The cruise industry and social sustainability

Abstract

In this thesis the social sustainability in the cruise industry will be addressed and it will be researched how the industry could change if the wages for the crew from developing countries would be raised up to the wage level of the crew from developed countries. In the literature review the thesis starts to explain how the cruise industry has evolved to the economic it is today before the term sustainability, social responsibility and social sustainability in the cruise industry will be explained. In order to be able to compare developed and developing countries the literature research compares Germany as a representing country for the developed countries and the Philippines as a representative for the developing countries. After the literature research the quantitative survey and qualitative interviews will be presented. The conclusion of this thesis is that a raise of wages for developing countries would shrink the cruise industry drastically. Looking on the mass tourism at the cruise destinations this might be good but at the same time a lot of jobs would be eliminated which are being needed especially in the developing countries. As a result there would be more negative impacts of a raise of wages than positive for the social sustainability in the cruise industry.