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The 2020 State of the Cruise Industry report takes an in-depth look at the impact of cruising and the trends
we are witnessing across the industry, including environmental sustainability, responsible tourism and unique passenger offerings.

This WRI article highlights 8 ways to build back with a stronger blue economy post-COVID including bluer blue tourism, reducing shipping emissions, avoid squandering a post-COVID-19 fish bounty, supporting mariners, stay the course on ocean parks, farming the sea to feed billions, digitizing the ocean, and not preying on the moment.

Cruise tourism research has developed exponentially during the past decades. Global tourism activity in general and cruises in particular are concentrated in coastal areas and represent a dominant part of the so-called ‘blue economy’. Within this context, the public debate surrounding the impact of cruise tourism on port communities reflects a narrative of unsustainable growth, environmental pollution and negative globalization-related symbolism. Yet, the relatively small size of the cruise sector and the over-focus on emissions arguably misrepresents the overall impact and potential of this tourism domain for portside communities, economies and ecosystems. Cruise-related scientific research, as probably expected, offers a much more refined and holistic picture, transcending the somewhat populist public debate on this matter. Based on a systematic literature review examining cruise-related papers published between 1983 and 2009, Papathanassis and Beckmann (2011) Annals of Tourism Research 38(1), 153–174, identified 145 papers, which were subsequently subjected to a metadata- and a thematic-analysis.

Approximately, a quarter of them addressed the environmental-, social- and economic impacts of cruising on coastal regions. A decade later, and following an analogous methodological approach, a total of 305 cruise research papers, published between 2012 and 2022, yielded 161 relevant papers, subjected to the same coding scheme and thematically compared to previous findings. The subsequent thematic analysis, revealed a comprehensive set of issues, opportunities and challenges cruise tourism poses to coastal areas. Following a critical discussion of past developments and their trajectory, a future research and action agenda is proposed.

This CBD, UNEP, and UNWTO report provides stakeholders with the tools to make the tourism sector more biodiversity friendly and more socially just. It addresses the links between tourism development, biological diversity conservation, and development / poverty reduction.

This High Level Panel of a Sustainable Ocean Economy report examines the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the ocean economy and the role of ocean-based solutions in supporting sustainable and equitable recovery to the crisis.

This WRI report examines the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the ocean economy and the role of ocean-based solutions in supporting sustainable and equitable recovery to the crisis.

This SNV and University of Hawaii toolkit, recommended for anyone involved in the funding, planning or managing of a community-based tourism project, is designed to provide readers with the know-how to set up and run a monitoring programme for a community-based tourism project via step-by-step guidelines, supported by a wide range of case studies, in order to enable readers to embark on their own monitoring project.

This Seychelles Research Journal article explores the focus on Blue Economy goals in the Indian Ocean, examines the role that law can play in supporting them, and highlights key areas for future research.

This One Planet Network action plan provides realistic and achievable objectives aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve resource efficiency within the Mauritius accommodation sector and its value chain.

ATTA has publicly recognized the importance of increased accessibility in adventure travel since at least 2008, when the Adventure Travel World Summit in Sao Paulo, Brazil featured a concurrent session on Innovation & Best Practices: Serving Specialty Needs – Accessibility and Adventure. Although the travel industry is beginning to understand this and accommodate a wider range of people, there is more work to be done to understand how to make destinations and businesses most accessible. This post provides key insights through about accessibility in the full visitor experience cycle.