ok

Average age of FleetJanuary 2002

Average number of be rths

TOURISM ECONOMICS342

Table 3a Overview of cruise operators fleet and capacitytotal fleet (January 2002)

Source own compilation based on Manuel Butlerrsquos work for WTO

343Databank

Table 3b Overview of cruise operators fleet and capacityorder book

Source own compilation based on Manuel Butlerrsquos work for WTO

TOURISM ECONOMICS344

an average age of 56 years and over 2000 berths per vessel Each of thesegroups is the result of a process of horizontal concentration over the last decadeand markets a variety of cruise brands (In April 2003 the number of big groupswas reduced even further when Carnival Corporation and PampO Princess mergedforming a giant player that exceeds the combined share of the two other largegroups )

The remaining 24 of the berths on offer are operated by various smallercruise lines With the exception of Louis CruisesRoyal Olympic Cruises witha share if 56 none of the smaller companies exceeds 2 In the US andCanadian source markets several independent cruise lines concentrate on spe-ciality products (Disney for instance combines its theme parks with cruisesbased in Orlando ) These predominantly target the luxury end of the marketand represent around 5 of the world supply of berths The European marketis still rather fragmented with many smaller companies active only within theirown national borders Most operate just one or a few ships in general consid-erably older and of lower capacity than their competitors in the big groupsTheir combined share of the supply of worldwide berths is 16 Independentcruise lines in the Asia and the Pacific region operating from Japan theRepublic of Korea India and Australia account for slightly over 3 of thesupply of berths

By destination region it can be observed that Europe is still largely a playingfield for independent operators (Figure 3 ) Carnival is the market leader in boththe Caribbean and Alaska and is the only one of the Big Four that has asubstantial share in Europe PampO has a modest presence in all regions but itsspeciality is Alaska where its share almost equals that of Carnival With abouta quarter of the berths on offer Royal Caribbean is the second largest operatorin the Caribbean and the third in Alaska Star Cruises has a clear hegemonyin the Far East but only minor shares in the other regions Except for theirlarge share in Europe smaller independent operators account for a little morethan one-fifth in both the Caribbean and the Far East while in Alaska theyrepresent only 3

Cruise capacity has risen substantially over time and there are not as yet signsof an end to the expansion The number of berths on offer increased from 45000in 1980 to 93000 in 1990 and to 213000 in 2002 corresponding to anaverage annual growth rate of 75 between 1980 and 1990 and 71 between1990 and 2002 This rate is expected to continue for at least the coming yearsas the order book already contains 37 new cruise ships with almost 80000additional berths for the period to 2006 The actual growth rate can of coursevary as older vessels can be withdrawn and orders can be delayed or cancelleddepending on market circumstances Nevertheless the potential for growth isconsidered to be substantial with demand sometimes currently exceedingsupply Cruise operators in particular the big groups in general enjoy very highoccupancy rates ndash typically of 90ndash100 The tourist cruise product is not yetconsidered to have entered its maturity phase not even in the more developedUS source market Hence additional capacity is expected to be easily absorbedby the market As the big groups are expanding more rapidly than theirindependent competitors concentration in the sector will continue to increaseeven without further mergers and acquisitions

345Databank

Destinations visited (Table 4 )

In most cruise trips passengers travel to a base port to embark on a vessel thatsails to a number of destinations calling at ports where they can disembark tovisit land-based sites The number of ports visited during a trip depends onthe itinerary In many itineraries ships call at a different port every day whilein others they sail on the sea without calling at a port or stay in a port forseveral days Cruise trips can start and finish in the same base port but mayalso have two different base ports

Table 4 Arrivals of cruise passengers (for countries and territories reporting thistype of data)

continued

TOURISM ECONOMICS346

Table 4 continued

Data as collected by WTO August 2003

Source World Tourism Organization (WTO) copy

For destinations visited cruises constitute a relevant primary or additionalsource of tourism receipts On one hand there is the revenue from the portservices supplied generally depending on ship tonnage and number of pas-sengers and paid for by the cruise operators Depending on the size and type

347Databank

of port services and supplies such as provisions fuel maintenance and repairsalso add to the benefits to a greater or lesser extent On the other handdestinations receive revenue from the on-land tourism consumption generatedby passengers and crew related to activities such as sightseeing tours shop-ping eating and drinking etc According to data on the on-land activitiesof US and Canadian cruise passengers over 80 participate in panoramicvisits shopping and sightseeing 50ndash80 participate in excursions culturalvisits beach activities and gastronomy and about 10 engage in tennis andgolf Although most cruise packages are based on full-board it is surprisingto note that over half of cruise passengers nevertheless visit restaurants at thedestination Average on-land expenditure in various Caribbean destinationsranged from US$15 to US$270 per passenger in 2001 (CTO 2003 p 100 )with shopping constituting an important variable Compared to overnighttourism receipts from cruise tourism will be generally lower but theinvestment needed is also more modest An adequate port infrastructure isof course an absolute prerequisite but it is not necessary to invest as heavilyin for instance (air ) transport infrastructure or accommodation For base portsthe situation is different as a comparatively sophisticated infrastructure isneeded to accommodate air arrivals and overnight stays in hotels before orafter the cruise Furthermore the majority of the ship services will generallytake place at the base port Accordingly the economic impact will also begreater

According to the UNWTO Recommendations on Tourism Statistics for thedestinations visited cruise passengers (who arrive in a country on board shipand return to the ship each night to sleep on board even if the ship remainsin port for several days ) are considered as a specific category of internationalsame-day visitors As they do not strictly spend the night in a collective orprivate accommodation in the country visited from the statistical point of viewthey are not included in the category of tourists (overnight visitors ) For baseports the situation is generally more complicated because cruise participantsmay stay overnight in a hotel before or after the trip and should thus be countedas tourists Also in most cases some passengers will not be internationalvisitors but will originate from the domestic market

Table 4 provides an overview of the number of international cruise passengersas reported by the various destination countries This data series is regularlyincluded in the WTO Compendium of Tourism Statistics as well as in the countryprofile tables in the regional volumes of the WTO Tourism Market Trends series(since the 2002 edition ) In analysing this information notice should be takenof the fact that it reflects only data for countries providing this series Coverageis currently rather limited with many major cruise destinations not reporting(including among others the USA the UK Italy Spain France Egypt theRepublic of Korea and Japan) Furthermore data may partly relate to rivercruises and some countries include yacht passengers andor leisure visits offoreign navies Visits to two ports in a destination country are often recordedas one arrival (for example in the Bahamas )

As may be expected many of the destinations in the Americas in particularin the Caribbean record substantial numbers of cruise passengers3 Five des-tinations reported over a million arrivals each in 2001 Mexico with 38 million(both to the Caribbean coast with Cozumel as the most important port and

TOURISM ECONOMICS348

to the Mexican west coast ) the Bahamas with 26 million the US Virgin Islandswith 19 million Puerto Rico with 14 million (with the port of San Juan notonly serving as destination port but also as a major base port for itineraries inthe southern part of the Caribbean ) and the Cayman Islands with 12 millionThe ratio of cruise passengers to tourists staying overnight ranges up to 36times as many cruise passengers Cruise passengers exceed the number oftourists by two to one in the Cayman Islands Dominica Haiti Saint LuciaSaint Kitts and Nevis Saint Maarten Saint Vincent and the Grenadines andthe US Virgin Islands Many destinations recorded double-digit growth ratesbetween 1990 and 2001 tripling or quadrupling passenger numbers Thestrongest growers receiving over 100000 passengers a year have been Domi-nica (36 a year between 1990 and 2001 to 208000 from a low base ) SaintKitts and Nevis (20 a year to 255000 ) Saint Lucia (15 a year to 490000 )Haiti (15 a year to 357000 ) Mexico (14 a year ) the Dominican Republic(14 a year to 211000 ) Aruba (13 a year to 487000 ) Costa Rica (12a year to 189000 ) and the Cayman Islands (12 a year )

Cruise data on the USA is unfortunately scarce and far from homogeneousAccording to the Survey of International Air Travelers (IFS ) some 6ndash7 ofoverseas travellers to the USA indicated cruise as an activity in 2000ndash01corresponding to roughly 15 million travellers4 Furthermore it can be expectedthat the majority of the 69 million cruise passengers from North America in2000 (Table 2 ) of which some 300000 were from Canada visited one or moreAmerican ports during their trip Florida is home to the four main cruise portsserving as a base for the Caribbean Miami is the worldrsquos most important cruisebase port (34 million passengers in 2000 ) Port Everglades (27 million pas-sengers in 2000 ) Port Canaveral and Tampa Galveston (Texas ) and NewOrleans (Louisiana ) are also used as base ports for the Caribbean while KeyWest is included as destination port in a number of itineraries On the EastCoast more Northern ports such as New York are gaining in importance TheWest Coast ports of Los Angeles Long Beach San Diego Seattle Anchorageand Seward (Alaska) serve as base ports (starting andor ending ) for trips thatinclude the pacific coast of Mexico (with Ensenada Cabo San Lucas PuertoVallarta and Mazatlan as the most important ports ) Canada and Alaska (withJuneau Ketchikan Skagway Glacier Bay Sitka Hubbard Glacier and CollegeFjord as the most important ports ) However the major base port for Alaskais the Canadian port of Vancouver Canada (both Atlantic and Pacific coasts )reported 636000 cruise passengers in 2000 The major base port on Hawaiiis Honolulu used either for round trips or as the start or finish port for tripsto or from ports on the American Pacific coast including Ensenada and Van-couver

For destinations outside the Americas it is even more difficult to get a properpicture of the number of cruise passengers The various Mediterranean countriesthat reported data for 2001 generally showed substantially lower numbers thanthe Caribbean destinations Greece 621000 Malta 259000 (an average growthof 17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Morocco 207000 Tunisia 276000(17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Portugal 169000 (mainly to theAtlantic ports of Lisbon and Madeira ) Cyprus 106000 and Israel 23000 (but255000 in 2000 ) Spain Italy and France did not report but port data for 2001from the Association of Mediterranean Cruise Ports Medcruise show the

349Databank

following numbers of cruise passenger movements for Spain Barcelona 655000Palma de Mallorca 531000 Malaga 128000 for Italy Venice 526000 Genoa471000 Naples 470000 Civitavecchia 392000 (2000 ) Livorno 264000Palermo 181000 Messina 126000 (2000 ) Savona 120000 (2000 ) and forFrance Nice-Villefranche 251000 Marseille 165000 (2000 ) Ajaccio 117000(2000 ) Cannes 99000 Port data for Egypt indicate for Port Said 438000cruise passengers and for Alexandria 93000 Outside the Mediterranean it isworth noting the 840000 cruise passengers attracted by the fjords of NorwayAsian destinations that provide data show rather low figures as none of themajor cruise countries is included (Singapore Japan Republic of Korea ChinaThailand Malaysia Australia etc ) Vietnam reported 285000 cruise arrivalsbut it does not make a distinction between cruise passengers and tourist arrivalsby sea

Endnotes

1 For the index and further information see wwwworld-tourismorgcgi-bininfoshopstorefrontENproduct1296-1 WTO also gives information on cruise tourism in the World Overview ampTourism Topics volume of Tourism Market Trends Edition 2001 (WTO 2001a) as well as in theregional volumes of Tourism Market Trends Eidtion 2002 (WT ) 2002) See furthermore section48 of WTOrsquos long-term forecast Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of MarketSegments Volume 7 WTO (2001b)

