[whatnext]

The cruise industry may never bounce back:

The coronavirus may sink the cruise-ship business
The industry has few friends and its main customers, the elderly, may shun it for good
Mar 31st 2020

...Richard Clarke of Bernstein, a research firm, points out that the industry’s reputation has always had a problem with norovirus, a less serious disease which causes vomiting and diarrhoea, often reported by the press on cruise ships. The covid-19 outbreaks cement perceptions that if holidaymakers “go on a cruise they could get ill and trapped at sea”. It does not help that so many cruisers are elderly, the group most vulnerable to covid-19. According to the Cruise Lines International Association, a trade body, a third of cruisers globally are aged over 60...

....A more fundamental worry is that the numbers holidaying at sea may simply never bounce back when the industry weighs anchor again. Airlines and hotels will always be needed by business travellers; holidaymakers have options other than cruising. Worse, cruising seems not to appeal to the young. Surveys suggest millennials want more adventurous holidays, and are more concerned about sustainability, overtourism and workers’ rights. These are all areas in which cruise lines have been very publicly criticised in recent years. The immediate problem, however, will be how to lure old folk back on board, now that the spread of the disease is indelibly linked in the public mind to cruise ships. For next year’s holidays, expect many silver cruisers to rediscover their land legs.

https://www.economist.com/business/2020/03/31/the-coronavirus-may-sink-the-cruise-ship-business