The Tribune

THE Global Cruise Activist Network announced the launch yesterday of its “Rethink Cruise Tourism” campaign to compel cruise customers, investors and governments to imagine a socially and environmentally responsible cruise industry, before restarting the cruise ships sector following its COVID-19 hiatus.

As part of the campaign, GCAN released two videos - “Rethink Before Rebook” and “Rethink Before Reinfect” - along with a series of graphics and fact sheets to provide policy makers and would-be cruisers with a vision of what a transformed cruise industry could look like.

In September 2020, GCAN, whose membership includes cruise port residents, civil society organisations, and labour and crime victim advocates, published its “Principles for Responsible Cruise Tourism,” which provides a roadmap for a transition to the socially and environmentally responsible future GCAN members want to see.

The principles address a range of concerns ranging from the cruise industry’s negative impacts on local communities to labour, climate change, air and water pollution, environment and biodiversity, public health, and crime victims.

In a press release issued yesterday, local activist Sam Duncombe, of reEarth, said, “Our goal is an equitable and responsible system of leisure travel that optimizes economic benefits to all stakeholders, and that eliminates the negative social, public health, and environmental impacts of cruising on port communities, workers, and passengers.”

Arlo Haskell, of Key West Committee for Safer, Cleaner Ships in Florida, said the cruise industry’s business practices have put the social fabric, economic integrity, public health, and environment of host communities at risk for decades.

“Cruise companies have failed to act responsibly, from burning huge volumes of highly polluting fuel to dumping in the ocean, underpaying its lowest-paid workers, exposing passengers and crew to air pollution, and avoiding labour, tax, environmental and criminal laws. Governments will have to regulate this rogue industry in order to protect people, communities and the environment we depend on,” he said.

GCAN’s campaign launch comes just days after the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued a travel advisory recommending that “all people avoid travel on cruise ships, including river cruises,” worldwide “because the risk of COVID-19 on cruise ships is very high.”

Other countries around the world have issued similar warnings. According to the CDC: “Cruising safely and responsibly during a global pandemic is very challenging” because “cruise ship travel facilitates and amplifies transmission of COVID-19”.

According to GCAN, within the last few weeks, most major brands (Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, MSC, Disney) announced a suspension of operations and cancellations of many of their upcoming cruises through 2020 and beyond.

“Despite these dire international warnings, the industry continues its relentless drive to expand the industry by continuing with development plans for new cruise terminals, including in the Bahamas, United States, Belize, and the United Kingdom,” GCAN said.