A watershed moment is what we’ve hoped for in the cruise industry and of course throughout travel and tourism.
Are we there yet?
Tea leaves notwithstanding, the mainstream keeps reminding Climate Travelers to seek alternate ways of organizing our travel.
Tourism is not a trusted voice.
It’s overrun with middlemen, who speak a language honed for consumption otherwise familiar on supermarket shelves. They sell “product.” The more pre-packaged and paid for ahead of use, the fatter its own middlemen profits in this make-up for three years of Covid upheaval.
Climate travelers are already far out front of their trillion-dollar industry leaders in the same way that they also keep outpacing policy makers on most environmental issues.
But it’s spring, and hope erupts like Georgia’s white flowering dogwoods. Aren’t we all ready?
Cruise ships and hybrid cruise ferries
As he appeared on the eve of retirement, Frank Del Rio of Norwegian Cruise Holdings told an audience at Seatrade, the cruise industry’s leading annual business-to-business event when it convened in Fort Lauderdale, “We will do whatever the science and technology allows us to do. We’re not laboratories, we’re not scientists. I’m not sure we’ll hit net zero in 2050, 2030, 2093.”
Not a rousing call to action.
Yet the new issue of Cruise & Ferry Review (CFR) in its deep interview with Carnival’s next-generation President and CEO Josh Weinstein turns disdain into pearls. (I’m brief about this and sticking to climate change — Weinstein does seem a man in full — because I hope to secure my own interview with him.)
Weinstein runs a fleet of 90 ships across nine brands. Eight ships run on LNG fuel that he pushed for in 2012. Targets for 2030 include carbon intensity reductions of 20 per cent (compared to 2019), particulate matter air emission reductions by half (compared to 2015), 60 per cent reduction of its fleet shore power connections, installation of advanced wastewater treatment systems on more than 75 per cent, and food waste cut by half
By 2050, says Weinstein, “the company will send all waste to waste-to-energy facilities, extend shore power capabilities to the full fleet, achieve net carbon neutral ship operations, and build zero emissions vessels.”
To get there, the holding company has installed 600 food biodigesters on its ships, and is testing fuel cells powered by hydrogen derived from methanol, a lithium-ion battery power system, the world’s largest battery storage system, biofuels, and working on sustainable methanol.
“The great thing about having more than 90 ships and nine brands is that we have plenty of capacity to experiment by piloting different technologies. If any solutions prove particularly effective, we can look to roll them out to all our brands and vessels.
“I’m very proud that we’ve continued to measurably reduce our impact on the environment and continue investing in new technologies, despite the turbulent times the industry has faced in the last three years.”
Further now in descending orders of hope:
Cruise-ferries
Cruise ships, if they can get their act together, could also be a drawdown transportation choice. That’s especially true of the growing fleets of cruise ferries that accommodate whole-voyage travelers with coastal day-trippers — this also for another blog that I believe offers salvation for the Caribbean.
Airlines
The pitch between rows of seats has never been more cramping on airlines. Some flights don’t allow passengers to recline at all. According to Going, standard pitch is 30 to 31 inches in economy class for most carriers. Less pitch means less legroom.
The inconvenience isn’t so that airlines can distribute their CO2 emissions among more passengers. There are mitigation banks that passengers can buy into that exceed carbon neutral and reach into carbon drawdown.
Yet if the European Union were to set targets for more and cheaper aviation fuels for carriers to keep their landing rights, governments would make the necessary investments. Climate travelers would reward carriers and destinations that comply.
Cruise ships
if they can get their act together, cruise companies could also be a drawdown transportation choice. That’s especially true of the growing fleets of cruise ferries that accommodate whole-voyage travelers with coastal day-trippers — this also for another blog that I believe offers salvation for the Caribbean.
Hotels
In its latest annual report on hotel industry wellbeing, the American Hotel Association revealed that lowest on the list of 13 features for customers when booking is the newness of properties they’re considering. Meanwhile, global expansion of newbuild hotels, largely driven by competition among chain hotel holding companies and their brand loyalty rewards, continues at a steady pace, according to a report in Hotelier, at 14,267 projects, a four-per-cent increase year-over-year (YOY), with 2,298,846 rooms in the pipeline for 2023. Newbuilds of all kinds account for some eight percent of all greenhouse gas emissions.
The corresponding drive for control and profits from cutting back on guest services by staff shows up in the latest J.D. Powers report from July last year. The single biggest factor driving an 8-point decline in overall satisfaction is hotel cost and fees. Another factor is dissatisfaction with guest rooms, which indicates that hotel guests feel they are paying more, but not getting more in return. The drop in guest satisfaction is so far small, a scant eight points from a possible 1,000.
Meanwhile, chain companies have felt their confidence repeatedly battered by outside forces starting with 9/11 through the Great Recession, while the pandemic has left year-to-year results ahead so unsure that lean and mean has redefined hospitality in the so-called hospitality trade. While the back office cuts and skimps, the visitor interface is kabuki.
Destinations
Venice has begun deploying a multi-billion-dollar system of vertically rising barriers to keep high tides from flooding into the once thriving city. But as critics point out, real life has given up the city heart, turned over to tourists.
Altogether negative, is the Cambodian regime’s inhumane uprooting of thousands of residents that had cluttered in settlements surrounding Angkor Wat that enforcers deemed had sullied the visitor experience. The settlers are now reported 75 miles away without an alternative economy. Military regimes can do this.
NOTES
https://www.cruiseandferry.net/digital/magazine/2023/spring/14/
https://www.ahla.com/sites/default/files/AHLA.SOTI_.Report.2023.final_.002.pdf
https://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/4111494.html
https://www.going.com/glossary/seat-pitchAirline . . . https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/airplane-seat-size-faa-comments/index.html#:~:text=%22I%20can't%20imagine%20seats,cheap%20airfare%20and%20more%20legroom.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/11/26/venice-floods-mose-barrier-climate/
Tech support by Ted Wendler
