Matthew Ross. Originally published in Spring 2018.

Aboard more than 200,000 gross tons of floating steel, thousands of passengers lounge in the sun, sip on martinis, and gorge themselves at all-you-can-eat buffets. These travelers are participating in one of the most popular new forms of vacationing, the so-called megaship: immense cruise liners with enough luxurious amenities, dining options, and invigorating activities to put even a five-star hotel to shame. Yet as the cruise industry embraces the over-the-top lavishness of the 21st century megaship, divisive new questions have surfaced, some of which threaten to undermine the industry’s rapid growth over the past decade.

According to a December 2017 report by Cruise Industry News (CIN), the cruise industry has placed a record-breaking number of vessels on order: 91 new cruise ships are set to be debuted between 2018 and 2026. CIN’s annual report additionally estimates that cruise ship vacations generated a whopping US$35.5 billion in revenue worldwide. The report identifies the expansion of the industry into regions including East Asia and the South Pacific as a primary driver of growth, resulting in more ships, more berths, and more customers than ever before.

But beyond new markets and new ships is a more important development: a new philosophy for success in an industry that has followed the same formula for decades. More than ever before, cruise ships are not merely a stylish way to travel from one exotic destination to another—the ships themselves have become the destination. Efforts by cruise corporations to transform their vessels into resort-quality attractions have now led to the implementation of new technologies as part of “smart ship” initiatives, as noted by the Chicago Tribune.

For example, in 2018 the Carnival Corporation will outfit all passengers with an electronic “medallion,” which will automatically open doors, display vacation photos, and provide a user interface from which passengers can order drinks or room service with a leisurely tap of the finger. The medallion runs on an operating system called Ocean Compass, which uses smart technology to determine a passenger’s preferences to suggest personally tailored onboard activities, even allowing a guest to check line lengths without getting out of bed. Not to be outdone, the Royal Caribbean Line is exploring options to implement virtual reality technologies in guests’ staterooms and dining rooms, potentially distributing augmented reality glasses that would allow passengers to eat in a totally different landscape.

One could easily think that this all sounds very familiar. It’s been ten years since the release of the Academy Award-winning animated movie WALL-E, in which future humans, overweight and debilitated, spend their entire lives reclining in mobile lounge chairs on a massive luxury star cruiser, the Axiom, and rely on artificial intelligence to bring them food, clothing, and entertainment. WALL-E serves primarily as a critique of consumerism and corporatism, and the cruise industry may be well-served in heeding some of the film’s warnings. As competing cruise lines race to be at the cutting edge of the 21st century vacation industry, the outlook for the cruise industry does not seem to be all smooth sailing.

Navigating the Political Waters

In May 2016, travelers had tears in their eyes as the cruise ship Adonia glided into the port of Havana, Cuba, with flags streaming in the wind atop its mast. For many of the passengers, docking in Havana was an emotional end to a seven-day journey, as they were visiting Cuba for the first time since they fled the country’s communist regime. According to a CNN report, the Adonia’s voyage marked the first time a US cruise liner had visited Cuba in almost 40 years. The visit came in the wake of President Barack Obama’s decision to reinstate diplomatic relations with the Castro regime after decades of hostility. In a statement announcing the thaw in relations, Obama categorized his administration’s lifting of Cold War era regulations as “steps to increase travel, commerce, and the flow of information to and from Cuba.”

But the diplomatic thaw has been short-lived, as Obama’s successor has taken a much harsher position against Cuba’s authoritarian government. In November 2017, President Trump announced new regulations prohibiting business transactions between US citizens and entities linked to the Cuban government. The regulations came in the wake of a series of mysterious attacks at the US embassy in Havana, in which diplomats and their families reported feeling ill after hearing strange noises in their homes or hotel rooms. According to the Guardian, the attacks caused brain damage to 24 Americans working in Havana at the time.

In light of these tensions, cruise executives face a difficult decision between reverting back to their former policies and continuing to embrace the Cuban market. Major lines have skewed overwhelmingly toward the latter. Shortly after President Trump’s announcement of the new regulations, CEOs from seven cruise companies met with officials from the Cuban government. The company executives emphasized how Trump’s new regulations, though inflammatory, had minimal effects on the process cruise lines use to get permits. Indeed, the industry seems to be escalating its presence in Cuba instead of backing down, with the Norwegian and Royal Caribbean lines announcing the addition of two new ships with Cuban itineraries. The underlying reason for the continued warm relations between industry giants and Cuba is simple economics. As Pearl Seas Cruises CEO Charles Robertson said to Travel Weekly, “Demand remains strong . . . it’s encouraging us to operate more to Cuba.”

