Ben Kritz: An industry that deserves to die

An industry that deserves to die
Ben Kritz April 16, 2020 https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/04/16/business/columnists-business/an-i...

Last of two parts

IN Tuesday’s column, I explained what has become the most visible shortcoming of the global cruise industry, thanks to the Wuhan Virus pandemic, which is the industry’s poor record when it comes to public health. The no fewer than 35 vessels affected by the coronavirus suggest that cruise ships are little more than giant floating petri dishes, and it is an impression that is entirely correct. Prior to the current pandemic, the industry has averaged about 30 infectious disease incidents, sickening an average of 3,670 passengers and crew every year since 2002.

Recklessly endangering people’s health is just one of the offenses against the planet committed by the cruise industry as a matter of policy and standard operating procedure.

Modern cruise ships may be engineering marvels and one of the most popular forms of vacationing — in spite of the Wuhan Virus scare, cruise bookings for 2021 are running about 40 percent higher than in 2019 — but they are also sources of grave environmental damage, economic and labor exploitation, and rampant sexual abuse.
Pollution machines

Cruise ships, which tourism authorities and backers here have become quite enthusiastic about in recent years, are environmental nightmares. An average-sized cruise ship — the sort that visits the Philippines with increasing frequency — burns between 140 and 150 metric tons of fuel a day, with some larger vessels consuming up to 200 metric tons a day.

That fuel is the lowest-grade heavy oil, and produces copious amounts of harmful emissions. The maritime industry has made efforts in recent years to mandate the use of “cleaner” fuel, but ships are relatively still the most polluting of any form of motorized transport. On a per-person basis, the amount of emissions produced during a cruise is about 2.5 times the typical cruise passenger’s carbon footprint on land.

An even bigger problem is water pollution. Cruise ships generate between 10,000 and 21,000 gallons of sewage a day, much of which is discharged directly into the ocean. To put that in familiar terms, that is the equivalent of an average-sized apartment complex swimming pool, about 6 meters by 6 meters by 2 meters deep. Again, the maritime industry has tried to improve standards, and cruise ships are bound by local regulations when operating in territorial waters, but the dumping of untreated or inadequately treated waste water in international waters remains the rule, rather than the exception.
Organized piracy

Most cruise lines, especially the largest ones, are incorporated in and sail under the flags of countries with loose regulations and minimal regulatory enforcement capacity. Royal Caribbean and Carnival, both headquartered in Miami, are registered in Liberia and Panama, respectively; Norwegian Cruise Line, the third largest, is incorporated in Bermuda.

The reason for this is money, naturally. Being registered in places that are notorious tax havens allow these hugely profitable companies (Carnival cleared about $3 billion last year) to avoid paying virtually any corporate income tax. Even better from a cost-cutting point of view, the vast armies of workers each company employs are subject to the labor codes and minimum wage laws of these countries of convenience. Liberia’s minimum wage is $4 to $6 a day (P203 to P304); that of Panama ranges from $1.23 to $2.36 an hour, which works out to $9.84 to $18.83 a day (P499 to P957); and Bermuda does not have a minimum wage, although lawmakers have been trying to pass legislation on it for the past few years.

Apart from legally underpaying workers, cruise lines have drawn unwanted attention to themselves in recent years for their practice of shaking down destinations. The chance to attract revenue in the form of port fees and passenger spending in local businesses is what drives destinations, the Philippines being a good example, to compete for the cruise lines’ business, only to find themselves being extorted. Cruise lines have demanded ports to lower their per-passenger fees or forego planned increases. In many ports of call, local businesses must pay fees to the cruise lines to be listed as “recommended” places to visit for passengers leaving the ship to the explore the area; those businesses that choose not to spend on “marketing” quickly find themselves bypassed.
Epidemic of sexual assaults

Finally, along with health risks, there has been a disturbing rise in criminality of a particularly worrisome sort on cruise ships in recent years. According to statistics compiled by the US Department of Transportation, in just nine months of 2018, there were 60 reported sexual assaults on cruise ships. Some of these involved crew members against other crew members, while others involved passengers. Even more disturbing, a 2013 US congressional report found that about one-third of all reported incidents — anecdotally, it is widely believed the majority of sexual assaults are not actually formally reported — involved minors.

Even though cruise lines and stubborn tourism authorities in places like the Philippines energetically promote the economic advantages of the industry, when one takes a closer look at its record and usual manner of operating, it becomes clear that the industry itself is the only one who benefits. No self-respecting country with even a whiff of a sense of responsibility toward its environment, domestic businesses, exported workers or its citizens who may be tempted to indulge in a week of regimented indolence aboard one of these floating houses of horrors should even consider letting a cruise ship get within 100 miles of its shores.

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