2 With regard to these figures it should be taken into account that the average receipt per touristarrival is only a rough approximation obtained by the simple division of the total internationaltourism receipts by the number of international tourist arrivals The average obtained in thisway will always be overestimated as international tourism receipts except for receipts relatedto overnight tourism also include receipts related to same-day tourism Cruise revenue on theother hand is expected to be underestimated as it takes into account only the part earned bythe cruise operator and does not include additional touristsrsquo expenses for example for on-landactivities and shopping which are not controlled by the cruise operator

3 See the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO wwwonecaribbeanorg) for additional informa-tion on cruise tourism in the Caribbean (CTO 2003) For a previous review of data on cruisearrivals in the Americas see Bar-On 2001

4 See the Website of the US Department of Commerce International Trade Administration (ITA)Office of Travel and Tourism Industries (OTTI ) at wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2001-07-001indexhtml and wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2000-07-001indexhtml

References

Information on the various WTO publications listed can be found in the Infoshop on the WTO Website atwwwworld-tourismorginfoshop

Bar-On RR (2001) lsquoDatabank ndash The Americas Part 1rsquo Tourism Economics Vol 7 No 4 pp 413ndash428

CTO Caribbean Tourism Statistical Report 2001ndash2002 Caribbean Tourism Organization Barbados(annual publication ndash 2003 edition used here)

WTO (2001a) Tourism Market Trends 2001 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid (seeWTO (2002) for structure of the series)

WTO (2001b) Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of Market Segments World TourismOrganization Madrid (available in English French and Spanish)

WTO (2002) Tourism Market Trends 2002 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid A seriesof 6 volumes published in English and partly in French and Spanish consisting of Tourism MarketTrends 2002 Edition World Overview and Tourism Topics (also in French and Spanish) Tourism

TOURISM ECONOMICS342

Table 3a Overview of cruise operators fleet and capacitytotal fleet (January 2002)

Source own compilation based on Manuel Butlerrsquos work for WTO

343Databank

Table 3b Overview of cruise operators fleet and capacityorder book

Source own compilation based on Manuel Butlerrsquos work for WTO

TOURISM ECONOMICS344

an average age of 56 years and over 2000 berths per vessel Each of thesegroups is the result of a process of horizontal concentration over the last decadeand markets a variety of cruise brands (In April 2003 the number of big groupswas reduced even further when Carnival Corporation and PampO Princess mergedforming a giant player that exceeds the combined share of the two other largegroups )

The remaining 24 of the berths on offer are operated by various smallercruise lines With the exception of Louis CruisesRoyal Olympic Cruises witha share if 56 none of the smaller companies exceeds 2 In the US andCanadian source markets several independent cruise lines concentrate on spe-ciality products (Disney for instance combines its theme parks with cruisesbased in Orlando ) These predominantly target the luxury end of the marketand represent around 5 of the world supply of berths The European marketis still rather fragmented with many smaller companies active only within theirown national borders Most operate just one or a few ships in general consid-erably older and of lower capacity than their competitors in the big groupsTheir combined share of the supply of worldwide berths is 16 Independentcruise lines in the Asia and the Pacific region operating from Japan theRepublic of Korea India and Australia account for slightly over 3 of thesupply of berths

By destination region it can be observed that Europe is still largely a playingfield for independent operators (Figure 3 ) Carnival is the market leader in boththe Caribbean and Alaska and is the only one of the Big Four that has asubstantial share in Europe PampO has a modest presence in all regions but itsspeciality is Alaska where its share almost equals that of Carnival With abouta quarter of the berths on offer Royal Caribbean is the second largest operatorin the Caribbean and the third in Alaska Star Cruises has a clear hegemonyin the Far East but only minor shares in the other regions Except for theirlarge share in Europe smaller independent operators account for a little morethan one-fifth in both the Caribbean and the Far East while in Alaska theyrepresent only 3

Cruise capacity has risen substantially over time and there are not as yet signsof an end to the expansion The number of berths on offer increased from 45000in 1980 to 93000 in 1990 and to 213000 in 2002 corresponding to anaverage annual growth rate of 75 between 1980 and 1990 and 71 between1990 and 2002 This rate is expected to continue for at least the coming yearsas the order book already contains 37 new cruise ships with almost 80000additional berths for the period to 2006 The actual growth rate can of coursevary as older vessels can be withdrawn and orders can be delayed or cancelleddepending on market circumstances Nevertheless the potential for growth isconsidered to be substantial with demand sometimes currently exceedingsupply Cruise operators in particular the big groups in general enjoy very highoccupancy rates ndash typically of 90ndash100 The tourist cruise product is not yetconsidered to have entered its maturity phase not even in the more developedUS source market Hence additional capacity is expected to be easily absorbedby the market As the big groups are expanding more rapidly than theirindependent competitors concentration in the sector will continue to increaseeven without further mergers and acquisitions

345Databank

Destinations visited (Table 4 )

In most cruise trips passengers travel to a base port to embark on a vessel thatsails to a number of destinations calling at ports where they can disembark tovisit land-based sites The number of ports visited during a trip depends onthe itinerary In many itineraries ships call at a different port every day whilein others they sail on the sea without calling at a port or stay in a port forseveral days Cruise trips can start and finish in the same base port but mayalso have two different base ports

Table 4 Arrivals of cruise passengers (for countries and territories reporting thistype of data)

continued

TOURISM ECONOMICS346

Table 4 continued

Data as collected by WTO August 2003

Source World Tourism Organization (WTO) copy

For destinations visited cruises constitute a relevant primary or additionalsource of tourism receipts On one hand there is the revenue from the portservices supplied generally depending on ship tonnage and number of pas-sengers and paid for by the cruise operators Depending on the size and type

347Databank

of port services and supplies such as provisions fuel maintenance and repairsalso add to the benefits to a greater or lesser extent On the other handdestinations receive revenue from the on-land tourism consumption generatedby passengers and crew related to activities such as sightseeing tours shop-ping eating and drinking etc According to data on the on-land activitiesof US and Canadian cruise passengers over 80 participate in panoramicvisits shopping and sightseeing 50ndash80 participate in excursions culturalvisits beach activities and gastronomy and about 10 engage in tennis andgolf Although most cruise packages are based on full-board it is surprisingto note that over half of cruise passengers nevertheless visit restaurants at thedestination Average on-land expenditure in various Caribbean destinationsranged from US$15 to US$270 per passenger in 2001 (CTO 2003 p 100 )with shopping constituting an important variable Compared to overnighttourism receipts from cruise tourism will be generally lower but theinvestment needed is also more modest An adequate port infrastructure isof course an absolute prerequisite but it is not necessary to invest as heavilyin for instance (air ) transport infrastructure or accommodation For base portsthe situation is different as a comparatively sophisticated infrastructure isneeded to accommodate air arrivals and overnight stays in hotels before orafter the cruise Furthermore the majority of the ship services will generallytake place at the base port Accordingly the economic impact will also begreater

According to the UNWTO Recommendations on Tourism Statistics for thedestinations visited cruise passengers (who arrive in a country on board shipand return to the ship each night to sleep on board even if the ship remainsin port for several days ) are considered as a specific category of internationalsame-day visitors As they do not strictly spend the night in a collective orprivate accommodation in the country visited from the statistical point of viewthey are not included in the category of tourists (overnight visitors ) For baseports the situation is generally more complicated because cruise participantsmay stay overnight in a hotel before or after the trip and should thus be countedas tourists Also in most cases some passengers will not be internationalvisitors but will originate from the domestic market

Table 4 provides an overview of the number of international cruise passengersas reported by the various destination countries This data series is regularlyincluded in the WTO Compendium of Tourism Statistics as well as in the countryprofile tables in the regional volumes of the WTO Tourism Market Trends series(since the 2002 edition ) In analysing this information notice should be takenof the fact that it reflects only data for countries providing this series Coverageis currently rather limited with many major cruise destinations not reporting(including among others the USA the UK Italy Spain France Egypt theRepublic of Korea and Japan) Furthermore data may partly relate to rivercruises and some countries include yacht passengers andor leisure visits offoreign navies Visits to two ports in a destination country are often recordedas one arrival (for example in the Bahamas )

As may be expected many of the destinations in the Americas in particularin the Caribbean record substantial numbers of cruise passengers3 Five des-tinations reported over a million arrivals each in 2001 Mexico with 38 million(both to the Caribbean coast with Cozumel as the most important port and

TOURISM ECONOMICS348

to the Mexican west coast ) the Bahamas with 26 million the US Virgin Islandswith 19 million Puerto Rico with 14 million (with the port of San Juan notonly serving as destination port but also as a major base port for itineraries inthe southern part of the Caribbean ) and the Cayman Islands with 12 millionThe ratio of cruise passengers to tourists staying overnight ranges up to 36times as many cruise passengers Cruise passengers exceed the number oftourists by two to one in the Cayman Islands Dominica Haiti Saint LuciaSaint Kitts and Nevis Saint Maarten Saint Vincent and the Grenadines andthe US Virgin Islands Many destinations recorded double-digit growth ratesbetween 1990 and 2001 tripling or quadrupling passenger numbers Thestrongest growers receiving over 100000 passengers a year have been Domi-nica (36 a year between 1990 and 2001 to 208000 from a low base ) SaintKitts and Nevis (20 a year to 255000 ) Saint Lucia (15 a year to 490000 )Haiti (15 a year to 357000 ) Mexico (14 a year ) the Dominican Republic(14 a year to 211000 ) Aruba (13 a year to 487000 ) Costa Rica (12a year to 189000 ) and the Cayman Islands (12 a year )

Cruise data on the USA is unfortunately scarce and far from homogeneousAccording to the Survey of International Air Travelers (IFS ) some 6ndash7 ofoverseas travellers to the USA indicated cruise as an activity in 2000ndash01corresponding to roughly 15 million travellers4 Furthermore it can be expectedthat the majority of the 69 million cruise passengers from North America in2000 (Table 2 ) of which some 300000 were from Canada visited one or moreAmerican ports during their trip Florida is home to the four main cruise portsserving as a base for the Caribbean Miami is the worldrsquos most important cruisebase port (34 million passengers in 2000 ) Port Everglades (27 million pas-sengers in 2000 ) Port Canaveral and Tampa Galveston (Texas ) and NewOrleans (Louisiana ) are also used as base ports for the Caribbean while KeyWest is included as destination port in a number of itineraries On the EastCoast more Northern ports such as New York are gaining in importance TheWest Coast ports of Los Angeles Long Beach San Diego Seattle Anchorageand Seward (Alaska) serve as base ports (starting andor ending ) for trips thatinclude the pacific coast of Mexico (with Ensenada Cabo San Lucas PuertoVallarta and Mazatlan as the most important ports ) Canada and Alaska (withJuneau Ketchikan Skagway Glacier Bay Sitka Hubbard Glacier and CollegeFjord as the most important ports ) However the major base port for Alaskais the Canadian port of Vancouver Canada (both Atlantic and Pacific coasts )reported 636000 cruise passengers in 2000 The major base port on Hawaiiis Honolulu used either for round trips or as the start or finish port for tripsto or from ports on the American Pacific coast including Ensenada and Van-couver

