Seasonality: A factor of Crisis or Development in Cruise Tourism?

Abstract

As one of the three basic types of nautical tourism, cruise industry has been developing constantly in the course of the last 30 years. Professor Ross K. Dowling analyzed that development of cruise tourism on the world market. The analysis indicates that there are four main world markets of cruise tourism. The analysis of market of (1) North and Central America, (2) Europe (The Mediterranean Basin and Transatlantic), (3) The rest of the world, and of (4) Unexplored potential market, indicates the essential differences in the levels of development of cruise tourism. If we focus our analysis on the two most developed markets of cruise tourism, North and Central America and Europe, we can see the important differences that can be analyzed from the aspect of seasonality in the industry of cruise ships. If we put the seasonality of cruise tourism in the focus of this paper, the subject of our research will be to determine its presence intensity, and will point out our goal to define the reasons why it occurs in cruise tourism. The purpose of this research is to determine the consequences of seasonality on the strategic development of cruise tourism market, and consequently on cruise industry. The seasonality of cruise tourism is not self-explanatory, therefore its influence on the strategic development should be explained, and all features of active cruise market, as classified by Professor Ross K. Dowling, have to be taken into consideration. Within the framework of global crisis and of this year’s results in nautical and cruise tourism, there is neither stagnation, nor decrease in development, which indicates the constant development of cruise tourism. But there is also a question whether the seasonality in cruise tourism would determine the strategic development of this phenomenon, and in such a case the question is how and to what extent. In the conditions of global crisis, seasonality can be a part of general crisis, but on the other hand it can also be a new chance for development. The introductory hypothesis focuses on the seasonality as a new challenge in development, and by a thorough analysis, we will either accept or reject that hypothesis.