Cruise Tourism Essay

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Impact of Cruise Tourism
The Caribbean tourism industry has faced a constant growth. In less than 50 years it has become one of the premier tourist attractions destinations on the planet. Tourism has therefore provided nearly two million jobs in the region. According to statistical data from the Caribbean Tourism and Organization (CTO) estimates the number of tourism destinations in the Caribbean region in 2003 to be around 17.1 million. Which is definitely a positive amount compared to the amount in 2001. The tourism industry faced a decline during the 9/11 terrorist attack, Iraqi war and the hurricanes in the region but faced an increasing growth again afterwards because of the Caribbean development Bank's economic review for 2005 further …show more content…

The main advantage is the improvement in infrastructure, public facilities, and the general increase in the government revenues through taxes. This is the positive economic impact of any tourist activity on the economy and the country as a whole. The case for cruise industry tourist is not extraordinary (Papathanassis, Lukovic, and Vogel, 2012).
Tourism is a factor that contributes to the improvement in the standards of living among the residents of the regions cited to be tourist destinations. Tourism leads to the creation of job opportunity, improvement in the level of development and infrastructural expense. Developed and developing countries where tourism activities are more pronounced is likely to rise due to a high level of employment. According to other studies by Sharma, the levels of benefits obtained in the two categories of countries vary (Dowling, 2006). The related opportunities and the positive impacts associated with tourism have persuaded cruise industry to increase their expenditures in order to boost the local economy. Opportunities presented by venturing into cruising are believed by many communities to be a way of solving economic problems. On the other hand, tourism has also contributed to negative economic impact to the residents in the Caribbean …show more content…

The size of the destinations is directly linked to the effects of cruise activities. Smaller host destinations are able to concentrate their services on luxurious vessels. Cruise ships are faced with competition from other forms of the tourism industry. Other industries that are directly linked with the tourist activities include the hotel and accommodation, which provides food and beverages, attractions and tour operators. The level of competition in these industries on the destination areas is intensified. It leads to a struggle for customers on land tourist, air and from cruise passengers. Cruise ships face a lot of competition majorly from land-based resorts. There is also the issue of changes in a season where some are characterized as peak and others depressions. The strangest thing in cruising industry is coming off the peak at the same time, which is possible within a port. In the case of Costa Rica, there is a direct competition due to the occurrence of peak season for both cruise tourism and other forms to obtain touristic goods. For cruise ships, they have a considerable advantage since they offer floating hotels and accommodation facilities to their passengers making the best substitute for air tourism. On the contrary, port hotels and accommodation are disadvantaged. This is because some of the passengers would prefer being in the ships other than the destination visited.
Cruise industries

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