For destinations outside the Americas it is even more difficult to get a properpicture of the number of cruise passengers The various Mediterranean countriesthat reported data for 2001 generally showed substantially lower numbers thanthe Caribbean destinations Greece 621000 Malta 259000 (an average growthof 17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Morocco 207000 Tunisia 276000(17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Portugal 169000 (mainly to theAtlantic ports of Lisbon and Madeira ) Cyprus 106000 and Israel 23000 (but255000 in 2000 ) Spain Italy and France did not report but port data for 2001from the Association of Mediterranean Cruise Ports Medcruise show the

349Databank

following numbers of cruise passenger movements for Spain Barcelona 655000Palma de Mallorca 531000 Malaga 128000 for Italy Venice 526000 Genoa471000 Naples 470000 Civitavecchia 392000 (2000 ) Livorno 264000Palermo 181000 Messina 126000 (2000 ) Savona 120000 (2000 ) and forFrance Nice-Villefranche 251000 Marseille 165000 (2000 ) Ajaccio 117000(2000 ) Cannes 99000 Port data for Egypt indicate for Port Said 438000cruise passengers and for Alexandria 93000 Outside the Mediterranean it isworth noting the 840000 cruise passengers attracted by the fjords of NorwayAsian destinations that provide data show rather low figures as none of themajor cruise countries is included (Singapore Japan Republic of Korea ChinaThailand Malaysia Australia etc ) Vietnam reported 285000 cruise arrivalsbut it does not make a distinction between cruise passengers and tourist arrivalsby sea

Endnotes

1 For the index and further information see wwwworld-tourismorgcgi-bininfoshopstorefrontENproduct1296-1 WTO also gives information on cruise tourism in the World Overview ampTourism Topics volume of Tourism Market Trends Edition 2001 (WTO 2001a) as well as in theregional volumes of Tourism Market Trends Eidtion 2002 (WT ) 2002) See furthermore section48 of WTOrsquos long-term forecast Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of MarketSegments Volume 7 WTO (2001b)

2 With regard to these figures it should be taken into account that the average receipt per touristarrival is only a rough approximation obtained by the simple division of the total internationaltourism receipts by the number of international tourist arrivals The average obtained in thisway will always be overestimated as international tourism receipts except for receipts relatedto overnight tourism also include receipts related to same-day tourism Cruise revenue on theother hand is expected to be underestimated as it takes into account only the part earned bythe cruise operator and does not include additional touristsrsquo expenses for example for on-landactivities and shopping which are not controlled by the cruise operator

3 See the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO wwwonecaribbeanorg) for additional informa-tion on cruise tourism in the Caribbean (CTO 2003) For a previous review of data on cruisearrivals in the Americas see Bar-On 2001

4 See the Website of the US Department of Commerce International Trade Administration (ITA)Office of Travel and Tourism Industries (OTTI ) at wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2001-07-001indexhtml and wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2000-07-001indexhtml

References

Information on the various WTO publications listed can be found in the Infoshop on the WTO Website atwwwworld-tourismorginfoshop

Bar-On RR (2001) lsquoDatabank ndash The Americas Part 1rsquo Tourism Economics Vol 7 No 4 pp 413ndash428

CTO Caribbean Tourism Statistical Report 2001ndash2002 Caribbean Tourism Organization Barbados(annual publication ndash 2003 edition used here)

WTO (2001a) Tourism Market Trends 2001 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid (seeWTO (2002) for structure of the series)

WTO (2001b) Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of Market Segments World TourismOrganization Madrid (available in English French and Spanish)

WTO (2002) Tourism Market Trends 2002 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid A seriesof 6 volumes published in English and partly in French and Spanish consisting of Tourism MarketTrends 2002 Edition World Overview and Tourism Topics (also in French and Spanish) Tourism

343Databank

Table 3b Overview of cruise operators fleet and capacityorder book

Source own compilation based on Manuel Butlerrsquos work for WTO

TOURISM ECONOMICS344

an average age of 56 years and over 2000 berths per vessel Each of thesegroups is the result of a process of horizontal concentration over the last decadeand markets a variety of cruise brands (In April 2003 the number of big groupswas reduced even further when Carnival Corporation and PampO Princess mergedforming a giant player that exceeds the combined share of the two other largegroups )

The remaining 24 of the berths on offer are operated by various smallercruise lines With the exception of Louis CruisesRoyal Olympic Cruises witha share if 56 none of the smaller companies exceeds 2 In the US andCanadian source markets several independent cruise lines concentrate on spe-ciality products (Disney for instance combines its theme parks with cruisesbased in Orlando ) These predominantly target the luxury end of the marketand represent around 5 of the world supply of berths The European marketis still rather fragmented with many smaller companies active only within theirown national borders Most operate just one or a few ships in general consid-erably older and of lower capacity than their competitors in the big groupsTheir combined share of the supply of worldwide berths is 16 Independentcruise lines in the Asia and the Pacific region operating from Japan theRepublic of Korea India and Australia account for slightly over 3 of thesupply of berths

By destination region it can be observed that Europe is still largely a playingfield for independent operators (Figure 3 ) Carnival is the market leader in boththe Caribbean and Alaska and is the only one of the Big Four that has asubstantial share in Europe PampO has a modest presence in all regions but itsspeciality is Alaska where its share almost equals that of Carnival With abouta quarter of the berths on offer Royal Caribbean is the second largest operatorin the Caribbean and the third in Alaska Star Cruises has a clear hegemonyin the Far East but only minor shares in the other regions Except for theirlarge share in Europe smaller independent operators account for a little morethan one-fifth in both the Caribbean and the Far East while in Alaska theyrepresent only 3

Cruise capacity has risen substantially over time and there are not as yet signsof an end to the expansion The number of berths on offer increased from 45000in 1980 to 93000 in 1990 and to 213000 in 2002 corresponding to anaverage annual growth rate of 75 between 1980 and 1990 and 71 between1990 and 2002 This rate is expected to continue for at least the coming yearsas the order book already contains 37 new cruise ships with almost 80000additional berths for the period to 2006 The actual growth rate can of coursevary as older vessels can be withdrawn and orders can be delayed or cancelleddepending on market circumstances Nevertheless the potential for growth isconsidered to be substantial with demand sometimes currently exceedingsupply Cruise operators in particular the big groups in general enjoy very highoccupancy rates ndash typically of 90ndash100 The tourist cruise product is not yetconsidered to have entered its maturity phase not even in the more developedUS source market Hence additional capacity is expected to be easily absorbedby the market As the big groups are expanding more rapidly than theirindependent competitors concentration in the sector will continue to increaseeven without further mergers and acquisitions

345Databank

Destinations visited (Table 4 )

In most cruise trips passengers travel to a base port to embark on a vessel thatsails to a number of destinations calling at ports where they can disembark tovisit land-based sites The number of ports visited during a trip depends onthe itinerary In many itineraries ships call at a different port every day whilein others they sail on the sea without calling at a port or stay in a port forseveral days Cruise trips can start and finish in the same base port but mayalso have two different base ports

Table 4 Arrivals of cruise passengers (for countries and territories reporting thistype of data)

continued

TOURISM ECONOMICS346

Table 4 continued

Data as collected by WTO August 2003

Source World Tourism Organization (WTO) copy

For destinations visited cruises constitute a relevant primary or additionalsource of tourism receipts On one hand there is the revenue from the portservices supplied generally depending on ship tonnage and number of pas-sengers and paid for by the cruise operators Depending on the size and type

347Databank

of port services and supplies such as provisions fuel maintenance and repairsalso add to the benefits to a greater or lesser extent On the other handdestinations receive revenue from the on-land tourism consumption generatedby passengers and crew related to activities such as sightseeing tours shop-ping eating and drinking etc According to data on the on-land activitiesof US and Canadian cruise passengers over 80 participate in panoramicvisits shopping and sightseeing 50ndash80 participate in excursions culturalvisits beach activities and gastronomy and about 10 engage in tennis andgolf Although most cruise packages are based on full-board it is surprisingto note that over half of cruise passengers nevertheless visit restaurants at thedestination Average on-land expenditure in various Caribbean destinationsranged from US$15 to US$270 per passenger in 2001 (CTO 2003 p 100 )with shopping constituting an important variable Compared to overnighttourism receipts from cruise tourism will be generally lower but theinvestment needed is also more modest An adequate port infrastructure isof course an absolute prerequisite but it is not necessary to invest as heavilyin for instance (air ) transport infrastructure or accommodation For base portsthe situation is different as a comparatively sophisticated infrastructure isneeded to accommodate air arrivals and overnight stays in hotels before orafter the cruise Furthermore the majority of the ship services will generallytake place at the base port Accordingly the economic impact will also begreater

According to the UNWTO Recommendations on Tourism Statistics for thedestinations visited cruise passengers (who arrive in a country on board shipand return to the ship each night to sleep on board even if the ship remainsin port for several days ) are considered as a specific category of internationalsame-day visitors As they do not strictly spend the night in a collective orprivate accommodation in the country visited from the statistical point of viewthey are not included in the category of tourists (overnight visitors ) For baseports the situation is generally more complicated because cruise participantsmay stay overnight in a hotel before or after the trip and should thus be countedas tourists Also in most cases some passengers will not be internationalvisitors but will originate from the domestic market

Table 4 provides an overview of the number of international cruise passengersas reported by the various destination countries This data series is regularlyincluded in the WTO Compendium of Tourism Statistics as well as in the countryprofile tables in the regional volumes of the WTO Tourism Market Trends series(since the 2002 edition ) In analysing this information notice should be takenof the fact that it reflects only data for countries providing this series Coverageis currently rather limited with many major cruise destinations not reporting(including among others the USA the UK Italy Spain France Egypt theRepublic of Korea and Japan) Furthermore data may partly relate to rivercruises and some countries include yacht passengers andor leisure visits offoreign navies Visits to two ports in a destination country are often recordedas one arrival (for example in the Bahamas )

As may be expected many of the destinations in the Americas in particularin the Caribbean record substantial numbers of cruise passengers3 Five des-tinations reported over a million arrivals each in 2001 Mexico with 38 million(both to the Caribbean coast with Cozumel as the most important port and

TOURISM ECONOMICS348

to the Mexican west coast ) the Bahamas with 26 million the US Virgin Islandswith 19 million Puerto Rico with 14 million (with the port of San Juan notonly serving as destination port but also as a major base port for itineraries inthe southern part of the Caribbean ) and the Cayman Islands with 12 millionThe ratio of cruise passengers to tourists staying overnight ranges up to 36times as many cruise passengers Cruise passengers exceed the number oftourists by two to one in the Cayman Islands Dominica Haiti Saint LuciaSaint Kitts and Nevis Saint Maarten Saint Vincent and the Grenadines andthe US Virgin Islands Many destinations recorded double-digit growth ratesbetween 1990 and 2001 tripling or quadrupling passenger numbers Thestrongest growers receiving over 100000 passengers a year have been Domi-nica (36 a year between 1990 and 2001 to 208000 from a low base ) SaintKitts and Nevis (20 a year to 255000 ) Saint Lucia (15 a year to 490000 )Haiti (15 a year to 357000 ) Mexico (14 a year ) the Dominican Republic(14 a year to 211000 ) Aruba (13 a year to 487000 ) Costa Rica (12a year to 189000 ) and the Cayman Islands (12 a year )

