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Don’t bail out the cruise industry

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Re: Don’t bail out the cruise industry

#151

Post by csomar »

edejong wrote: post #14

The cruise industry is one of the most polluting and damaging industries in the world. It ruins cities worldwide. Their ships are petri-dishes for disease, spreading it directly into our vital cities. They are blocking perfect vistas of the sea. They are ruining local sea life and are spreading non-native species. Their exhaust fumes are extremely detrimental to local air quality in cities. The swarms of tourists are…

I never got it but I also never went on a cruise ship. But, for the life of me, I can't figure out the attraction of the cruise ship. You are siting in this big hotel complex, you are not enjoying much of the scenery, cities, or anything. You are just in a hotel and they even have pools? What's the point of being in the ocean anyway if you are staying inside?

Re: Don’t bail out the cruise industry

#152

Post by pmiller2 »

willis936 wrote: post #148
pmiller2 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only sulphur oxides, particulates as well (see my first quoted link). Particulate matter from combustion is extremely nasty. These floating petri dishes choke everything in their path. > But those things add cost, and why would a cruise ship company do it if they are not compelled legally and their customers don’t mind? Because their owners give a shit about the world they're leaving to their children? Oh, well,…

Companies do not exhibit humanity and in many cases are legally beholden to maximize profits. Regulation cannot afford to fail with contemporary companies like it does with individuals. Individuals have humanity to fall back on in most cases. Also, I wanted to open with the pollution point first because most people associate "pollution" with "CO2 emission" and a cruise ship certainly does not produce a million times…

> ...legally beholden to maximize profits.

This is a myth. The business judgement rule gives corporate directors extremely wide latitude on how they run their business.

Point taken regarding "pollution," though. I will note that all the links quoted in this thread clearly state SOx or particulates, not specifically "pollution," so that misstatement falls on me in this case.

With respect to CO2, they are still pretty bad; one voyage is roughly equivalent to transporting the same number of passengers on a flight from Tokyo to London [0].

---

[0]: https://www.tourismdashboard.org/explore-the-data/cruise-shi...

Re: Don’t bail out the cruise industry

#153

Post by mschuster91 »

_0w8t wrote: post #136
ftvy wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could say the same thing about airlines, but no one is arguing about whether airlines are a necessary component of the economy. I don't support a bailout for cruise lines, but I also don't support a bailout for airlines or any industry. This pandemic crisis is being exploited on all fronts, and the first thing that everyone is going for is money. There is a lot of FUD being spread around as cause to bailout speci…

Like a saying, don't bail out corporations so shareholders learn. Bail out people so they can can quickly start new businesses.

> Like a saying, don't bail out corporations so shareholders learn.

I agree with you for self-inflicted problems (such as the financial crisis, or a lack of general funds).

Requiring all corporations to hold enough cash for 6 months of runway with 0 income however? That's an extreme requirement on which most if not all companies would fail.

Re: Don’t bail out the cruise industry

#154

Post by onetimemanytime »

joshvm wrote: post #72
lmm wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are blocking perfect vistas of the sea. Counterpoint: they absorb a lot of tourist demand for visiting particular places, while taking up a minimum of space. Building the equivalent hotel capacity in the same places would be far more intrusive.

No, it's the opposite. Places which are already at capacity (like Venice, Mallorca, Santorini, etc) then receive multiple cruise ships a day which dump thousands more people into the system. There are cruises which are "just looking" but the ones which visit heavily touristic areas tend to stop and let passengers off. Also these ships are enormous , loud and polluting. I think most locals would prefer hotels which at…

>> No, it's the opposite. Places which are already at capacity (like Venice, Mallorca, Santorini, etc) then receive multiple cruise ships a day which dump thousands more people into the system.

I'm sure the host country has a say in this...they can receive cruises or not so the "dumping" might be a different thing for them. Like tourism cash. At least they decide for themselves, not us.

