Monetary and non-monetary value creation in cruise port destinations: an empirical assessment

TLDR

Cruise tourism is the fastest‑growing segment of global travel, drawing growing research interest yet leaving gaps in understanding its broader local impacts. This study quantifies the overall value a non‑shareholding cruise company generates for a port destination, including both monetary and non‑monetary effects. Monetary and non‑monetary values were estimated from empirical data collected from 208 passengers and 64 crew members. The analysis reveals that passenger, crew, and cruise‑line expenditures constitute the monetary impact, while word‑of‑mouth behavior drives a non‑monetary effect, offering implications for scholars, managers, and policymakers.

Abstract

The cruise tourism industry has been the fastest growing segment of the global travel sector over the last decades. Due to its dramatic expansion, this sector has recently attracted an increasing interest from researchers and practitioners.Despite this attention, however, some literature gaps still persist. Indeed, extant contributions facing the cruise tourism (positive) impact on the local community neglect to investigate the potential overall value disruption caused by cruise traffic diversion towards other destinations.Therefore, this paper measures the overall value potentially generated for the territory by a cruise company, which is not a shareholder of the facility in a port of call. The monetary and non-monetary value is estimated using empirical data collected from 208 cruise passengers and 64 crewmembers. The results show the total amount of passenger, crew and cruise-line expenditures (i.e., monetary impact), as well as the non-monetary effect triggered by word-of-mouth behaviour. The main findings yield several implications for academics, managers and policymakers.