Cruise data on the USA is unfortunately scarce and far from homogeneousAccording to the Survey of International Air Travelers (IFS ) some 6ndash7 ofoverseas travellers to the USA indicated cruise as an activity in 2000ndash01corresponding to roughly 15 million travellers4 Furthermore it can be expectedthat the majority of the 69 million cruise passengers from North America in2000 (Table 2 ) of which some 300000 were from Canada visited one or moreAmerican ports during their trip Florida is home to the four main cruise portsserving as a base for the Caribbean Miami is the worldrsquos most important cruisebase port (34 million passengers in 2000 ) Port Everglades (27 million pas-sengers in 2000 ) Port Canaveral and Tampa Galveston (Texas ) and NewOrleans (Louisiana ) are also used as base ports for the Caribbean while KeyWest is included as destination port in a number of itineraries On the EastCoast more Northern ports such as New York are gaining in importance TheWest Coast ports of Los Angeles Long Beach San Diego Seattle Anchorageand Seward (Alaska) serve as base ports (starting andor ending ) for trips thatinclude the pacific coast of Mexico (with Ensenada Cabo San Lucas PuertoVallarta and Mazatlan as the most important ports ) Canada and Alaska (withJuneau Ketchikan Skagway Glacier Bay Sitka Hubbard Glacier and CollegeFjord as the most important ports ) However the major base port for Alaskais the Canadian port of Vancouver Canada (both Atlantic and Pacific coasts )reported 636000 cruise passengers in 2000 The major base port on Hawaiiis Honolulu used either for round trips or as the start or finish port for tripsto or from ports on the American Pacific coast including Ensenada and Van-couver

For destinations outside the Americas it is even more difficult to get a properpicture of the number of cruise passengers The various Mediterranean countriesthat reported data for 2001 generally showed substantially lower numbers thanthe Caribbean destinations Greece 621000 Malta 259000 (an average growthof 17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Morocco 207000 Tunisia 276000(17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Portugal 169000 (mainly to theAtlantic ports of Lisbon and Madeira ) Cyprus 106000 and Israel 23000 (but255000 in 2000 ) Spain Italy and France did not report but port data for 2001from the Association of Mediterranean Cruise Ports Medcruise show the

349Databank

following numbers of cruise passenger movements for Spain Barcelona 655000Palma de Mallorca 531000 Malaga 128000 for Italy Venice 526000 Genoa471000 Naples 470000 Civitavecchia 392000 (2000 ) Livorno 264000Palermo 181000 Messina 126000 (2000 ) Savona 120000 (2000 ) and forFrance Nice-Villefranche 251000 Marseille 165000 (2000 ) Ajaccio 117000(2000 ) Cannes 99000 Port data for Egypt indicate for Port Said 438000cruise passengers and for Alexandria 93000 Outside the Mediterranean it isworth noting the 840000 cruise passengers attracted by the fjords of NorwayAsian destinations that provide data show rather low figures as none of themajor cruise countries is included (Singapore Japan Republic of Korea ChinaThailand Malaysia Australia etc ) Vietnam reported 285000 cruise arrivalsbut it does not make a distinction between cruise passengers and tourist arrivalsby sea

Endnotes

1 For the index and further information see wwwworld-tourismorgcgi-bininfoshopstorefrontENproduct1296-1 WTO also gives information on cruise tourism in the World Overview ampTourism Topics volume of Tourism Market Trends Edition 2001 (WTO 2001a) as well as in theregional volumes of Tourism Market Trends Eidtion 2002 (WT ) 2002) See furthermore section48 of WTOrsquos long-term forecast Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of MarketSegments Volume 7 WTO (2001b)

2 With regard to these figures it should be taken into account that the average receipt per touristarrival is only a rough approximation obtained by the simple division of the total internationaltourism receipts by the number of international tourist arrivals The average obtained in thisway will always be overestimated as international tourism receipts except for receipts relatedto overnight tourism also include receipts related to same-day tourism Cruise revenue on theother hand is expected to be underestimated as it takes into account only the part earned bythe cruise operator and does not include additional touristsrsquo expenses for example for on-landactivities and shopping which are not controlled by the cruise operator

3 See the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO wwwonecaribbeanorg) for additional informa-tion on cruise tourism in the Caribbean (CTO 2003) For a previous review of data on cruisearrivals in the Americas see Bar-On 2001

4 See the Website of the US Department of Commerce International Trade Administration (ITA)Office of Travel and Tourism Industries (OTTI ) at wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2001-07-001indexhtml and wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2000-07-001indexhtml

References

Information on the various WTO publications listed can be found in the Infoshop on the WTO Website atwwwworld-tourismorginfoshop

Bar-On RR (2001) lsquoDatabank ndash The Americas Part 1rsquo Tourism Economics Vol 7 No 4 pp 413ndash428

CTO Caribbean Tourism Statistical Report 2001ndash2002 Caribbean Tourism Organization Barbados(annual publication ndash 2003 edition used here)

WTO (2001a) Tourism Market Trends 2001 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid (seeWTO (2002) for structure of the series)

WTO (2001b) Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of Market Segments World TourismOrganization Madrid (available in English French and Spanish)

WTO (2002) Tourism Market Trends 2002 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid A seriesof 6 volumes published in English and partly in French and Spanish consisting of Tourism MarketTrends 2002 Edition World Overview and Tourism Topics (also in French and Spanish) Tourism

TOURISM ECONOMICS344

an average age of 56 years and over 2000 berths per vessel Each of thesegroups is the result of a process of horizontal concentration over the last decadeand markets a variety of cruise brands (In April 2003 the number of big groupswas reduced even further when Carnival Corporation and PampO Princess mergedforming a giant player that exceeds the combined share of the two other largegroups )

The remaining 24 of the berths on offer are operated by various smallercruise lines With the exception of Louis CruisesRoyal Olympic Cruises witha share if 56 none of the smaller companies exceeds 2 In the US andCanadian source markets several independent cruise lines concentrate on spe-ciality products (Disney for instance combines its theme parks with cruisesbased in Orlando ) These predominantly target the luxury end of the marketand represent around 5 of the world supply of berths The European marketis still rather fragmented with many smaller companies active only within theirown national borders Most operate just one or a few ships in general consid-erably older and of lower capacity than their competitors in the big groupsTheir combined share of the supply of worldwide berths is 16 Independentcruise lines in the Asia and the Pacific region operating from Japan theRepublic of Korea India and Australia account for slightly over 3 of thesupply of berths

By destination region it can be observed that Europe is still largely a playingfield for independent operators (Figure 3 ) Carnival is the market leader in boththe Caribbean and Alaska and is the only one of the Big Four that has asubstantial share in Europe PampO has a modest presence in all regions but itsspeciality is Alaska where its share almost equals that of Carnival With abouta quarter of the berths on offer Royal Caribbean is the second largest operatorin the Caribbean and the third in Alaska Star Cruises has a clear hegemonyin the Far East but only minor shares in the other regions Except for theirlarge share in Europe smaller independent operators account for a little morethan one-fifth in both the Caribbean and the Far East while in Alaska theyrepresent only 3

Cruise capacity has risen substantially over time and there are not as yet signsof an end to the expansion The number of berths on offer increased from 45000in 1980 to 93000 in 1990 and to 213000 in 2002 corresponding to anaverage annual growth rate of 75 between 1980 and 1990 and 71 between1990 and 2002 This rate is expected to continue for at least the coming yearsas the order book already contains 37 new cruise ships with almost 80000additional berths for the period to 2006 The actual growth rate can of coursevary as older vessels can be withdrawn and orders can be delayed or cancelleddepending on market circumstances Nevertheless the potential for growth isconsidered to be substantial with demand sometimes currently exceedingsupply Cruise operators in particular the big groups in general enjoy very highoccupancy rates ndash typically of 90ndash100 The tourist cruise product is not yetconsidered to have entered its maturity phase not even in the more developedUS source market Hence additional capacity is expected to be easily absorbedby the market As the big groups are expanding more rapidly than theirindependent competitors concentration in the sector will continue to increaseeven without further mergers and acquisitions

345Databank

Destinations visited (Table 4 )

In most cruise trips passengers travel to a base port to embark on a vessel thatsails to a number of destinations calling at ports where they can disembark tovisit land-based sites The number of ports visited during a trip depends onthe itinerary In many itineraries ships call at a different port every day whilein others they sail on the sea without calling at a port or stay in a port forseveral days Cruise trips can start and finish in the same base port but mayalso have two different base ports

Table 4 Arrivals of cruise passengers (for countries and territories reporting thistype of data)

continued

TOURISM ECONOMICS346

Table 4 continued

Data as collected by WTO August 2003

Source World Tourism Organization (WTO) copy

For destinations visited cruises constitute a relevant primary or additionalsource of tourism receipts On one hand there is the revenue from the portservices supplied generally depending on ship tonnage and number of pas-sengers and paid for by the cruise operators Depending on the size and type

347Databank

of port services and supplies such as provisions fuel maintenance and repairsalso add to the benefits to a greater or lesser extent On the other handdestinations receive revenue from the on-land tourism consumption generatedby passengers and crew related to activities such as sightseeing tours shop-ping eating and drinking etc According to data on the on-land activitiesof US and Canadian cruise passengers over 80 participate in panoramicvisits shopping and sightseeing 50ndash80 participate in excursions culturalvisits beach activities and gastronomy and about 10 engage in tennis andgolf Although most cruise packages are based on full-board it is surprisingto note that over half of cruise passengers nevertheless visit restaurants at thedestination Average on-land expenditure in various Caribbean destinationsranged from US$15 to US$270 per passenger in 2001 (CTO 2003 p 100 )with shopping constituting an important variable Compared to overnighttourism receipts from cruise tourism will be generally lower but theinvestment needed is also more modest An adequate port infrastructure isof course an absolute prerequisite but it is not necessary to invest as heavilyin for instance (air ) transport infrastructure or accommodation For base portsthe situation is different as a comparatively sophisticated infrastructure isneeded to accommodate air arrivals and overnight stays in hotels before orafter the cruise Furthermore the majority of the ship services will generallytake place at the base port Accordingly the economic impact will also begreater

According to the UNWTO Recommendations on Tourism Statistics for thedestinations visited cruise passengers (who arrive in a country on board shipand return to the ship each night to sleep on board even if the ship remainsin port for several days ) are considered as a specific category of internationalsame-day visitors As they do not strictly spend the night in a collective orprivate accommodation in the country visited from the statistical point of viewthey are not included in the category of tourists (overnight visitors ) For baseports the situation is generally more complicated because cruise participantsmay stay overnight in a hotel before or after the trip and should thus be countedas tourists Also in most cases some passengers will not be internationalvisitors but will originate from the domestic market

Table 4 provides an overview of the number of international cruise passengersas reported by the various destination countries This data series is regularlyincluded in the WTO Compendium of Tourism Statistics as well as in the countryprofile tables in the regional volumes of the WTO Tourism Market Trends series(since the 2002 edition ) In analysing this information notice should be takenof the fact that it reflects only data for countries providing this series Coverageis currently rather limited with many major cruise destinations not reporting(including among others the USA the UK Italy Spain France Egypt theRepublic of Korea and Japan) Furthermore data may partly relate to rivercruises and some countries include yacht passengers andor leisure visits offoreign navies Visits to two ports in a destination country are often recordedas one arrival (for example in the Bahamas )

As may be expected many of the destinations in the Americas in particularin the Caribbean record substantial numbers of cruise passengers3 Five des-tinations reported over a million arrivals each in 2001 Mexico with 38 million(both to the Caribbean coast with Cozumel as the most important port and