Cuban relations are not the only political issue making waves among major cruise lines. Recently, US cruise companies narrowly avoided a tax increase that could have hit the tourism industry hard. The provision, contained in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, proposed new duties on cruise ship revenues. Critically, the provision was staunchly opposed by Republican US Congress senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, a state where tourism plays a significant economic role. According to CBS News, more than one million tourists traveled to Alaska via cruise ship in the Summer of 2017. The opposition of Murkowski and Sullivan threatened to block the bill’s passage, leading to the proposal’s removal from the legislation, which ultimately passed in December 2017.

Often at the root of the industry’s most pressing political considerations is the inherently international nature of the cruise business. Companies walk a fine line between maintaining good governmental relations and being dragged into geopolitical power struggles. For example, in the South China Sea, territorial disputes between China and neighboring nations have created a series of thorny obstacles for regional lines. In particular, countries including Vietnam have lambasted the Chinese government for allowing China-based cruise lines to visit disputed territories such as the Paracel Islands. According to Reuters, the Vietnamese foreign ministry has even called the leisure cruises a violation of the nation’s sovereignty. The case captures the politicized nature of business at sea.

Still, ventures in Cuba and the South China Sea elucidate the language through which political powers communicate with the cruise industry: the language of money. While fraught political conversations have made both regions ripe for controversy, tourists’ demand makes it unlikely that cruise vacations in the contested areas will stop in the near future. In a contrasting example, similar territorial disputes and international antipathies exist in the waters surrounding the Horn of Africa. While major cruise lines have continued travel to Cuba and Southeast Asia, few lines offer vacations to the Horn of Africa, or even the rest of the African continent. The difference lies in demand for travel to the regions. After all, it is not politics but the market that factors most heavily into business decisions.

Running a Tight Ship

However, the cruise industry has faced issues beyond the scope of politics in recent years. After several high profile safety issues, companies have had to work hard to restore consumer confidence. While these efforts have been successful at first glance, deeper questions regarding corporate responsibility complicate the issue.

On January 12, 2012, the Costa Concordia became the largest passenger vessel to capsize, becoming a modern-day Titanic. The most famous maritime disaster of the contemporary era, the Concordia’s tragic fate will be forever captured by infamous photographs. Resulting from mistakes by the ship’s captain, the Concordia struck a submerged rock while deviating from its charted course near the Italian island of Giglio. This forced the ship’s 4,200 passengers to abandon ship, and 33 people died as a result of the disaster.

While cruise ship disasters are historically uncommon, the Concordia tragedy came only a few years after a 2006 scare on the Crown Princess, which nearly capsized off the coast of Florida in the United States. In that incident, 94 passengers were treated for injuries after the ship suddenly tilted at a 40 degree angle, causing the ship’s recreational pools to flood the upper decks with crushing force. Still, both the Concordia and Crown Princess accidents occurred due to unusual circumstances and errors. While they had a moderate impact on sales during their immediate aftermath, their long-term economic impact was limited.

A different kind of accident may prove more threatening as cruise lines embrace an experiential model of vacationing. In late December 2017, 11 passengers vacationing on the Royal Caribbean Line were killed along with their tour guide after their bus crashed on the way to the Mayan ruins at Chacchoben in Eastern Mexico. An additional 20 people aboard the tour bus were treated for injuries. Most importantly, the tour was part of a cruise line-sanctioned “shore excursion.” Placing local individuals and firms under contract, cruise lines offer onshore excursions to provide passengers with authentic adventures while a ship is at port.

The bus accident in Mexico raised an important question: should Royal Caribbean bear any responsibility for an accident that killed 11 of its passengers? In the wake of the incident, consumer advocates have demanded greater transparency in how cruise lines vet excursion partners for safety and quality. Officials from Royal Caribbean refused to comment following the accident, and it is unclear whether the company would face any legal penalties.

