Antarctic ship-borne tourism: an expanding industry.

Impacts of local human activities on the Antarctic environment

“…For many years, tourists arrived on small ships carrying 50 -120 passengers and were taken ashore daily in inflatable craft with outboard engines. Since 1990, larger cruise ships that could carry up to 500 passengers, and from 2000 onwards, liners that could carry 800-3000 passengers (not landing ashore) entered the market (Bertram 2007). The monitoring, cumulative impact, and environmental impact assessment of tourism activities has become a concern and clearly, long-term studies are likely to be necessary to detect any possible cumulative impacts of ship-based tourism (Hofman & Jatko 2000).…”

The Sinking of the M.S. <i>Explorer</i>: Implications for Cruise Tourism in Arctic Canada

“…In 1966, the first U.S.-operated cruise was offered aboard the Argentinean chartered ship, the Lapataia (Enzenbacher, 1992). With the advent of the International Geophysical Year (1957-58) and the dual availability of commercial aircraft and purpose-built cruise ships, it was not long before entrepreneur Lars-Eric Lindblad developed the concept of "expedition cruising" (Bertram, 2007). In 1969-70, the ice-strengthened Explorer (at that time named Lindblad Explorer) made her first expedition cruise with tourists to Antarctica, combining brief shore visits via small inflatable craft with environmental and historical education (Mason and Legg, 1999;Splettstoesser, 2000).…”

Is it all going south? Four future scenarios for Antarctica

“…On the supply side, the price and availability of fossil fuel (which is a significant component of operational costs), as well as the availability and continued seaworthiness of cruise ships (which needs to be considered, given that the fleet of vessels dominating the market at the moment is ageing; Bertram, 2007) are significant factors affecting the future development of Antarctic tourism. Supply might also be affected if overcrowding in certain parts of the Antarctic Peninsula causes a greater geographical dispersion of tourism operations.…”