TOURISM ECONOMICS348

to the Mexican west coast ) the Bahamas with 26 million the US Virgin Islandswith 19 million Puerto Rico with 14 million (with the port of San Juan notonly serving as destination port but also as a major base port for itineraries inthe southern part of the Caribbean ) and the Cayman Islands with 12 millionThe ratio of cruise passengers to tourists staying overnight ranges up to 36times as many cruise passengers Cruise passengers exceed the number oftourists by two to one in the Cayman Islands Dominica Haiti Saint LuciaSaint Kitts and Nevis Saint Maarten Saint Vincent and the Grenadines andthe US Virgin Islands Many destinations recorded double-digit growth ratesbetween 1990 and 2001 tripling or quadrupling passenger numbers Thestrongest growers receiving over 100000 passengers a year have been Domi-nica (36 a year between 1990 and 2001 to 208000 from a low base ) SaintKitts and Nevis (20 a year to 255000 ) Saint Lucia (15 a year to 490000 )Haiti (15 a year to 357000 ) Mexico (14 a year ) the Dominican Republic(14 a year to 211000 ) Aruba (13 a year to 487000 ) Costa Rica (12a year to 189000 ) and the Cayman Islands (12 a year )

Cruise data on the USA is unfortunately scarce and far from homogeneousAccording to the Survey of International Air Travelers (IFS ) some 6ndash7 ofoverseas travellers to the USA indicated cruise as an activity in 2000ndash01corresponding to roughly 15 million travellers4 Furthermore it can be expectedthat the majority of the 69 million cruise passengers from North America in2000 (Table 2 ) of which some 300000 were from Canada visited one or moreAmerican ports during their trip Florida is home to the four main cruise portsserving as a base for the Caribbean Miami is the worldrsquos most important cruisebase port (34 million passengers in 2000 ) Port Everglades (27 million pas-sengers in 2000 ) Port Canaveral and Tampa Galveston (Texas ) and NewOrleans (Louisiana ) are also used as base ports for the Caribbean while KeyWest is included as destination port in a number of itineraries On the EastCoast more Northern ports such as New York are gaining in importance TheWest Coast ports of Los Angeles Long Beach San Diego Seattle Anchorageand Seward (Alaska) serve as base ports (starting andor ending ) for trips thatinclude the pacific coast of Mexico (with Ensenada Cabo San Lucas PuertoVallarta and Mazatlan as the most important ports ) Canada and Alaska (withJuneau Ketchikan Skagway Glacier Bay Sitka Hubbard Glacier and CollegeFjord as the most important ports ) However the major base port for Alaskais the Canadian port of Vancouver Canada (both Atlantic and Pacific coasts )reported 636000 cruise passengers in 2000 The major base port on Hawaiiis Honolulu used either for round trips or as the start or finish port for tripsto or from ports on the American Pacific coast including Ensenada and Van-couver

For destinations outside the Americas it is even more difficult to get a properpicture of the number of cruise passengers The various Mediterranean countriesthat reported data for 2001 generally showed substantially lower numbers thanthe Caribbean destinations Greece 621000 Malta 259000 (an average growthof 17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Morocco 207000 Tunisia 276000(17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Portugal 169000 (mainly to theAtlantic ports of Lisbon and Madeira ) Cyprus 106000 and Israel 23000 (but255000 in 2000 ) Spain Italy and France did not report but port data for 2001from the Association of Mediterranean Cruise Ports Medcruise show the

349Databank

following numbers of cruise passenger movements for Spain Barcelona 655000Palma de Mallorca 531000 Malaga 128000 for Italy Venice 526000 Genoa471000 Naples 470000 Civitavecchia 392000 (2000 ) Livorno 264000Palermo 181000 Messina 126000 (2000 ) Savona 120000 (2000 ) and forFrance Nice-Villefranche 251000 Marseille 165000 (2000 ) Ajaccio 117000(2000 ) Cannes 99000 Port data for Egypt indicate for Port Said 438000cruise passengers and for Alexandria 93000 Outside the Mediterranean it isworth noting the 840000 cruise passengers attracted by the fjords of NorwayAsian destinations that provide data show rather low figures as none of themajor cruise countries is included (Singapore Japan Republic of Korea ChinaThailand Malaysia Australia etc ) Vietnam reported 285000 cruise arrivalsbut it does not make a distinction between cruise passengers and tourist arrivalsby sea

Endnotes

1 For the index and further information see wwwworld-tourismorgcgi-bininfoshopstorefrontENproduct1296-1 WTO also gives information on cruise tourism in the World Overview ampTourism Topics volume of Tourism Market Trends Edition 2001 (WTO 2001a) as well as in theregional volumes of Tourism Market Trends Eidtion 2002 (WT ) 2002) See furthermore section48 of WTOrsquos long-term forecast Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of MarketSegments Volume 7 WTO (2001b)

2 With regard to these figures it should be taken into account that the average receipt per touristarrival is only a rough approximation obtained by the simple division of the total internationaltourism receipts by the number of international tourist arrivals The average obtained in thisway will always be overestimated as international tourism receipts except for receipts relatedto overnight tourism also include receipts related to same-day tourism Cruise revenue on theother hand is expected to be underestimated as it takes into account only the part earned bythe cruise operator and does not include additional touristsrsquo expenses for example for on-landactivities and shopping which are not controlled by the cruise operator

3 See the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO wwwonecaribbeanorg) for additional informa-tion on cruise tourism in the Caribbean (CTO 2003) For a previous review of data on cruisearrivals in the Americas see Bar-On 2001

4 See the Website of the US Department of Commerce International Trade Administration (ITA)Office of Travel and Tourism Industries (OTTI ) at wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2001-07-001indexhtml and wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2000-07-001indexhtml

References

Information on the various WTO publications listed can be found in the Infoshop on the WTO Website atwwwworld-tourismorginfoshop

Bar-On RR (2001) lsquoDatabank ndash The Americas Part 1rsquo Tourism Economics Vol 7 No 4 pp 413ndash428

CTO Caribbean Tourism Statistical Report 2001ndash2002 Caribbean Tourism Organization Barbados(annual publication ndash 2003 edition used here)

WTO (2001a) Tourism Market Trends 2001 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid (seeWTO (2002) for structure of the series)

WTO (2001b) Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of Market Segments World TourismOrganization Madrid (available in English French and Spanish)

WTO (2002) Tourism Market Trends 2002 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid A seriesof 6 volumes published in English and partly in French and Spanish consisting of Tourism MarketTrends 2002 Edition World Overview and Tourism Topics (also in French and Spanish) Tourism

345Databank

Destinations visited (Table 4 )

In most cruise trips passengers travel to a base port to embark on a vessel thatsails to a number of destinations calling at ports where they can disembark tovisit land-based sites The number of ports visited during a trip depends onthe itinerary In many itineraries ships call at a different port every day whilein others they sail on the sea without calling at a port or stay in a port forseveral days Cruise trips can start and finish in the same base port but mayalso have two different base ports

Table 4 Arrivals of cruise passengers (for countries and territories reporting thistype of data)

continued

TOURISM ECONOMICS346

Table 4 continued

Data as collected by WTO August 2003

Source World Tourism Organization (WTO) copy

For destinations visited cruises constitute a relevant primary or additionalsource of tourism receipts On one hand there is the revenue from the portservices supplied generally depending on ship tonnage and number of pas-sengers and paid for by the cruise operators Depending on the size and type

347Databank

of port services and supplies such as provisions fuel maintenance and repairsalso add to the benefits to a greater or lesser extent On the other handdestinations receive revenue from the on-land tourism consumption generatedby passengers and crew related to activities such as sightseeing tours shop-ping eating and drinking etc According to data on the on-land activitiesof US and Canadian cruise passengers over 80 participate in panoramicvisits shopping and sightseeing 50ndash80 participate in excursions culturalvisits beach activities and gastronomy and about 10 engage in tennis andgolf Although most cruise packages are based on full-board it is surprisingto note that over half of cruise passengers nevertheless visit restaurants at thedestination Average on-land expenditure in various Caribbean destinationsranged from US$15 to US$270 per passenger in 2001 (CTO 2003 p 100 )with shopping constituting an important variable Compared to overnighttourism receipts from cruise tourism will be generally lower but theinvestment needed is also more modest An adequate port infrastructure isof course an absolute prerequisite but it is not necessary to invest as heavilyin for instance (air ) transport infrastructure or accommodation For base portsthe situation is different as a comparatively sophisticated infrastructure isneeded to accommodate air arrivals and overnight stays in hotels before orafter the cruise Furthermore the majority of the ship services will generallytake place at the base port Accordingly the economic impact will also begreater

According to the UNWTO Recommendations on Tourism Statistics for thedestinations visited cruise passengers (who arrive in a country on board shipand return to the ship each night to sleep on board even if the ship remainsin port for several days ) are considered as a specific category of internationalsame-day visitors As they do not strictly spend the night in a collective orprivate accommodation in the country visited from the statistical point of viewthey are not included in the category of tourists (overnight visitors ) For baseports the situation is generally more complicated because cruise participantsmay stay overnight in a hotel before or after the trip and should thus be countedas tourists Also in most cases some passengers will not be internationalvisitors but will originate from the domestic market

Table 4 provides an overview of the number of international cruise passengersas reported by the various destination countries This data series is regularlyincluded in the WTO Compendium of Tourism Statistics as well as in the countryprofile tables in the regional volumes of the WTO Tourism Market Trends series(since the 2002 edition ) In analysing this information notice should be takenof the fact that it reflects only data for countries providing this series Coverageis currently rather limited with many major cruise destinations not reporting(including among others the USA the UK Italy Spain France Egypt theRepublic of Korea and Japan) Furthermore data may partly relate to rivercruises and some countries include yacht passengers andor leisure visits offoreign navies Visits to two ports in a destination country are often recordedas one arrival (for example in the Bahamas )

As may be expected many of the destinations in the Americas in particularin the Caribbean record substantial numbers of cruise passengers3 Five des-tinations reported over a million arrivals each in 2001 Mexico with 38 million(both to the Caribbean coast with Cozumel as the most important port and

TOURISM ECONOMICS348

to the Mexican west coast ) the Bahamas with 26 million the US Virgin Islandswith 19 million Puerto Rico with 14 million (with the port of San Juan notonly serving as destination port but also as a major base port for itineraries inthe southern part of the Caribbean ) and the Cayman Islands with 12 millionThe ratio of cruise passengers to tourists staying overnight ranges up to 36times as many cruise passengers Cruise passengers exceed the number oftourists by two to one in the Cayman Islands Dominica Haiti Saint LuciaSaint Kitts and Nevis Saint Maarten Saint Vincent and the Grenadines andthe US Virgin Islands Many destinations recorded double-digit growth ratesbetween 1990 and 2001 tripling or quadrupling passenger numbers Thestrongest growers receiving over 100000 passengers a year have been Domi-nica (36 a year between 1990 and 2001 to 208000 from a low base ) SaintKitts and Nevis (20 a year to 255000 ) Saint Lucia (15 a year to 490000 )Haiti (15 a year to 357000 ) Mexico (14 a year ) the Dominican Republic(14 a year to 211000 ) Aruba (13 a year to 487000 ) Costa Rica (12a year to 189000 ) and the Cayman Islands (12 a year )

