Cruise Ship Squeeze: The New Pirates of the Seven Seas

This book is about modern pirates: those who sail huge cruise ships from one port to another, offloading thousands of visitors a day. While the industry rakes in billions of dollars a year, paying virtually no income tax, the ports that ships visit are left with relatively few crumbs. It exploits workers onboard ships, uses graft from its deep war chests to shape political decisions and influence media, and bullies administrations into accepting, for example, that Carnival’s 50 percent-plus market dominance is not anti-competitive, or that its abysmal environmental and health practices are responsible. It represents capitalism at its worst.

Cruise Ship Squeeze focuses on the politics and economics of an industry that is continually subsidized by ports and by local, regional, and national governments and which runs roughshod over environmental and other laws and regulations. Through confidential documents and meetings with port officials, corporate executives, politicians, and industry insiders, cruise specialist Klein includes information never previously reported on:

• Campaign contributions (1997–2004)
• Health outbreaks (2002–2004)
• Money spent on lobbyists (1997–2004)
• Donations from industry-sponsored and -funded foundations (1996–2004)

A detailed and alarming exposé of the injustices of cruise tourism, the book’s concluding chapter examines social and political action that has been directed toward the cruise industry, identifies key organizations and groups that have been effective and that have maintained their integrity, and calls on readers to help contain the industry through grassroots activism so that it becomes environmentally, socially, economically, and politically viable.

Ross Klein has taken more than 30 cruises in all parts of the world, comprising over 300 days. An associate professor of social work at Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland, he has written widely on the cruise business, and his previous book, Cruise Ship Blues, caused waves in the industry.