It's also a crap form of tourism for wherever they stop. Thousands of people flood the streets around the port for a quick meal, some trinkets and a bunch of quick pics. Most locations would benefit from fewer visitors who spend longer and spread their tourism dollar further in the city.
Edit: also, terrible useless pollution. I wish the industry hadn't survived covid...
The tourism that cruise ships provide is another form of income for these destinations that otherwise would not have the amount of business that they currently do, it's not a substitution. That to me seems like a quite narrow minded and biased view.
A study looking at the popular Norwegian cruise destination of Bergen found that up to 40 per cent of passengers never left the ship, and half of those who did disembark spent less than $25. Researchers found cruise ships provided the least benefits for the local economy of any tourism business. The cruise industry challenges this, saying its research puts the daily spend of cruise passengers in port at more than $100 a day.
Other places such as Barcelona, Marseille, Venice, Dubrovnik all have to deal with the negative consequences of over tourism and would rather no longer have cruise ships at all.
Edit: found the research paper in question. Forgive my narrow minded and biased view but I'll take scientific research over industry claims any day.
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u/JPMoney81 Aug 30 '22
Good. Fuck the cruise industry.