The accident rounded out a rough December for Royal Caribbean. In another incident, one of its ship’s 332 passengers were afflicted by a gastrointestinal illness according to Time. Earlier in the month, a different Royal Caribbean ship reported 209 ill passengers, and five of them had to be removed from the ship for hospitalization. Royal Caribbean is not alone in these issues. According to statistics from the Center for Disease Control, 129,678 of the 74 million cruise ship passengers between 2008 and 2014 contracted a gastrointestinal illness. With thousands of guests from across the world sharing spaces for multiple days, cruise ships can become an incubator for viruses unless proper precautions are taken.

Cruise lines appear to be addressing the issue of illness, with many mandat ing hand sanitization before use of food facilities and implementing rigorous sterilization of shared spaces. However, if reports of sickness remain common, the threat of illness could prove an intimidating obstacle as cruise lines attempt to expand their clientele.

Cleaning up Their Tracks

The Holland America Line describes its Alaskan vessels as “designed not to tower over the scenery, but to bring you closer to Alaska’s natural wonders—from calving glaciers to breaching humpback whales.” But what effect do these massive ships actually have on the ecosystems through which they travel? Deeper inquiry into industry practices reveals a significant environmental footprint. The NGO Friends of the Earth released a 2016 report card of cruise ships that evaluated sewage treatment, air pollution, water quality compliance, and transparency. Of the 17 lines evaluated, only one, Disney Cruises, managed to scrape an A minus. The next tier of lines, including the Holland America Line, scored a grade of C. Twelve lines scored below a C, with four earning Fs for their poor environmental practices.

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a cruise ship of 3,000 passengers can generate 150,000 gallons of sewage per week. This is a stunning figure when one considers the actual size of megaships, as some vessels can carry close to 7,000 passengers. Friends of the Earth calculates that the EPA figure would indicate an annual production of 1 billion gallons of sewage by cruise lines. After treating waste with sanitation devices, ships release the sterilized sewage into the water. When a ship is more than three nautical miles from the nearest shoreline, sewage is not even required to be sterilized prior to dumping. Furthermore, even after the sterilization process, sewage often contains dissolved metals and nutrients that can threaten marine ecosystems.

One of the most potentially catastrophic consequences to marine ecosystems is the formation of algal blooms. Ship sewage, laden with excess nitrates and phosphates, is especially prone to accelerating the growth of algae, which quickly drains the ecosystem of dissolved oxygen. Deprived of oxygen, the rest of an affected ecosystem suffocates. Thus, the algal bloom ravages every level of the aquatic food web, from the coral reef to the manatee.

In addition to the sewage procedure within the underbelly of the megaship, another environmental threat is much more visible. Massive smokestacks have become a defining feature of modern cruise ships, and many lines proudly display their flashy logos upon the immense structures. But from the tops of these smokestacks, a stew of pollutants is emitted. The smoke can include carbon dioxide, one of the most potent greenhouse gases, along with microscopic soot from diesel. The EPA estimates that a cruise ship in one day emits as much sulfur monoxide as 13 million cars, and as much soot as one million cars.

To put the issue of cruise ship pollution in perspective, one only needs to look at the largest cruise ship of 2017: Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas. According to a report by The Guardian, the ship’s twin engines burn 1,377 gallons of fuel per hour, or 66,000 gallons per day. That means that in just over 10 days, Harmony guzzles enough fuel to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool. The ship is estimated to emit more particles into the air than thousands of London buses, per the report.

Even as cruise lines grapple with their environmental improprieties, some executives are hoping to fill a new space in the market with so-called “green cruises.” A Japanese NGO called Peace Boat is currently working on a project to build the most sustainable cruise ship in the industry, suitably named the Ecoship. The Finnish company Arctech is leading construction on the project, which is expected to be completed in 2020. The Ecoship, which will run on solar and wind power supplemented by natural gas, will be used as an educational vessel, with Peace Boat dedicating it to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. However, Peace Boat also hopes that the Ecoship will be a model for the rest of the industry and set a trend of sustainable cruising.

Looking to the horizon

Issues associated with the cruise ship industry, whether they be political, safety-related, or environmental, are unlikely to immediately threaten the recently-minted megaship era. However, the industry must realize that it finds itself in a changing world.

Governments worldwide are paying unprecedented attention to the consequences of global climate change. And as surging populations compete for dwindling resources, the world’s oceans have moved from a nonpolitical space to an arena for clashing national interests. In coming years, major cruise lines may be forced to either adapt or perish in response to these changing circumstances. At the center of this conundrum is the question: how long-lived will the megaship era be? If the industry wants to preserve its status, it may just have to clean up its act.