Supersize me: Is the world's largest cruise ship just too big?

The big news in the cruise industry today is the official debut of Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas, which arrived in her home port of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, after a 14-day voyage across the Atlantic from Turku, Finland. The world's largest cruise ship, the Oasis is 1,187 feet (360 meters) long and 208 feet (64 meters) wide. She has 16 decks and holds 5,400 passengers at double occupancy in 2,700 staterooms, including 28 multilevel loft-style suites. That is one enormous ship.

I've previously written elsewhere about the sustainability of the cruise industry. Overall, the industry is not known for being particularly eco-friendly, though many cruise lines have recently been making efforts to implement measures to make their ships less polluting and more energy efficient. Though significant advancements have been made, there's still a long way to go.

In an article on the Mother Nature Network, Shea Gunther recently wrote:

The Oasis of the Seas is far from green, but it does make some strides in the greener direction. The ship's huge liquefied natural gas fueled engines come equipped with pollution scrubbers that completely eliminate all SOx emissions, cut NOx emissions by 80 percent and CO2 by more than 20 percent. Manufacturer Wärtsilä claims Oasis of the Seas will use 25 percent less power than smaller but similar cruise ships. The ship will also process its own waste on board, reusing the wastewater and dumping nothing into the ocean. It's the first cruise ship to have a large tropical park filled with thousands of plants and natural features.

Short of a total societal breakdown or a severe and long lasting global economic depression, cruise ships aren't going anywhere anytime soon. If they're going to be sailing the seas, they should be as green as they can get, so kudos to Royal Caribbean for pushing the envelope in the right direction.

I agree with Gunther that as long as people want to travel on big cruise ships, it's great that some cruise companies are making efforts to become more sustainable. It seems as though the large size of the Oasis of the Seas has allowed Royal Caribbean to implement some new green measures.

There remains, of course, the question of whether bigger is actually better in other ways. While some observers have noted that larger ships mean more tourist dollars for ports of call, the reality of 5,400 passengers spewing from a single ship could be overwhelming for many smaller ports. For residents, that may not be such fun after all.

For the traveler, a larger ship may offer more on-board options, but being joined by 5,399 fellow passengers is bound to negatively affect the chances of unique local experiences on land. Then again, travelers seeking a deep connection with a destination and authentic interactions with the local culture aren't particularly likely to be on this ship in the first place.

In the end, I'm sure this behemoth will appeal to many travelers for whom a cruise vacation is as much - or more - about the on-board experience as it is about the ports of call. But sorry, Royal Caribbean, I'm afraid it's just not for me.
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Addendum: I personally prefer small cruise ships (no more than 100 passengers, preferably smaller) and find even the standard big ships (2,000 passengers or so) much too big for my taste. For a discussion of large-ship versus small ship cruising, see my article on the subject at Seattle International Travel Examiner.

2009 Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Award winners announced

The 2009 winners of the Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards were announced this morning in London as part of the celebration of World Travel Market's third annual WTM World Responsible Tourism Day. Sponsored by Virgin Holidays, the awards are organized by responsibletravel.com together with partners The Daily Telegraph, WTM, and Geographical Magazine.

This year's overall winner was New Zealand-based Whale Watch Kaikoura. Announcing the reason for their selection, the panel of judges said: "Rarely do we see a tourism initiative developed from the ground up by a local community to such a successful and grand scale – growing from modest beginnings to securing in a joint venture with Sea World on the Gold Coast of Australia to provide their whale watching. Whale Watch Kaikoura provides consistently responsible whale watching tours with minimal impacts. The founding of the enterprise by four Maori families has demonstrated that the local Maori community can not only grow a considerable tourism business, but, more significantly, use that business to buy back their ancestral land for the benefit of the indigenous people and their cultural identity."

Read more at Seattle International Travel Examiner

Adventure travel industry highlights sustainability at recent World Summit

Last month I had the pleasure of attending the Adventure Travel World Summit in the Charlevoix region of Quebec. It was exciting to meet with tour operators and other travel specialists from around the world, including places as far afield as Patagonia, China, Ethiopia, and Iran.

Particularly gratifying was the emphasis placed on sustainable and responsible tourism. Among the issues discussed were sustainable tourism in emerging destinations, climate change and its effect on tourism, voluntourism and community-based development, and the role of tourism in conservation. Specific topics of presentations included employing indigenous people in rainforest tourism in Guyana, creating a transfrontier network of peace parks in southern Africa, protecting the rivers of Fiji through a tourism and conservation partnership, preserving the cultural heritage of Kurdistan as the region establishes itself as a tourist destination, and creating voluntourism programs driven by local community needs rather than traveler desires.

During one of the sessions, a prominent sustainable tourism expert said, "We are well past the question of does sustainable tourism work. The question perhaps is how far we can take it." Judging by the ongoing projects discussed at the Summit, the possibilities for responsible tourism development are far from exhausted.

Over the next several months, Crossing Time Zones will feature reports about issues and participants from the Summit, including news about ongoing developments as well as interviews with travel experts and responsible tour operators.