Hughes, a former professor at Brigham Young University who taught geography, travel and tourism, sympathizes with these communities, even though cruise is her fastest-growing business.

“The resident population can become completely overwhelmed by just the surge in tourist numbers,” she said. “And then it causes all types of service disruptions, and it eventually leads to a deterioration of amenities.”

Cruise backlash is not new, but the pace of destinations pushing back against overtourism in general, and cruise ships specifically, picked up during the pandemic, according to several industry experts. 

Just as people in big cities noticed air quality improvement during the Covid-19 shutdown, people in popular port cities also found out what it was like with fewer tourists, many of whom were coming off cruise ships. 

“The pause in global activity — not just cruise, not just travel — gave everyone a moment to step back and think about the role of tourism in their communities,” said Jan Swartz, executive vice president of strategic operations for Carnival Corp. That led to more local discussion in port cities, she said, which in turn led to officials from the destinations that the Carnival Corp. brands visit to start conversations with the industry. 

Cruise lines collaborating

As a result of that dialogue, Carnival and other cruise companies are taking steps to work with municipalities to self-regulate their numbers and their impact.

It was during the pandemic that Key West residents voted to limit cruise ships. In 2020, more than 60% of voters there opted to ban cruise ships carrying more than 1,300 people (passengers and crew), citing concern about ships causing water turbidity that threatens coral reefs. They also wanted to limit the total number of people coming ashore to 1,500.

The limits didn’t last long, being overturned soon after with legislation signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. A less stringent city council restriction in 2022 allowed one ship per day to dock at the harbor. But in March, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection gave the green light for the pier to accommodate ships that are larger than what was previously permitted, infuriating local activists. 

The legislative reversal did not change the cruise lines’ sensitivity to local concerns. 

MSC Cruises USA president Ruben Rodriguez said the line carefully considered which ship to send to Key West and decided on a smaller one, the 2,500-passenger Magnifica, despite demand that would support a larger vessel. 

“We care a lot about long-term relationships and the communities we visit, so we generally don’t go where we’re not wanted,” he said. “If our model is not a fit for the needs and wants of a community, we’ll have dialogue, we’ll build a relationship, but we’ll respect that.”

Last year, about 700 cruise ships carried nearly 1.7 million passengers to Juneau, up 74% from a decade ago and 28% from the previous peak in 2019. City officials worked with CLIA to tap the brakes and agreed to establish a five-ship daily limit, giving cruise lines a year’s notice. 

“The visitor industry is vital to our local economy, and it’s essential we preserve the things that make Juneau an incredible place to live and to visit,” said Alexandra Pierce, tourism manager for Juneau.

David Herrera, president of Norwegian Cruise Line, said such agreements are examples of cruise lines wanting to find the balance between what locals want and profitability. 

“We have to find a way to make it work, because that’s where guests want to go and that’s where we want to take them,” he said. “Whether it’s Alaska or whether it’s Europe, we’ve just got to figure it out, and I think we’re all motivated to do that.”

Cruise lines are also adjusting their schedules and adding technology to be more environmentally friendly.

Celebrity’s next newbuild will have a tri-fuel engine that can use progressively cleaner fuels as they come to market, said Laura Hodges Bethge, the line’s president.

“We understand where these communities are coming from, and we want to work with them,” Bethge said. “In some cases, that might mean a pause until the future develops itself.” 

Celebrity is also adapting its itineraries. To help reduce stress on Venice, it shifted more sailings to Ravenna, where parent company Royal Caribbean Group built a terminal. Guests can drive two hours to Venice or instead experience a city with fewer visitors.

“We want to go to the places that our customers want us to go to, right? Venice is one of those places,” Bethge said. But calling at Ravenna is a “way in which we can find ways to work together, and when we could do that in ports of call all over the world, it’s a really good thing.” 

Ravenna is an example of cruise lines teaming up with a destination to offer new stops. Private cruise destinations also provide alternative places to visit, ones where there are no locals to be resentful. Several lines are investing in new private destinations or expanding existing ones to support more ships.

“It’s part of that macro strategy,” said Jay Schneider, Royal Caribbean International’s chief product innovation officer. “There are tensions for tourism, and there are tensions for, ‘Well, wait a minute, this is too much tourism.’”

