Evaluate the crisis management opportunities for cruise operators in addressing outbreaks of illness on board ships. How can consumer confidence be maintained? The cruise industry continues to experience rapid growth, with the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) estimating that over 21 million people will have experienced a cruise by 2014. To accommodate this growth, the industry has also commissioned the building of cruise ships that are in the 225,282 tonnes class – to put this in perspective, the QE2, built in 1969, was 70,327 tonnes. Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas can accommodate a maximum of 6296 passengers. However, with this expansion, there come very serious operational challenges and it has been a problematic time for the industry.

A norovirus outbreak made more than 600 people on a Royal Caribbean cruise sick, making it one of the biggest such outbreaks on any cruise ship in the last 20 years, and resulting in the voyage being cut short by 2 days. According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), epidemics of gastrointestinal illness broke out on eight cruise ships in just the first 13 weeks of 2014. Of these, norovirus was the established cause of the outbreak in at least five.