Responsible Tourism and the Cruise Industry by Harold Goodwin

Abstract

The growth of the cruise industry raises significant challenges for the three pillars of the sustainability agenda: environmental, socio-cultural and economic. These problems compounded by issues of extra-territoriality and conflicts between local authorities and national governments. Venice and Barcelona suffer from overtourism, a problem exacerbated by the arrival of larger and larger cruise ships which discharge thousands of tourists daily into cities already crowded with tourists. Neither city has any control over the number of ships docking. By contrast, the Mayor of Dubrovnik was able to sign an agreement with the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) to cap the number of cruise ships to two per day carrying a total of 5,000 tourists.