Cruise data on the USA is unfortunately scarce and far from homogeneousAccording to the Survey of International Air Travelers (IFS ) some 6ndash7 ofoverseas travellers to the USA indicated cruise as an activity in 2000ndash01corresponding to roughly 15 million travellers4 Furthermore it can be expectedthat the majority of the 69 million cruise passengers from North America in2000 (Table 2 ) of which some 300000 were from Canada visited one or moreAmerican ports during their trip Florida is home to the four main cruise portsserving as a base for the Caribbean Miami is the worldrsquos most important cruisebase port (34 million passengers in 2000 ) Port Everglades (27 million pas-sengers in 2000 ) Port Canaveral and Tampa Galveston (Texas ) and NewOrleans (Louisiana ) are also used as base ports for the Caribbean while KeyWest is included as destination port in a number of itineraries On the EastCoast more Northern ports such as New York are gaining in importance TheWest Coast ports of Los Angeles Long Beach San Diego Seattle Anchorageand Seward (Alaska) serve as base ports (starting andor ending ) for trips thatinclude the pacific coast of Mexico (with Ensenada Cabo San Lucas PuertoVallarta and Mazatlan as the most important ports ) Canada and Alaska (withJuneau Ketchikan Skagway Glacier Bay Sitka Hubbard Glacier and CollegeFjord as the most important ports ) However the major base port for Alaskais the Canadian port of Vancouver Canada (both Atlantic and Pacific coasts )reported 636000 cruise passengers in 2000 The major base port on Hawaiiis Honolulu used either for round trips or as the start or finish port for tripsto or from ports on the American Pacific coast including Ensenada and Van-couver

For destinations outside the Americas it is even more difficult to get a properpicture of the number of cruise passengers The various Mediterranean countriesthat reported data for 2001 generally showed substantially lower numbers thanthe Caribbean destinations Greece 621000 Malta 259000 (an average growthof 17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Morocco 207000 Tunisia 276000(17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Portugal 169000 (mainly to theAtlantic ports of Lisbon and Madeira ) Cyprus 106000 and Israel 23000 (but255000 in 2000 ) Spain Italy and France did not report but port data for 2001from the Association of Mediterranean Cruise Ports Medcruise show the

349Databank

following numbers of cruise passenger movements for Spain Barcelona 655000Palma de Mallorca 531000 Malaga 128000 for Italy Venice 526000 Genoa471000 Naples 470000 Civitavecchia 392000 (2000 ) Livorno 264000Palermo 181000 Messina 126000 (2000 ) Savona 120000 (2000 ) and forFrance Nice-Villefranche 251000 Marseille 165000 (2000 ) Ajaccio 117000(2000 ) Cannes 99000 Port data for Egypt indicate for Port Said 438000cruise passengers and for Alexandria 93000 Outside the Mediterranean it isworth noting the 840000 cruise passengers attracted by the fjords of NorwayAsian destinations that provide data show rather low figures as none of themajor cruise countries is included (Singapore Japan Republic of Korea ChinaThailand Malaysia Australia etc ) Vietnam reported 285000 cruise arrivalsbut it does not make a distinction between cruise passengers and tourist arrivalsby sea

Endnotes

1 For the index and further information see wwwworld-tourismorgcgi-bininfoshopstorefrontENproduct1296-1 WTO also gives information on cruise tourism in the World Overview ampTourism Topics volume of Tourism Market Trends Edition 2001 (WTO 2001a) as well as in theregional volumes of Tourism Market Trends Eidtion 2002 (WT ) 2002) See furthermore section48 of WTOrsquos long-term forecast Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of MarketSegments Volume 7 WTO (2001b)

2 With regard to these figures it should be taken into account that the average receipt per touristarrival is only a rough approximation obtained by the simple division of the total internationaltourism receipts by the number of international tourist arrivals The average obtained in thisway will always be overestimated as international tourism receipts except for receipts relatedto overnight tourism also include receipts related to same-day tourism Cruise revenue on theother hand is expected to be underestimated as it takes into account only the part earned bythe cruise operator and does not include additional touristsrsquo expenses for example for on-landactivities and shopping which are not controlled by the cruise operator

3 See the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO wwwonecaribbeanorg) for additional informa-tion on cruise tourism in the Caribbean (CTO 2003) For a previous review of data on cruisearrivals in the Americas see Bar-On 2001

4 See the Website of the US Department of Commerce International Trade Administration (ITA)Office of Travel and Tourism Industries (OTTI ) at wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2001-07-001indexhtml and wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2000-07-001indexhtml

References

Information on the various WTO publications listed can be found in the Infoshop on the WTO Website atwwwworld-tourismorginfoshop

Bar-On RR (2001) lsquoDatabank ndash The Americas Part 1rsquo Tourism Economics Vol 7 No 4 pp 413ndash428

CTO Caribbean Tourism Statistical Report 2001ndash2002 Caribbean Tourism Organization Barbados(annual publication ndash 2003 edition used here)

WTO (2001a) Tourism Market Trends 2001 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid (seeWTO (2002) for structure of the series)

WTO (2001b) Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of Market Segments World TourismOrganization Madrid (available in English French and Spanish)

WTO (2002) Tourism Market Trends 2002 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid A seriesof 6 volumes published in English and partly in French and Spanish consisting of Tourism MarketTrends 2002 Edition World Overview and Tourism Topics (also in French and Spanish) Tourism

TOURISM ECONOMICS346

Table 4 continued

Data as collected by WTO August 2003

Source World Tourism Organization (WTO) copy

For destinations visited cruises constitute a relevant primary or additionalsource of tourism receipts On one hand there is the revenue from the portservices supplied generally depending on ship tonnage and number of pas-sengers and paid for by the cruise operators Depending on the size and type

347Databank

of port services and supplies such as provisions fuel maintenance and repairsalso add to the benefits to a greater or lesser extent On the other handdestinations receive revenue from the on-land tourism consumption generatedby passengers and crew related to activities such as sightseeing tours shop-ping eating and drinking etc According to data on the on-land activitiesof US and Canadian cruise passengers over 80 participate in panoramicvisits shopping and sightseeing 50ndash80 participate in excursions culturalvisits beach activities and gastronomy and about 10 engage in tennis andgolf Although most cruise packages are based on full-board it is surprisingto note that over half of cruise passengers nevertheless visit restaurants at thedestination Average on-land expenditure in various Caribbean destinationsranged from US$15 to US$270 per passenger in 2001 (CTO 2003 p 100 )with shopping constituting an important variable Compared to overnighttourism receipts from cruise tourism will be generally lower but theinvestment needed is also more modest An adequate port infrastructure isof course an absolute prerequisite but it is not necessary to invest as heavilyin for instance (air ) transport infrastructure or accommodation For base portsthe situation is different as a comparatively sophisticated infrastructure isneeded to accommodate air arrivals and overnight stays in hotels before orafter the cruise Furthermore the majority of the ship services will generallytake place at the base port Accordingly the economic impact will also begreater

According to the UNWTO Recommendations on Tourism Statistics for thedestinations visited cruise passengers (who arrive in a country on board shipand return to the ship each night to sleep on board even if the ship remainsin port for several days ) are considered as a specific category of internationalsame-day visitors As they do not strictly spend the night in a collective orprivate accommodation in the country visited from the statistical point of viewthey are not included in the category of tourists (overnight visitors ) For baseports the situation is generally more complicated because cruise participantsmay stay overnight in a hotel before or after the trip and should thus be countedas tourists Also in most cases some passengers will not be internationalvisitors but will originate from the domestic market

Table 4 provides an overview of the number of international cruise passengersas reported by the various destination countries This data series is regularlyincluded in the WTO Compendium of Tourism Statistics as well as in the countryprofile tables in the regional volumes of the WTO Tourism Market Trends series(since the 2002 edition ) In analysing this information notice should be takenof the fact that it reflects only data for countries providing this series Coverageis currently rather limited with many major cruise destinations not reporting(including among others the USA the UK Italy Spain France Egypt theRepublic of Korea and Japan) Furthermore data may partly relate to rivercruises and some countries include yacht passengers andor leisure visits offoreign navies Visits to two ports in a destination country are often recordedas one arrival (for example in the Bahamas )

As may be expected many of the destinations in the Americas in particularin the Caribbean record substantial numbers of cruise passengers3 Five des-tinations reported over a million arrivals each in 2001 Mexico with 38 million(both to the Caribbean coast with Cozumel as the most important port and

TOURISM ECONOMICS348

to the Mexican west coast ) the Bahamas with 26 million the US Virgin Islandswith 19 million Puerto Rico with 14 million (with the port of San Juan notonly serving as destination port but also as a major base port for itineraries inthe southern part of the Caribbean ) and the Cayman Islands with 12 millionThe ratio of cruise passengers to tourists staying overnight ranges up to 36times as many cruise passengers Cruise passengers exceed the number oftourists by two to one in the Cayman Islands Dominica Haiti Saint LuciaSaint Kitts and Nevis Saint Maarten Saint Vincent and the Grenadines andthe US Virgin Islands Many destinations recorded double-digit growth ratesbetween 1990 and 2001 tripling or quadrupling passenger numbers Thestrongest growers receiving over 100000 passengers a year have been Domi-nica (36 a year between 1990 and 2001 to 208000 from a low base ) SaintKitts and Nevis (20 a year to 255000 ) Saint Lucia (15 a year to 490000 )Haiti (15 a year to 357000 ) Mexico (14 a year ) the Dominican Republic(14 a year to 211000 ) Aruba (13 a year to 487000 ) Costa Rica (12a year to 189000 ) and the Cayman Islands (12 a year )

Cruise data on the USA is unfortunately scarce and far from homogeneousAccording to the Survey of International Air Travelers (IFS ) some 6ndash7 ofoverseas travellers to the USA indicated cruise as an activity in 2000ndash01corresponding to roughly 15 million travellers4 Furthermore it can be expectedthat the majority of the 69 million cruise passengers from North America in2000 (Table 2 ) of which some 300000 were from Canada visited one or moreAmerican ports during their trip Florida is home to the four main cruise portsserving as a base for the Caribbean Miami is the worldrsquos most important cruisebase port (34 million passengers in 2000 ) Port Everglades (27 million pas-sengers in 2000 ) Port Canaveral and Tampa Galveston (Texas ) and NewOrleans (Louisiana ) are also used as base ports for the Caribbean while KeyWest is included as destination port in a number of itineraries On the EastCoast more Northern ports such as New York are gaining in importance TheWest Coast ports of Los Angeles Long Beach San Diego Seattle Anchorageand Seward (Alaska) serve as base ports (starting andor ending ) for trips thatinclude the pacific coast of Mexico (with Ensenada Cabo San Lucas PuertoVallarta and Mazatlan as the most important ports ) Canada and Alaska (withJuneau Ketchikan Skagway Glacier Bay Sitka Hubbard Glacier and CollegeFjord as the most important ports ) However the major base port for Alaskais the Canadian port of Vancouver Canada (both Atlantic and Pacific coasts )reported 636000 cruise passengers in 2000 The major base port on Hawaiiis Honolulu used either for round trips or as the start or finish port for tripsto or from ports on the American Pacific coast including Ensenada and Van-couver

For destinations outside the Americas it is even more difficult to get a properpicture of the number of cruise passengers The various Mediterranean countriesthat reported data for 2001 generally showed substantially lower numbers thanthe Caribbean destinations Greece 621000 Malta 259000 (an average growthof 17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Morocco 207000 Tunisia 276000(17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Portugal 169000 (mainly to theAtlantic ports of Lisbon and Madeira ) Cyprus 106000 and Israel 23000 (but255000 in 2000 ) Spain Italy and France did not report but port data for 2001from the Association of Mediterranean Cruise Ports Medcruise show the

