Travel agents, do you think your customers feel safe if they were to take a cruise these days? Are your bookings for cruises down since the Costa Concordia disaster, and other cruise line mishaps? It is probably a little early to tell since the Concordia going aground.
The Costa Concordia tragedy appears to be human error, which of course we do not want someone with poor judgment guiding our ship, but human error will always happen, no matter what the form of transportation.
I wonder if it will affect bookings much at all. Overall cruising seems a pretty safe way to travel, when compared to flying or driving. According to the president of the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA), cruising is overall very safe and accidents are very rare.
There are many agencies that oversee cruise line safety including The U.S. Coast Guard, the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA), and International Maritime Organization (IMO).
There are rigorous testing and training that cruise lines and their staff must go through before passengers can board the ship. The U.S. Coast Guard does safety inspections as well before new cruise ships can leave a port.
I wonder if the economy will have more to do with less cruise line passengers? The economy in Europe, the USA, and many locations around the world are in some trouble, to say the least. This could have more of an effect than passengers worried about the safety.
What are your thoughts?
No comments:
Post a Comment