Re: Don’t bail out the cruise industry

#155

Post by lmm »

c22 wrote: post #132
lmm wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe in the greatest happiness of the greatest number, so I'm in favour of making sure as many people as possible get to experience these places - Venice, Everest, Jamaica, wherever people want to go - with the minimum disruption to others. Cruises seem like the best way to minimise the per-person "footprint" of visiting a place - just as container ships are the most efficient way of transporting goods.

I went on a Caribbean cruise once (the trip was bought for me, I would never have paid for it). The thing I found most striking was the same-ness of every stop. We stopped in Jamaica, but it felt the same as every single other stop: Busy "shopping area" right near the cruise terminal, with many of the exact same stores as the last stop. A variety of the same tired cruise-approved "activities" ("touch a dolphin", "rid…

In my experience you can find sameness anywhere if you look for it, or you can find the interesting differences. Four hours is pretty short, true, but it's time enough to wander around a place and experience something unique (I had around that long in Vienna on one trip, but I ate a lovely "sushi burrito" for lunch, saw some amazing paintings, and drank in a wonderfully traditional cafe). I'd argue that a cruise can be worthwhile precisely because long bus rides suck; I've done similar trips around Eastern Europe as a road trip, sleeper train trip and river cruise, and the cruise was when I spent the least time moving luggage around or staring out of a window and the most time actually in the cities I was visiting.

Re: Don’t bail out the cruise industry

#156

Post by DoubleGlazing »

ornornor wrote: post #64
edejong wrote: post #14

The cruise industry is one of the most polluting and damaging industries in the world. It ruins cities worldwide. Their ships are petri-dishes for disease, spreading it directly into our vital cities. They are blocking perfect vistas of the sea. They are ruining local sea life and are spreading non-native species. Their exhaust fumes are extremely detrimental to local air quality in cities. The swarms of tourists are…

You also forget to mention the magic pipes that let ships dump water polluted with oil directly into the sea so they don’t have to pay at ports for proper disposal. Outlaw ocean is an eye opening book (and a great read) about how lawless the sea is, how slavery is still very very real out there, and how it’s virtually impossible to keep eating fish once you know what’s going on (both in terms of human trafficking and…

I have a friend who used to be a purser for one of the big cruise lines. They had a leak which ruined a huge amount of carpet in a dining room. They carried spare carpet on board and replaced it... and then dumped the old carpet off the side of the ship.

Re: Don’t bail out the cruise industry

#157

Post by dsfyu404ed »

jddj wrote: post #147
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who spent a great deal of my life living and working in a tourism economy I am not shedding a single tear over cruise ships undercutting local providers of food/shelter. With traditional brick'n'mortar tourism the people who fleece the tourists make bank. Then the people who fleece the people who fleece the tourists take their cut. The landlord, the plumber, the garbage collection company, everything inclu…

If we take that the liquor store that tourists shop in is the same liquor store/cafe/plumber that the locals use, then aren't those several layers of "fleecing" just..the regular economic activity for the area? I can't imagine anyone ever thinking, "gee, good thing the cruise ships dock in Barcelona, otherwise the prices at Carrefour and the supermercados would go back to being astronomical and the garbage collection…

>If we take that the liquor store that tourists shop in is the same liquor store/cafe/plumber that the locals use,

You can't make that assumption. There are a minority of businesses that are open in the off season that are used by locals. The majority of businesses are targeted at tourists only and any use by locals is incidental and immaterial to their balance sheets. Many of the business owners actually have other locations that they'll run in the off season (e.g. florida for the winter, nantucket for the summer).

Depending on the location (i.e. less true on an island where you have to incur a $100 ferry ticket to leave) many locals spend huge amounts of time traveling in order to buy goods at reasonable prices. Ecommerce (which doesn't generally change prices by location) and big box stores (which have rules about prices that franchise owners must follow) tend to be the places locals shop for goods in where possible. The further you get from pure tourism (e.g restaurant = 0 steps, restaurant's landlord = 1 step, landlords plumber = 2 steps) the more likely a business is to be open year round.