349Databank

following numbers of cruise passenger movements for Spain Barcelona 655000Palma de Mallorca 531000 Malaga 128000 for Italy Venice 526000 Genoa471000 Naples 470000 Civitavecchia 392000 (2000 ) Livorno 264000Palermo 181000 Messina 126000 (2000 ) Savona 120000 (2000 ) and forFrance Nice-Villefranche 251000 Marseille 165000 (2000 ) Ajaccio 117000(2000 ) Cannes 99000 Port data for Egypt indicate for Port Said 438000cruise passengers and for Alexandria 93000 Outside the Mediterranean it isworth noting the 840000 cruise passengers attracted by the fjords of NorwayAsian destinations that provide data show rather low figures as none of themajor cruise countries is included (Singapore Japan Republic of Korea ChinaThailand Malaysia Australia etc ) Vietnam reported 285000 cruise arrivalsbut it does not make a distinction between cruise passengers and tourist arrivalsby sea

Endnotes

1 For the index and further information see wwwworld-tourismorgcgi-bininfoshopstorefrontENproduct1296-1 WTO also gives information on cruise tourism in the World Overview ampTourism Topics volume of Tourism Market Trends Edition 2001 (WTO 2001a) as well as in theregional volumes of Tourism Market Trends Eidtion 2002 (WT ) 2002) See furthermore section48 of WTOrsquos long-term forecast Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of MarketSegments Volume 7 WTO (2001b)

2 With regard to these figures it should be taken into account that the average receipt per touristarrival is only a rough approximation obtained by the simple division of the total internationaltourism receipts by the number of international tourist arrivals The average obtained in thisway will always be overestimated as international tourism receipts except for receipts relatedto overnight tourism also include receipts related to same-day tourism Cruise revenue on theother hand is expected to be underestimated as it takes into account only the part earned bythe cruise operator and does not include additional touristsrsquo expenses for example for on-landactivities and shopping which are not controlled by the cruise operator

3 See the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO wwwonecaribbeanorg) for additional informa-tion on cruise tourism in the Caribbean (CTO 2003) For a previous review of data on cruisearrivals in the Americas see Bar-On 2001

4 See the Website of the US Department of Commerce International Trade Administration (ITA)Office of Travel and Tourism Industries (OTTI ) at wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2001-07-001indexhtml and wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2000-07-001indexhtml

References

Information on the various WTO publications listed can be found in the Infoshop on the WTO Website atwwwworld-tourismorginfoshop

Bar-On RR (2001) lsquoDatabank ndash The Americas Part 1rsquo Tourism Economics Vol 7 No 4 pp 413ndash428

CTO Caribbean Tourism Statistical Report 2001ndash2002 Caribbean Tourism Organization Barbados(annual publication ndash 2003 edition used here)

WTO (2001a) Tourism Market Trends 2001 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid (seeWTO (2002) for structure of the series)

WTO (2001b) Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of Market Segments World TourismOrganization Madrid (available in English French and Spanish)

WTO (2002) Tourism Market Trends 2002 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid A seriesof 6 volumes published in English and partly in French and Spanish consisting of Tourism MarketTrends 2002 Edition World Overview and Tourism Topics (also in French and Spanish) Tourism

347Databank

of port services and supplies such as provisions fuel maintenance and repairsalso add to the benefits to a greater or lesser extent On the other handdestinations receive revenue from the on-land tourism consumption generatedby passengers and crew related to activities such as sightseeing tours shop-ping eating and drinking etc According to data on the on-land activitiesof US and Canadian cruise passengers over 80 participate in panoramicvisits shopping and sightseeing 50ndash80 participate in excursions culturalvisits beach activities and gastronomy and about 10 engage in tennis andgolf Although most cruise packages are based on full-board it is surprisingto note that over half of cruise passengers nevertheless visit restaurants at thedestination Average on-land expenditure in various Caribbean destinationsranged from US$15 to US$270 per passenger in 2001 (CTO 2003 p 100 )with shopping constituting an important variable Compared to overnighttourism receipts from cruise tourism will be generally lower but theinvestment needed is also more modest An adequate port infrastructure isof course an absolute prerequisite but it is not necessary to invest as heavilyin for instance (air ) transport infrastructure or accommodation For base portsthe situation is different as a comparatively sophisticated infrastructure isneeded to accommodate air arrivals and overnight stays in hotels before orafter the cruise Furthermore the majority of the ship services will generallytake place at the base port Accordingly the economic impact will also begreater

According to the UNWTO Recommendations on Tourism Statistics for thedestinations visited cruise passengers (who arrive in a country on board shipand return to the ship each night to sleep on board even if the ship remainsin port for several days ) are considered as a specific category of internationalsame-day visitors As they do not strictly spend the night in a collective orprivate accommodation in the country visited from the statistical point of viewthey are not included in the category of tourists (overnight visitors ) For baseports the situation is generally more complicated because cruise participantsmay stay overnight in a hotel before or after the trip and should thus be countedas tourists Also in most cases some passengers will not be internationalvisitors but will originate from the domestic market

Table 4 provides an overview of the number of international cruise passengersas reported by the various destination countries This data series is regularlyincluded in the WTO Compendium of Tourism Statistics as well as in the countryprofile tables in the regional volumes of the WTO Tourism Market Trends series(since the 2002 edition ) In analysing this information notice should be takenof the fact that it reflects only data for countries providing this series Coverageis currently rather limited with many major cruise destinations not reporting(including among others the USA the UK Italy Spain France Egypt theRepublic of Korea and Japan) Furthermore data may partly relate to rivercruises and some countries include yacht passengers andor leisure visits offoreign navies Visits to two ports in a destination country are often recordedas one arrival (for example in the Bahamas )

As may be expected many of the destinations in the Americas in particularin the Caribbean record substantial numbers of cruise passengers3 Five des-tinations reported over a million arrivals each in 2001 Mexico with 38 million(both to the Caribbean coast with Cozumel as the most important port and

TOURISM ECONOMICS348

to the Mexican west coast ) the Bahamas with 26 million the US Virgin Islandswith 19 million Puerto Rico with 14 million (with the port of San Juan notonly serving as destination port but also as a major base port for itineraries inthe southern part of the Caribbean ) and the Cayman Islands with 12 millionThe ratio of cruise passengers to tourists staying overnight ranges up to 36times as many cruise passengers Cruise passengers exceed the number oftourists by two to one in the Cayman Islands Dominica Haiti Saint LuciaSaint Kitts and Nevis Saint Maarten Saint Vincent and the Grenadines andthe US Virgin Islands Many destinations recorded double-digit growth ratesbetween 1990 and 2001 tripling or quadrupling passenger numbers Thestrongest growers receiving over 100000 passengers a year have been Domi-nica (36 a year between 1990 and 2001 to 208000 from a low base ) SaintKitts and Nevis (20 a year to 255000 ) Saint Lucia (15 a year to 490000 )Haiti (15 a year to 357000 ) Mexico (14 a year ) the Dominican Republic(14 a year to 211000 ) Aruba (13 a year to 487000 ) Costa Rica (12a year to 189000 ) and the Cayman Islands (12 a year )

Cruise data on the USA is unfortunately scarce and far from homogeneousAccording to the Survey of International Air Travelers (IFS ) some 6ndash7 ofoverseas travellers to the USA indicated cruise as an activity in 2000ndash01corresponding to roughly 15 million travellers4 Furthermore it can be expectedthat the majority of the 69 million cruise passengers from North America in2000 (Table 2 ) of which some 300000 were from Canada visited one or moreAmerican ports during their trip Florida is home to the four main cruise portsserving as a base for the Caribbean Miami is the worldrsquos most important cruisebase port (34 million passengers in 2000 ) Port Everglades (27 million pas-sengers in 2000 ) Port Canaveral and Tampa Galveston (Texas ) and NewOrleans (Louisiana ) are also used as base ports for the Caribbean while KeyWest is included as destination port in a number of itineraries On the EastCoast more Northern ports such as New York are gaining in importance TheWest Coast ports of Los Angeles Long Beach San Diego Seattle Anchorageand Seward (Alaska) serve as base ports (starting andor ending ) for trips thatinclude the pacific coast of Mexico (with Ensenada Cabo San Lucas PuertoVallarta and Mazatlan as the most important ports ) Canada and Alaska (withJuneau Ketchikan Skagway Glacier Bay Sitka Hubbard Glacier and CollegeFjord as the most important ports ) However the major base port for Alaskais the Canadian port of Vancouver Canada (both Atlantic and Pacific coasts )reported 636000 cruise passengers in 2000 The major base port on Hawaiiis Honolulu used either for round trips or as the start or finish port for tripsto or from ports on the American Pacific coast including Ensenada and Van-couver

For destinations outside the Americas it is even more difficult to get a properpicture of the number of cruise passengers The various Mediterranean countriesthat reported data for 2001 generally showed substantially lower numbers thanthe Caribbean destinations Greece 621000 Malta 259000 (an average growthof 17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Morocco 207000 Tunisia 276000(17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Portugal 169000 (mainly to theAtlantic ports of Lisbon and Madeira ) Cyprus 106000 and Israel 23000 (but255000 in 2000 ) Spain Italy and France did not report but port data for 2001from the Association of Mediterranean Cruise Ports Medcruise show the

349Databank

following numbers of cruise passenger movements for Spain Barcelona 655000Palma de Mallorca 531000 Malaga 128000 for Italy Venice 526000 Genoa471000 Naples 470000 Civitavecchia 392000 (2000 ) Livorno 264000Palermo 181000 Messina 126000 (2000 ) Savona 120000 (2000 ) and forFrance Nice-Villefranche 251000 Marseille 165000 (2000 ) Ajaccio 117000(2000 ) Cannes 99000 Port data for Egypt indicate for Port Said 438000cruise passengers and for Alexandria 93000 Outside the Mediterranean it isworth noting the 840000 cruise passengers attracted by the fjords of NorwayAsian destinations that provide data show rather low figures as none of themajor cruise countries is included (Singapore Japan Republic of Korea ChinaThailand Malaysia Australia etc ) Vietnam reported 285000 cruise arrivalsbut it does not make a distinction between cruise passengers and tourist arrivalsby sea

Endnotes

1 For the index and further information see wwwworld-tourismorgcgi-bininfoshopstorefrontENproduct1296-1 WTO also gives information on cruise tourism in the World Overview ampTourism Topics volume of Tourism Market Trends Edition 2001 (WTO 2001a) as well as in theregional volumes of Tourism Market Trends Eidtion 2002 (WT ) 2002) See furthermore section48 of WTOrsquos long-term forecast Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of MarketSegments Volume 7 WTO (2001b)

2 With regard to these figures it should be taken into account that the average receipt per touristarrival is only a rough approximation obtained by the simple division of the total internationaltourism receipts by the number of international tourist arrivals The average obtained in thisway will always be overestimated as international tourism receipts except for receipts relatedto overnight tourism also include receipts related to same-day tourism Cruise revenue on theother hand is expected to be underestimated as it takes into account only the part earned bythe cruise operator and does not include additional touristsrsquo expenses for example for on-landactivities and shopping which are not controlled by the cruise operator

3 See the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO wwwonecaribbeanorg) for additional informa-tion on cruise tourism in the Caribbean (CTO 2003) For a previous review of data on cruisearrivals in the Americas see Bar-On 2001

4 See the Website of the US Department of Commerce International Trade Administration (ITA)Office of Travel and Tourism Industries (OTTI ) at wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2001-07-001indexhtml and wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2000-07-001indexhtml

