New Opportunities for Cruise Tourism: The Case of Italian Historic Towns

Abstract

The cruise industry has grown worldwide in the last decades and, today, it is often associated with high levels of pollution and overtourism. This is especially true of areas where tourism cruises are a long-established sector, such as the Mediterranean and Italy in particular, where there is growing concern of the consequences of excessive pressure on popular tourist destinations. To reduce such side effects, it is necessary to develop new and sustainable tourism management policies. Our study explores the potential of the diversification of shore excursions offered by cruise lines to relieve pressure on popular destinations. As a case study, we focus on a subset of Italian villages that have received quality certifications (Bandiere arancioni and/or Borghi più belli d’Italia) because of their artistic, historical, cultural, and aesthetic values. Thanks to their proximity to major Italian ports, these villages offer opportunities for shore excursions alternative to some classic and very popular destinations such as Rome, Venice, Pisa, and Florence. The benefits of shore excursions to peripheral destinations are particularly relevant when visits include overnights.

Cruise Travelers’ Service Perceptions: A Critical Content Analysis

“…Cruise tourism is a rapidly developing, worldwide market [1]. Developing countries as well as developed countries are attempting to participate in cruise tourism, which can make an important economic contribution [2][3][4][5].…”

“…Although cruise tourism is among the tourism phenomena that are experiencing significant growth [1], it has not received much attention from an academic point of view [13,14], especially in terms of cruisers' service quality perceptions. This is worrying, since service quality studies can assess how successful service ambassadors fulfill tourists' needs according to tourists' perceptions, helping cruise ship staff to prioritize tourists' needs, wants, and expectations [15].…”

Port Governance and Cruise Tourism

“…However, in terms of practical interest, the entry of new port operators such as cruise lines operating globally under business alliances, as has been observed in recent years [4,9], suggests further privatization of port activity for this traffic type, and its touristic, hospitality, and leisure areas of influence. This can only contribute effectively to the development of destination locations, if an appropriate strategy of integration between the activities on board cruise ships, in the port, and in the tourist attractions is considered, generating new business opportunities, as illustrated in the recent study by Mangano et al [101]. It is also clear from our work that the predominance of competition among ports is over unless it is operated in a regional and/or global way.…”

Surmounting challenges and breaking barriers: will the cruise liners open up new frontiers in the new global village?

“…Although the cruise line industry has been growing, it can be argued that it has not adequately contributed to sustainability planning in destinations affected by overtourism. This has been clearly demonstrated in well-established cruise tourism centres such as Italy and Spain (Mangano and Ugolini, 2020). To address excessive pressure on popular destinations, it is feasible to expand the range of available destinations.…”