Abstract
This study aims at profiling a quota sample of 600 residents in Naples, a home port in the Campania Region (Southern Italy), based on their perceptions and attitudes toward the development of cruise tourism, and their willingness to support different tourism types. To achieve this aim, a factor-cluster analysis was applied and five clusters were identified, namely ‘indifferent’, ‘moderate lovers’, ‘moderate critics’, and ‘cautious’. Significant differences emerged between the identified groups based on their prior experience with cruise vacation and their relatives’ economic reliance on cruise activity. On the contrary, no significant differences exist based on gender, age, employment status, economic reliance on cruise tourism, education level, length of residence, geographical proximity to cruise port area. Furthermore, no significant differences between clusters were found based on residents’ attitude towards cruise tourism and their support to its further development. Hence, theoretical contributions and managerial implications are addressed, including recommendations for future research.
Highlights
In the last few decades, the cruise sector has been growing exponentially
Our findings revealed that residents in Naples believe that, compared to costs, cruise activity is not generating a greater number of benefits, and that on the item “Generally, cruise tourism has generated more benefits than costs” the local community in the city scored even lower than communities in ports of call such as Olbia (Brida et al, 2014) and Cagliari (Del Chiappa and Melis, 2015)
In line with prior studies (e.g. Del Chiappa et al, 2016), our findings call for future research aimed at simultaneously evaluating and comparing the objective impacts that cruise activity generates on the destination with the subjective ones
Summary
In the last few decades, the cruise sector has been growing exponentially. From 2003 to 2016, the international demand for cruising increased from 12.0 to 24.7 million passengers (CLIA, 2018a). In 2016, the 129.4 million passengers and crews’ onshore visits raised $57.9 billion in direct expenditures at source markets and destinations, producing a total economic output of $125.96 billion, as well as the employment of 1,021,681 people around the world (BREA, 2017). According to the Cruise Lines International Association (2018b), in 2017 the cruise sector in Italy generated €5,463 million direct expenditures and 119,052 jobs. Despite the fact that over the last decade the number of articles devoted to this topic has been considerably increasing, it could be argued that further research is required to expand the academic debate on cruise activity (Papathanassis and Beckman, 2011)
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