2. If employment rights, decent wages, fair contracts and safe working conditions are included in the Human Rights Agenda, are cruise companies ignoring their corporate social responsibility? Discuss. Since 1980, the cruise industry has experienced an average annual passenger growth rate of approximately 7.4% per annum. By 1990, over 169 million passengers had taken a 2+

day cruise and by 2018 a record 24 million passengers a year are forecasted to be cruising.

Vladimir and Dickinson’s first edition of Selling the Sea: an Inside Look at the Cruise Industry (1996), and the second edition in 2007, provided excellent information, charting the foundations of the modern cruise industry, and critically examining the revolutionary management, marketing and sales techniques that have led to this incredible growth.

Alongside these key developments, to match this growth, has been the phenomenal increase in the scale and size of today’s cruise ship building programmes, with shipyards now producing some of the largest passenger ships afloat. By 2016, the Royal Caribbean

‘Oasis class’ Harmony of the Seas will be registered at 227,000 grt with 16 decks, carrying 5479 passengers. However, with this massive growth, there have also been serious questions over how the industry operates these enormous vessels, with the Costa Concordia disaster focusing attention on cruise industry operations. A critical question is:

are these ships getting too big to manage safely? On 13 January 2012, the Costa Concordia hit the rocks off the Italian coastline by the island of Giglio, and 32 passengers lost their lives in the disaster. Among the difficulties that were encountered during the incident were problems with evacuation of the ship and lifeboat egress. Industry observers are concerned that issues such as the evacuation of passengers, fire suppression systems and problems with training a large crew are key safety challenges in the event of emergencies on board these mega ships. Fire on board a ship is probably the most frightening and challenging incident that can occur at sea. In recent years, engine room fires and systems failure on cruise ships have left passengers in sweltering heat with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and fresh food issues. The Carnival Corporation, which has had ships that have had engine room failure is responding to operational criticisms by installing more fire prevention systems and backup power.