Cruise Port Market Positioning: Making the Case for Including Societal and Environmental Risk Mitigation Strategies

Port Authorities (PAs) are now paying growing attention to the social and environmental risks stemming from their cruise activities. Several of these ports are engaged in a structured and for some already long-standing, approach to reducing the negative externalities of cruise ship calls. However, the content analysis of 36 Port Authorities’ websites showed that very few of them report on such action plans. Based on the review of the literature dealing with PAs’ market positioning approaches, the purpose of this paper is to promote the opportunity and feasibility for PAs to disseminate information about their past, ongoing, and/or future actions supporting sustainable cruise tourism.