References

Information on the various WTO publications listed can be found in the Infoshop on the WTO Website atwwwworld-tourismorginfoshop

Bar-On RR (2001) lsquoDatabank ndash The Americas Part 1rsquo Tourism Economics Vol 7 No 4 pp 413ndash428

CTO Caribbean Tourism Statistical Report 2001ndash2002 Caribbean Tourism Organization Barbados(annual publication ndash 2003 edition used here)

WTO (2001a) Tourism Market Trends 2001 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid (seeWTO (2002) for structure of the series)

WTO (2001b) Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of Market Segments World TourismOrganization Madrid (available in English French and Spanish)

WTO (2002) Tourism Market Trends 2002 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid A seriesof 6 volumes published in English and partly in French and Spanish consisting of Tourism MarketTrends 2002 Edition World Overview and Tourism Topics (also in French and Spanish) Tourism

TOURISM ECONOMICS348

to the Mexican west coast ) the Bahamas with 26 million the US Virgin Islandswith 19 million Puerto Rico with 14 million (with the port of San Juan notonly serving as destination port but also as a major base port for itineraries inthe southern part of the Caribbean ) and the Cayman Islands with 12 millionThe ratio of cruise passengers to tourists staying overnight ranges up to 36times as many cruise passengers Cruise passengers exceed the number oftourists by two to one in the Cayman Islands Dominica Haiti Saint LuciaSaint Kitts and Nevis Saint Maarten Saint Vincent and the Grenadines andthe US Virgin Islands Many destinations recorded double-digit growth ratesbetween 1990 and 2001 tripling or quadrupling passenger numbers Thestrongest growers receiving over 100000 passengers a year have been Domi-nica (36 a year between 1990 and 2001 to 208000 from a low base ) SaintKitts and Nevis (20 a year to 255000 ) Saint Lucia (15 a year to 490000 )Haiti (15 a year to 357000 ) Mexico (14 a year ) the Dominican Republic(14 a year to 211000 ) Aruba (13 a year to 487000 ) Costa Rica (12a year to 189000 ) and the Cayman Islands (12 a year )

Cruise data on the USA is unfortunately scarce and far from homogeneousAccording to the Survey of International Air Travelers (IFS ) some 6ndash7 ofoverseas travellers to the USA indicated cruise as an activity in 2000ndash01corresponding to roughly 15 million travellers4 Furthermore it can be expectedthat the majority of the 69 million cruise passengers from North America in2000 (Table 2 ) of which some 300000 were from Canada visited one or moreAmerican ports during their trip Florida is home to the four main cruise portsserving as a base for the Caribbean Miami is the worldrsquos most important cruisebase port (34 million passengers in 2000 ) Port Everglades (27 million pas-sengers in 2000 ) Port Canaveral and Tampa Galveston (Texas ) and NewOrleans (Louisiana ) are also used as base ports for the Caribbean while KeyWest is included as destination port in a number of itineraries On the EastCoast more Northern ports such as New York are gaining in importance TheWest Coast ports of Los Angeles Long Beach San Diego Seattle Anchorageand Seward (Alaska) serve as base ports (starting andor ending ) for trips thatinclude the pacific coast of Mexico (with Ensenada Cabo San Lucas PuertoVallarta and Mazatlan as the most important ports ) Canada and Alaska (withJuneau Ketchikan Skagway Glacier Bay Sitka Hubbard Glacier and CollegeFjord as the most important ports ) However the major base port for Alaskais the Canadian port of Vancouver Canada (both Atlantic and Pacific coasts )reported 636000 cruise passengers in 2000 The major base port on Hawaiiis Honolulu used either for round trips or as the start or finish port for tripsto or from ports on the American Pacific coast including Ensenada and Van-couver

For destinations outside the Americas it is even more difficult to get a properpicture of the number of cruise passengers The various Mediterranean countriesthat reported data for 2001 generally showed substantially lower numbers thanthe Caribbean destinations Greece 621000 Malta 259000 (an average growthof 17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Morocco 207000 Tunisia 276000(17 a year between 1990 and 2001 ) Portugal 169000 (mainly to theAtlantic ports of Lisbon and Madeira ) Cyprus 106000 and Israel 23000 (but255000 in 2000 ) Spain Italy and France did not report but port data for 2001from the Association of Mediterranean Cruise Ports Medcruise show the

349Databank

following numbers of cruise passenger movements for Spain Barcelona 655000Palma de Mallorca 531000 Malaga 128000 for Italy Venice 526000 Genoa471000 Naples 470000 Civitavecchia 392000 (2000 ) Livorno 264000Palermo 181000 Messina 126000 (2000 ) Savona 120000 (2000 ) and forFrance Nice-Villefranche 251000 Marseille 165000 (2000 ) Ajaccio 117000(2000 ) Cannes 99000 Port data for Egypt indicate for Port Said 438000cruise passengers and for Alexandria 93000 Outside the Mediterranean it isworth noting the 840000 cruise passengers attracted by the fjords of NorwayAsian destinations that provide data show rather low figures as none of themajor cruise countries is included (Singapore Japan Republic of Korea ChinaThailand Malaysia Australia etc ) Vietnam reported 285000 cruise arrivalsbut it does not make a distinction between cruise passengers and tourist arrivalsby sea

Endnotes

1 For the index and further information see wwwworld-tourismorgcgi-bininfoshopstorefrontENproduct1296-1 WTO also gives information on cruise tourism in the World Overview ampTourism Topics volume of Tourism Market Trends Edition 2001 (WTO 2001a) as well as in theregional volumes of Tourism Market Trends Eidtion 2002 (WT ) 2002) See furthermore section48 of WTOrsquos long-term forecast Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of MarketSegments Volume 7 WTO (2001b)

2 With regard to these figures it should be taken into account that the average receipt per touristarrival is only a rough approximation obtained by the simple division of the total internationaltourism receipts by the number of international tourist arrivals The average obtained in thisway will always be overestimated as international tourism receipts except for receipts relatedto overnight tourism also include receipts related to same-day tourism Cruise revenue on theother hand is expected to be underestimated as it takes into account only the part earned bythe cruise operator and does not include additional touristsrsquo expenses for example for on-landactivities and shopping which are not controlled by the cruise operator

3 See the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO wwwonecaribbeanorg) for additional informa-tion on cruise tourism in the Caribbean (CTO 2003) For a previous review of data on cruisearrivals in the Americas see Bar-On 2001

4 See the Website of the US Department of Commerce International Trade Administration (ITA)Office of Travel and Tourism Industries (OTTI ) at wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2001-07-001indexhtml and wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2000-07-001indexhtml

References

Information on the various WTO publications listed can be found in the Infoshop on the WTO Website atwwwworld-tourismorginfoshop

Bar-On RR (2001) lsquoDatabank ndash The Americas Part 1rsquo Tourism Economics Vol 7 No 4 pp 413ndash428

CTO Caribbean Tourism Statistical Report 2001ndash2002 Caribbean Tourism Organization Barbados(annual publication ndash 2003 edition used here)

WTO (2001a) Tourism Market Trends 2001 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid (seeWTO (2002) for structure of the series)

WTO (2001b) Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of Market Segments World TourismOrganization Madrid (available in English French and Spanish)

WTO (2002) Tourism Market Trends 2002 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid A seriesof 6 volumes published in English and partly in French and Spanish consisting of Tourism MarketTrends 2002 Edition World Overview and Tourism Topics (also in French and Spanish) Tourism

349Databank

following numbers of cruise passenger movements for Spain Barcelona 655000Palma de Mallorca 531000 Malaga 128000 for Italy Venice 526000 Genoa471000 Naples 470000 Civitavecchia 392000 (2000 ) Livorno 264000Palermo 181000 Messina 126000 (2000 ) Savona 120000 (2000 ) and forFrance Nice-Villefranche 251000 Marseille 165000 (2000 ) Ajaccio 117000(2000 ) Cannes 99000 Port data for Egypt indicate for Port Said 438000cruise passengers and for Alexandria 93000 Outside the Mediterranean it isworth noting the 840000 cruise passengers attracted by the fjords of NorwayAsian destinations that provide data show rather low figures as none of themajor cruise countries is included (Singapore Japan Republic of Korea ChinaThailand Malaysia Australia etc ) Vietnam reported 285000 cruise arrivalsbut it does not make a distinction between cruise passengers and tourist arrivalsby sea

Endnotes

1 For the index and further information see wwwworld-tourismorgcgi-bininfoshopstorefrontENproduct1296-1 WTO also gives information on cruise tourism in the World Overview ampTourism Topics volume of Tourism Market Trends Edition 2001 (WTO 2001a) as well as in theregional volumes of Tourism Market Trends Eidtion 2002 (WT ) 2002) See furthermore section48 of WTOrsquos long-term forecast Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of MarketSegments Volume 7 WTO (2001b)

2 With regard to these figures it should be taken into account that the average receipt per touristarrival is only a rough approximation obtained by the simple division of the total internationaltourism receipts by the number of international tourist arrivals The average obtained in thisway will always be overestimated as international tourism receipts except for receipts relatedto overnight tourism also include receipts related to same-day tourism Cruise revenue on theother hand is expected to be underestimated as it takes into account only the part earned bythe cruise operator and does not include additional touristsrsquo expenses for example for on-landactivities and shopping which are not controlled by the cruise operator

3 See the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO wwwonecaribbeanorg) for additional informa-tion on cruise tourism in the Caribbean (CTO 2003) For a previous review of data on cruisearrivals in the Americas see Bar-On 2001

4 See the Website of the US Department of Commerce International Trade Administration (ITA)Office of Travel and Tourism Industries (OTTI ) at wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2001-07-001indexhtml and wwwtinetitadocgovviewf-2000-07-001indexhtml

References

Information on the various WTO publications listed can be found in the Infoshop on the WTO Website atwwwworld-tourismorginfoshop

Bar-On RR (2001) lsquoDatabank ndash The Americas Part 1rsquo Tourism Economics Vol 7 No 4 pp 413ndash428

CTO Caribbean Tourism Statistical Report 2001ndash2002 Caribbean Tourism Organization Barbados(annual publication ndash 2003 edition used here)

WTO (2001a) Tourism Market Trends 2001 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid (seeWTO (2002) for structure of the series)

WTO (2001b) Tourism 2020 Vision ndash Global Forecast and Profiles of Market Segments World TourismOrganization Madrid (available in English French and Spanish)

WTO (2002) Tourism Market Trends 2002 Edition World Tourism Organization Madrid A seriesof 6 volumes published in English and partly in French and Spanish consisting of Tourism MarketTrends 2002 Edition World Overview and Tourism Topics (also in French and Spanish) Tourism

TOURISM ECONOMICS350

Market Trends 2002 Edition Africa (also in French) Tourism Market Trends 2002 Edition Americas(also in Spanish) Tourism Market Trends 2002 Edition Asia and the Pacific Tourism Market Trends2002 Edition Europe (also in French) and Tourism Market Trends 2002 Edition Middle EastExcerpts from this series are included in Tourism Highlights 2002 (in English French and Spanish)downloadable from the lsquoFacts amp Figuresrsquo section on the WTO Website wwwworld-tourismorg

WTO (2003) Worldwide Cruise Ship Activity World Tourism Organization Madrid (available inEnglish French and Spanish)

WTO Compendium of Tourism Statistics annual World Tourism Organization MadridWTO Yearbook of Tourism Statistics annual World Tourism Organization Madrid