>I can't imagine anyone ever thinking, "gee, good thing the cruise ships dock in Barcelona,

Barcelona (or Miami for that matter) is lucky that it's a big enough city with enough other industry that normal economic competition keeps prices reasonable. Pretty much any city tourism destination will have reasonable prices there's other industry going on even if tourism is the big one. The quaint little towns with nothing but tourism are what I'm talking about. Sure, the locals who make their money close to the tourists would be angry if you parked a cruise ship there but there's also be a huge number hoping that the hotels and rentals lower their prices to compete with the cruises causing the restaurants to lower their prices, etc, etc so that they can actually justify the cost of going out to eat once in awhile.

>supermercados would go back to being astronomical and the garbage collection services would be able to take full advantage of us again"

The supermarkets where my parents live (they still live in the tourist town I left) fought tooth and nail to keep the chain known for low prices from setting up shop just barely within a reasonable driving distance. Many, dare I say most locals love outside competition because they can get more for their dollar.

I could tell you similar stories about damn near every type of business up to and including a scrap metal recycler.

Re: Don’t bail out the cruise industry

#158

Post by bradleyjg »

mschuster91 wrote: post #153
_0w8t wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like a saying, don't bail out corporations so shareholders learn. Bail out people so they can can quickly start new businesses.

> Like a saying, don't bail out corporations so shareholders learn. I agree with you for self-inflicted problems (such as the financial crisis, or a lack of general funds). Requiring all corporations to hold enough cash for 6 months of runway with 0 income however? That's an extreme requirement on which most if not all companies would fail.

That’s not necessarily the case. They’d have to either have that cash on hand or be able to raise it in the debt or equity markets. If these are long term viable businesses, I don’t see why they shouldn’t be able to do just that. Doesn’t seem like any are trying because they’d rather get a government handout.

Fair weather capitalists.

Re: Don’t bail out the cruise industry

#159

Post by mschuster91 »

bradleyjg wrote: post #158
mschuster91 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like a saying, don't bail out corporations so shareholders learn. I agree with you for self-inflicted problems (such as the financial crisis, or a lack of general funds). Requiring all corporations to hold enough cash for 6 months of runway with 0 income however? That's an extreme requirement on which most if not all companies would fail.

That’s not necessarily the case. They’d have to either have that cash on hand or be able to raise it in the debt or equity markets. If these are long term viable businesses, I don’t see why they shouldn’t be able to do just that. Doesn’t seem like any are trying because they’d rather get a government handout. Fair weather capitalists.

> or be able to raise it in the debt or equity markets

The debt/equity markets are beyond fucked at the moment. Relying on them is what led the financial industry to the 2008 crisis and it certainly won't be a good idea to rely on them in future pandemics.

> Fair weather capitalists.

The entire point of governments in a capitalist system is to deal with stuff that is too big for companies and individual people to handle - which a pandemic certainly is.

Re: Don’t bail out the cruise industry

#160

Post by barry-cotter »

lkramer wrote: post #142
simonh wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're being a bit naive. All the ships will still exist. All that will happen is that investors will snap up the ships and 'brands' at bargain prices, set up new cruise companies and the ships will be back in business in a matter of a few months, probably with the same crews and the same company names. The only thing that will change is the ownership.

Hopefully if the shareholders loose a lot of money this way, they will demand better governance of the next company that is set up. This, at least, is how it _should_ work.

How would better governance help? This is a once in 50 years event minimum and losing all your custom for three months is enough to wipe out the accumulated profit of a decade for all but the most well capitalized businesses, with no shareholders clamoring “Where are my goddamned dividends?” It’s not like you can take insure for a risk like this either. There’s a substantial risk your insurance company and their reinsurance company will go bust.
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