Carnival Cruise Lines Case

Carnival Cruise Lines

1. What global forces have contributed to the growth of the cruise-line industry?

Based in the text we can establish these factors:

• Increase in and expansion of technology
• Development of services that support international business
• Growing consumer pressures
• Increased global competition (airlines industries)

Also was after World War II when airlines captured passengers from ocean liners, but retired liner could be found at good prices at that time, also “Fun Ship” vacations was an attractive and successful concept for vacationers.

We can add the excursions, ship shopping, casinos and other amenities witch are attractions to the costumers. Also there is the behavior of people in recessions that are more apt to take shorter cruises and to embark from nearby ports than flying too faraway.

1. What specific steps has Carnival Cruise Lines taken to benefit from global social changes?

The specific actions that Carnival Cruise Lines took to benefit from changes in the attitude of the customers are:

• Offers cruises to every continent on the globe, including Antarctica. So embarking to destinations as Jamaica, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Caribbean/Bahamas, Alaskan and Mediterranean routes.
• Expand mass-market sea travel by promoting the idea of the “Fun Ship” vacation (excursions on a pleasure craft designed to be a little less formal and luxurious than the traditional ocean liner).
• Buy retired liner a good price.
• Added not only ships but also whole cruise lines to they fleet.
• Obtaining flags of convenience from about 30 different countries.
• Cooperates with tour operators who provide onshore excursions.
• Use the opportunity for the cruise market is often subsidize by the governments.

1. What are some of the national differences that affect the operations of cruise lines?

There are some conditions that may affect those operations:

• Physical factors
• Social factors
• Competitive factors

For this case we can mentioned some circumstances like registering as a Liberian or Mongolian legal entity, in that way a company can take advantage of the lower taxes and less stringent employment rules. Also we have the revenues, Carnival does have to pay port fees.

In other case, there is the crew´s from Philippine, that correspond to a reasonable labor costs and they have fluent English, and finally each cruise offers formal nights in the week, theme-based dinners centering on national cuisines, variety of music and casinos (because cruises operate outside the jurisdiction of any national authority).

1. Although most cruise-line passengers are from the United States, the average number of annual vacation days taken by U.S. residents is lower than that of workers in most other high-income countries. How might cruise lines increase sales to people outside the United States?

One of the competitive factors is “Competitors Faced in Each Market” that says the success in a market depends on whether your competition is also international or local, so if we observe that there are specialized cruise lines in certain parts of the world, it is necessary to create a cost-benefit analysis to account whether to expand the brand, seeing what the costs of generating bases in other continents, which is the price of inputs and if there is real interest in cruises in that parts of the world. Otherwise, it would be desirable to improve existing plans to attract the market to U.S and not have the need to reach them.

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