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Don’t bail out the cruise industry

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Re: Don’t bail out the cruise industry

#191

Post by joshvm »

lmm wrote: post #107
joshvm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Right, so if the cruises weren't there they would look to increase that "capacity" to accommodate that demand - which would likely mean building giant hotels. > I think most locals would prefer hotels which at least contribute…

In some places there's literally no space - Venice for example, land is expensive and it's such a historic city that you can't just build a skyscraper (nobody would give you permission). This is the point about them being at capacity. In summer everywhere is booked. The argument is that lack of beds stifles demand, but then you can barely walk round Venice in high season. It's not about hotel capacity, it's the capacity of the city infrastructure itself. Venice has no land for hotels, or anything else!

Resort style hotels tend to be sited elsewhere with space for pools and recreation, and people don't leave (or they do so on a couple of tour coaches a day). Though look at Oxford or Cambridge in summer to understand how busy "the odd coach" can make a city centre.

Cruise ships are also full of mostly low-paid, high-turnover jobs (often seasonal). Hotels confine people which means they then go and spend time (and money) in the city. They might go for an early breakfast, eat out, see some museums.

Re: Don’t bail out the cruise industry

#192

Post by deelowe »

jjeaff wrote: post #180
bradleyjg wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pay no taxes. Carnival Corp and Norwegian both posted negative income tax expenses — that is, they received more in refunds or deductions than they paid or set aside for taxes — with Carnival reporting an income tax expense of $71 million and Norwegian reporting an $18.9 million tax benefit. They don’t contribute to the public fisc in good times, they should have no call on it when times are tough.

So like Amazon? Have they never paid taxes? Because that quote seems to be referring to a single year?

They pay a ton income tax and sales tax.

Re: Don’t bail out the cruise industry

#194

Post by lmm »

c22 wrote: post #172
lmm wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the cruises pollute the air of the city Per-person? Surely anyone arriving by car, aeroplane or even bus is causing a lot more pollution, just on the sheer physics of how much more efficient sea transport is. > Also, cruise visitors use the city's facilities (roads, trash collection, beaches, etc) but don't leave much money behind to compensate. Surely that can be balanced with appropriate taxation - I believe a lo…

Are you sure about that? A quick search for carbon per passenger cruise ship vs airplane returned several results[0][1][2] suggesting that the airplane is in fact a more eco-friendly way to travel. [0] https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/ask-mr-green/which-better-... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2006/dec/20/cruises.green [2] https://grist.org/living/you-thought-planes-burned-a-lot-of-...

I can believe those numbers saying that a transatlantic cruise would be 3-4x the emissions of a transatlantic flight. But the per-passenger-km figure isn't a realistic basis for comparison; tourists aren't trying to travel x kilometres, they're trying to see places x, y and z. The substitute for taking a 1000km cruise 5000km away from where you live is not 11000km of flying, it's more likely making two or three 10000km round-trips. And if you did replicate a cruise by flying between successive ports of call then the efficiency figures for those short-haul flights are going to be an order of magnitude worse than for a transatlantic flight.

Re: Don’t bail out the cruise industry

#195

Post by effingwewt »

voisin wrote: post #193

Why would you ever bail out an industry that is not essential to society?

One thing I've had nailed home during this fiasco is that almost all businesses consider themselves essential, even at the possible cost of their employee's lives. We have call centers doing cold call sales trying to call themselves essential.

Re: Don’t bail out the cruise industry

#196

Post by lmm »

joshvm wrote: post #191
lmm wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Right, so if the cruises weren't there they would look to increase that "capacity" to accommodate that demand - which would likely mean building giant hotels. > I think most locals would prefer hotels which at least contribute…

In some places there's literally no space - Venice for example, land is expensive and it's such a historic city that you can't just build a skyscraper (nobody would give you permission). This is the point about them being at capacity. In summer everywhere is booked. The argument is that lack of beds stifles demand, but then you can barely walk round Venice in high season. It's not about hotel capacity, it's the capac…

> In some places there's literally no space - Venice for example, land is expensive and it's such a historic city that you can't just build a skyscraper (nobody would give you permission). This is the point about them being at capacity. In summer everywhere is booked. The argument is that lack of beds stifles demand, but then you can barely walk round Venice in high season. It's not about hotel capacity, it's the capacity of the city infrastructure itself. Venice has no land for hotels, or anything else!

In an efficient market everything operates at capacity. That doesn't mean there's no ability to adjust. In the absence of the cruise ships there'd be more demand for hotels, driving up prices; land values would go up, pricing more of the locals out. Restaurants and homes would be converted into tourist accommodation. Pressure would mount to relax the building regulations - not around the unique tourist attractions, but in the backstreets where it could be argued that there wasn't such unique architectural merit. And most important of all, fewer people would get to see Venice.

Re: Don’t bail out the cruise industry

#198

Post by _0w8t »

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.

The current situation implies that not holding cash for 6 months and using loans for day-to-day operations was a premature optimization. Essentially corporations assumed that in the time of prolonged crises they would be bailed out by taxpayers and optimized for an extra profit for shareholders. The profit that was extracted from all taxpayers.

Re: Don’t bail out the cruise industry

#199

Post by spyras »

kolleykibber wrote: post #112
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…

To list a few positives. Europe maybe not, but places like Honduras would be worse off without them. The industry and shipyards are advancing technology in ways that other industries do not. New ships use LNG, batteries and renewables. A carbon neutral cruise ship is not too far away. The intensive childcare offered allows parents who cannot otherwise get such services to relax. Pixar's Wall-e was prescient in that m…

>Pixar's Wall-e. This is such a great way to describe the cruise crowds - really captures the commercialised, tacky, pseudo-luxury essence of cruises and their bovine patrons.

Re: Don’t bail out the cruise industry

#200

Post by cloverich »

simonh wrote: post #178
nerdponx wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the more reason not to bail them out. Let the market do its thing.

You mean kill efficient businesses on a random basis? I don't see how that benefits anybody. To be clear I don't care about cruise lines particularly, but I'm not sure I agree with the general point that businesses hit by freak events should in general just be allowed to die.

I think the counter point was that if they are actually efficient businesses, then they will return more or less the same, as soon as there is economic capacity for them. I think an argument that it would actually be cheaper for the economy to mandate that taxpayers keep them afloat is interesting, but would argue the burden of proof should be on that side.
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