The convergence of environmental sustainability and ocean cruises in two moments: in the academic research and corporate communication

Abstract

Concerns for world peace, freedom, and the future of people and the planet have led to several United Nations Conferences, generating discussions on global sustainable development. These efforts resulted in the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The proposed Goal 14 reflects the concern for the conservation and sustainable use of oceans, seas, and marine resources. In this context, the research objects of this study are ocean cruise ships and the main dimension surveyed is environmental sustainability. Firstly, the study sought to identify through the convergence of the dimensions of sustainability and cruises the contributions to the cruise industry that promote the SDGs. To this end, we carried out a bibliometric analysis of scientific production on cruise ship environment, narrowing the research focus on environmentally sustainable practices. The second research objective is to examine cruise companies’ strategic inclination to provide information on environmental initiatives to the market. The results show little scientific research focused on the convergence of the two topics studied, environmental sustainability and cruises. Only 12 scientific articles were identified. Regarding the information on environmentally sustainable practices, the findings show that only 22.6% of the 31 cruise companies surveyed provide this information on their corporate websites.

Keywords

• Sustainable development. Sustainability. Environmental sustainability. Cruise industry. Cruise ship. Strategy.