title: Destination Marketing in Crisis - the resurgence of the cruise industry amidst the COVID-19 pandemic
Creators: name: Smith, Johnnel D
Publisher: name: Griffith University
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: cruise tourism
subject: marketing
subject: crisis management
subject: COVID-19

description: The cruise industry is one of the most dynamic and lucrative sub sectors of international travel and tourism. The industry recorded exponential annual growth rates and revenue increases in the last four decades with a consumer demand that continued to outpace supply. The cruise industry generated millions of jobs and billions of dollars in direct and indirect revenues for economies globally. However, in March 2020, cruise ships became epicenters for multiple outbreaks of the COVID-19 virus resulting in infections and deaths among passengers and crew. A peripeteia eventuated for the industry as international cruising became the center of negative media publicity and in response to this crisis, the Centre for Diseases Control (CDC) and governments worldwide implemented a ban on cruising with global 'no sail' orders for the industry. As the pandemic evolved and global travel restrictions eased, the cruise industry reopened and returned to full operations with the implementation of strategies to aid the recovery of the industry, repair the image of cruise ships as destinations, manage the risk of COVID-19 on board cruise ships, while ensuring customer (passenger) safety and satisfaction. Against this background, the purpose of this thesis is to examine the effectiveness of the destination marketing strategies used in the resurgence of the cruise industry amidst the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the growing proclivity of risks and crises for tourism destinations, academic literature points to a desideratum for the best types of marketing and management strategies that should be used and implemented by destination marketing organizations when crisis occurs. The cruise ship presents an exceptional challenge as it has a unique selling proposition (USP) in tourism, in that, it is marketed as both a mode of transportation to destinations and as a destination in and of itself, through a miscellany of services and amenities aboard the ship. Therefore, this study examined cruise ships as the tourism destination in crisis and the nexus of analysis for destination marketing and crisis management. The theoretical underpinning for the thesis draws upon the work of Morrison's (2019) P.R.I.C.E model for the destination marketing analysis and the work of Miller and Ritchie (2003) on crisis/risk management was used to inform the crisis management approaches to health-related crises in tourism. An amalgamation of these theories saw a new conceptual framework presented which anchors the study within the context of the cruise industry and the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the ontological and epistemological lenses of post-positivism and social constructivism in tourism, the study takes a qualitative, phased data collection approach in fulfilling its research objectives. This approach informed the use of qualitative methods such as Document and Content Analysis, Netnography and In-depth Interviews from two major cruise regions in the world- North America and the Caribbean (NAC) and Australasia. The thesis comes to a crescendo with the emerging findings offering new insights to the academic discourse on the post pandemic era of cruising, and an emphasis on the way forward for marketing cruise tourism and managing crises on cruise ships. Integrating theory with practice, the denouement of the study engendered practical acumen for industry stakeholders through the postulation of new frameworks and tools for improvement in management, marketing, crisis preparedness, communications, technological innovation, and customer satisfaction in cruise tourism. The thesis is punctuated with an inference on new frontiers and directions in cruise tourism research to enable the continued growth and upward trajectory of the cruise industry.