Smaller ships can go to less-visited destinations. Explora Journeys, for example, looks for places to sail its 922-passenger ships beyond marquee ports. “My best day is when our captains, who help us plan our itineraries, present an itinerary to us and I don’t know where the blazes” that is,  said Chris Austin, Explora’s president, North America. 

Room for improvement 

Despite those efforts, some within the industry think cruise lines can do even better. 

Daniel Skjeldam, CEO of Hurtigruten Group, is not surprised destinations are pushing back against cruising, saying the industry does not provide them with enough value. 

“In order to have acceptance for a visit, you need to treat the community you come into as if you are a guest, not an intruder,” he said. 

That means providing positive impacts, such as buying food and supplies locally, reducing emissions and plugging into shore power, Skjeldam said. 

“Instead of buying something in the U.K. and shipping it in a container, frozen, to the ship or keeping it in the freezer, we are actually buying locally. It’s costing more, but it’s providing local value,” he said. 

CLIA, however, argues that the cruise industry does provide positive impacts. 

Kelly Craighead, CEO of CLIA, described cruising as “managed tourism” that gives communities two years’ notice of the time and date ships are arriving, which helps destination managers plan. 

“What we try very hard to do is communicate the willingness of the industry to create an experience that is so positive because we’re agile, because we have adaptability and because we want to have these kinds of partnerships,” she said. 

Celebrity’s Bethge added that while cruise lines must improve their environmental impact, the industry also needs to do a better job educating communities about the reality of that impact overall.

“We are in a very, very small snippet on the tourism spectrum,” she said. “We come in with one large ship per day, and people think it’s much bigger in aggregate than it actually is.”

There wasn’t as much backlash 20 years ago when cruise ships carried a little more than 2,000 passengers, said Walter Nadolny, professor emeritus of marine transportation and global business at the State University of New York Maritime College and a former environmental officer for both Norwegian and Carnival. 

But ships have ballooned since then. For instance, the recently crowned largest cruise ship, Royal Caribbean International’s Icon of the Seas, can sails with as many as 5,610 guests. 

“I think they really crossed the line in size,” Nadolny said, adding that today’s big ships can hold more than twice the number of passengers of Carnival’s Fantasy-class vessels, which carried 2,052 passengers.

Going big is the current industry trend. The Icon’s sister ship will launch next year, and 2028 will see the launch of Royal’s seventh Oasis-class ship, which is expected to hold 5,668 passengers. Carnival will add two Excel-class ships by 2028, each carrying 5,374 guests. And Norwegian Cruise Line is planning four Prima Plus ships, the first two carrying around 3,571 passengers each and the second pair expected to be larger. 

Nadolny said he thinks lines may soon consider going smaller in reaction to destinations’ pushback. 

John Heald, senior cruise director and brand ambassador for Carnival Cruise Line, hinted that’s something the company might be thinking about. He asked his audience on Facebook in April, “Do you one day hope that Carnival Cruise Line will build a smaller ship … say, a Spirit class-size [2,124-passenger] ship?” The majority of the 8,000 people who responded said yes.

Advising clients on overtourism

Overtourism and cruise backlash give travel advisors an important role in explaining to clients when places are closed or restricted to cruise ships and how they can be more respectful travelers.

For example, John Lovell, president of Travel Leaders Group, said advisors’ expertise is important when guiding clients on options for getting to destinations that ships can no longer dock in directly.

“It just makes our job much more valuable, in my opinion, to be able to communicate what the overtourism stances of a particular destination [are],” he said. 

Trips and Ships Luxury Travel’s Hughes, who will be in Greece twice this year, said she’s pleased cities are pushing back against overtourism because social, sustainable tourism is important to her, and she sees the strain that too much visitation can create.

“Ethically, it’s hard for me, personally,” she said, adding that clients’ wants are the priority, and she is honest with them. She has also begun selling more small and expedition ships that visit “untouched” places, she said.

“If you’re looking for that postcard experience in Santorini, then you need to do a land vacation because you’re not going to get it, cruise-wise. You’re going to get a taste, and then you’re probably not going to like it,” Hughes said. “If you stay there when all the cruise ships are gone, you’re going to love it.”