Cruise destination attributes: measuring the relative importance of the onboard and onshore aspects of cruising

ABSTRACT

Cruise tourism is an increasingly popular and profitable industry where cruise lines have positioned the cruise ship as the focal point of a vacation. This has led to speculation regarding the relative importance of the ship and the ports of call as the primary destination of cruise tourism. This issue has implications for the decision-making process of cruise travellers, as well as cruise marketing, itinerary planning, shore excursions and ship design. This study introduces the concept of co-destination and develops a new quantitative measurement scale for cruise destination attributes that separates onboard (ship) and onshore (ports of call) components. This instrument makes it possible to measure the relative importance of the onboard and onshore aspects in the decision-making process. Results confirm the scale’s ability to reliably and accurately measure cruise destination attributes and answers the question of whether passengers perceive the cruise or the ports of call to be the primary destination.

KEYWORDS:

• Cruise tourism
• cruise destination
• destination image
• destination attributes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Lincoln James Whyte is a Professor in the Okanagan School of Business at Okanagan College. His recently completed PhD (2016) from the University of Queensland and research interests have focused on tourist behaviour, destination image and travel motivation in the cruise industry.

Jan Packer is a Principal Research Fellow in the University of Queensland Business School. Her research focuses on applying principles from educational and positive psychology to understand and facilitate visitor experiences at museums, zoos and aquariums, botanic gardens, national parks, ecotourism, and wildlife tourism attractions.

Roy Ballantyne is Research Professor in the University of Queensland Business School. He has a well-established international reputation for his research in environmental interpretation and visitor learning. His work has advanced the field of informal environmental learning in cultural, heritage, and environmental settings particularly in relation to visitor adoption of environmentally sustainable behaviour.

ORCID

Lincoln James Whyte http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8680-8745

Jan Packer http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2250-1175