The cruise ship as a cathedral of consumption may be a symbol of rationality but it has also engendered consequences that lead to the very opposite of rational systems such as ‘inefficiency, unpredictability, incalculability, and loss of control’ (Ritzer 2010a p.86). Risks to people and harm to the environment are two crucial irrationalities that arise in relation to cruise ship tourism4. Seafarers aboard merchant vessels such as container
4 Over the years, sociologist Ross Klein (2016c) has maintained the website cruisejunkie.com which reports key statistics and information on the problematic issues about the world cruise industry including accidents, health, environment and labour concerns.
or cargo ships are known to be exposed to various types of occupational risks including disasters, accidents, piracy, cardio-vascular diseases, stress (from fatigue, isolation, adjustments in multicultural setting), and communicable diseases (e.g. influenza, malaria etc.) (Oldenburg et al. 2010). Whilst these types of risk remain a threat to cruise ship seafarers, the passengers and crew alike may also be at risk of crime, outbreaks of disease, and accidents whilst on-board. Cruise ships, especially the supersized ships, produce various types of waste materials that can pollute air, water and land if not properly disposed of. Several observations around these irrationalities are worth mentioning.
Firstly, the sheer number of people aboard and the very nature of the business give rise to risk of crimes that are not normally so frequent on other types of ship. Crimes prevalent on-board cruise ships (see Table 3) include theft, sexual/physical assault, suicide attempts and people going missing. According to the International Cruise Victims Association, 563 incidents of crime on-board cruise ships were reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2011 but cruise lines only reported 102 incidents (Klein 2016a). The cruise lines’ tendency towards under reporting crime on- board is to be expected as it may damage the company’s reputation and cast doubt on its ability to protect and secure passengers (Diaz et al. 2014). FBI data shows that 44 percent of alleged crimes in 2011 were physical assaults but the cruise lines declared not a single incident (see Table 3). The hyper consumerism which fuels intense monetary transactions among passengers creates vulnerabilities to crimes against property. One quarter of the total cases of crime reported were incidents of minor theft (126 cases) and major theft (16 cases – major being of a value of US $10000 or more).
The committing of crimes and the health risks associated with promiscuous behaviour are more or less expected on cruise ships since the latter are contained spaces for the entertainment of thousands of people 24 hours a day every day of the week (Thomas 2003b). In 2011, the FBI recorded 149 incidents of sexual crime, such as indecent exposure, contact, assault and rape. As expected, cruise lines under report these crimes against the persons.
Table 3 Alleged crimes aboard cruise ships, 2011
Crime Cruise Line
Websites FBI
Assault - 248
Assault with serious bodily injury 17 5
Death 5 11
Overboard 4 8
Rape 34 28
Sexual assault 29 57
Sexual contact - 57
Sexual – other (i.e. indecent exposure) - 7
Theft - 126
Theft over US$10,000 13 16
TOTAL 102 563
Source: https://goo.gl/uIIRtr [Accessed 1 May 2017]
Klein and Poulton’s (2011) study on sexual crimes at sea found that sexual assault occurs twice as often aboard cruise ships than on land, and that male crew-members are often the perpetrators of assaults on women passengers and crew. Out of the 684 sex-related incidents recorded from the files of the FBI and two major cruise lines between 1998 and 2008, 64% were perpetrated by crew on passengers, 18% passenger on passenger, 15% crew on crew, and only two percent were incidents in which the aggressor was a passenger and the victim a crew-member. Crew-initiated assaults comprised 79% of the incidents and involved crew members in roles that dealt with passengers such as room stewards, waiter and bar workers among others.
The liminal character of shipboard life could be a contributing factor to the rise of crime and behaviour involving sexual risk. The combination of the remoteness of cruise ships, and for the passengers the short holiday stay on-board, create spaces where the norms, statuses and responsibilities of behaviour that operate in their daily lives when at home and on land are temporarily relaxed (Thomas 2005). For crew- members, the ship is a shared workplace and living space that is ‘both physically and emotionally removed from the ties and constraints of their homes and families’ (Thomas et al. 2013 p.88). This suggests that the ship’s physical and social environments shape peoples’ risk behaviour in a way that may sometimes lead to sexual crimes. In case of the workers, the sexually-charged ambience of cruise ships further adds to the vulnerability of women employees who are already at risk of sexually
transmitted diseases due to their limited access to contraception and restricted access to ship doctors (Thomas 2003b).
The 2011 data from the FBI included at least 11 incidents of death and eight cases of people going overboard. Longitudinal data from cruisejunkie.com shows that from 2000 to 2016, a total of 284 passengers and crew, or 17 persons per year, went missing (Klein 2016b). Of these incidents, 57 were from ships of the Carnival Cruise Line and 41 from Royal Caribbean International. Closer analysis of data on 210 persons who went overboard from 1995 to 2013, (Klein 2013) showed that victims were mostly males (74%) with an average age of 39 years. In three out of four incidents, the victim was a passenger. Only 17% of the individuals were rescued.
A second aspect that undermines the control of a ship environment, as an aspect of the rationalisation of the industry, is the outbreak of illness. Infectious diseases may be brought onto the ship in the course of crew and passenger embarkation and their spread is intensified by the crowded and confined environment of the ship. Health risks specific to cruise ships, and which are passed on from person to person via food, water, air or contaminated surfaces, include gastro intestinal (9 to 10%) or respiratory (19 to 29%) illnesses (Duong et al. 2016). From 2002 to 2016, 504 outbreaks of illness (e.g. gastrointestinal virus, E. coli, salmonella, shigella etc.) on-board were recorded (Klein 2016h). A total of 60,799 people were reportedly affected in the period covered. On average, in each of the 34 outbreaks occur every year, more than 4000 got ill.
Minor accidents (e.g. fires) and major accidents (ships running aground or sinking) are other examples of events that cannot be completely controlled despite the safety regulations implemented and advancements in technology. Data compiled at cruisejunkie.com shows that from 1990 to 2013, a total of 448 incidents of disabling and major events were reported (Klein 2016d). Included were 139 incidents of shipboard fires; 101 (73% of total fire incidents) of have occurred since 2005. Another ‘major’ source of incidents was ship collisions in which 79 (72% of 106 total collision incidents) happened after 2005. From 1973 to 2013, there were 131 reported incidents of passenger ships running aground, 66 (or 50%) happened post 2005 (Klein 2016f).
Moreover, from 1979 to 2013, were been 55 reported incidents of ships sinking including ferries, passenger ships and cruise ships (Klein 2016g).
Environmental pollution is a final but major negative consequence of cruise ship tourism. Environmental concern becomes even more pronounced as cruise lines outdo each other in building bigger ships year after year. As a result more waste products including blackwater, greywater, solid waste, hazardous waste, bilge water, ballast water, and air pollutants are discharged than ever before (Copeland 2008; EPA 2008). Data from cruisejunkie.com shows that from 1990 to 2013, a total of 314 cases of environmental violations were reported (Klein 2016e). Out of these, 131 (or 42%) are still pending resolution. In the remainder of the cases, the cruise line was either issued a warning, referred to the flag state for further trial or fined. In at least 21 cases, the cruise line was fined between US$100,000 to US$18 million. On 6th December 2016,
Princess Cruises, a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation was fined US$40 million for illegally dumping 4,227 gallons of contaminated waste 23 miles off the UK coast (Telegraph 2017).