FORT LAUDERDALE -- While the sustainability theme dominated this year's Seatrade Cruise Global conference, so too did frank talk about the reality of meeting targets -- and whether being green is something cruisers care about.
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings CEO Frank Del Rio said during the event's State of the Industry panel that the industry is focusing too much on the science of sustainability and not enough on the cruiser.
Time spent talking about the development of fuel sources, which he argued the industry doesn't have a good understanding of, should be spent talking about consumers and closing the price gap between cruise and land vacations.
"I think everybody cares [about sustainability] to some degree. Will they pay for it?" Del Rio said during the panel discussion with other cruise CEOs. "I know that the purpose of the cruise industry is to provide great vacations for customers, and I don't think that we talk enough about it because we've been carried away by this narrative about sustainability and renewables and green and blue and everything else, and I think it's time to be more balanced."
The march toward sustainability and net-zero cruising has been a rallying cry from the industry, especially as it has pushed through the pandemic.
Cruise lines trumpet new ships equipped to use cleaner fuels like liquefied natural gas and biofuels (when they are available), plug into shore power and use batteries and fuel cells.
CLIA set a goal for the cruise industry to attempt to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, but one of the main messages at Seatrade was concern about what it will take to make that achievable.
Until the world comes up with a solution that supplies an alternative to fossil fuels in large quantities, cruising will never reach net-zero emissions, said Pierfrancesco Vago, executive chairman of the MSC Group's cruise division.
The industry can reduce emissions by up to 70% through efficiencies, Vago said, but that final 30% comes down to ships' fuel, for which clean alternatives have yet to be developed or are in short supply.
"We need new fuels, sustainable fuels," he said, adding that the newest ships are built to use those synthetic and biofuels when they become widely available.
Del Rio also cast doubt about the industry's ability to reach its goal by 2050.
"We will do whatever the science and technology allows us to do. We're not laboratories, we're not scientists," he said. "I'm not sure we'll hit net zero in 2050, 2030, 2093."
What do cruisers want?
Supporting Del Rio's position on customer focus, Henry Dennis, a leisure travel advisor for Frosch in Charlotte, said clients don't ask about it when booking cruises.
"I don't think that I have ever had a potential client inquire about what a vendor (cruise, tour, hotel/resort or airline) was doing to get to net zero or what their sustainability plans are," he said. "From my experience, clients are more interested in where the ship goes, the experience that they will have onboard and what will it cost them to have the experience they want to have."
But Josh Weinstein, CEO and chief climate officer for Carnival Corp., said during the panel that consumer research shows guests expect cruise lines to "do good."
"If we're seen as doing the right things, then we satisfy a baseline level of expectation, and they will come with us. Now, I think that's going to evolve over time," he said. "So what we have to do is we have to stay ahead of whatever that consumer definition of being good means and consistently improve, and I think that's what we're all doing."
Another message from the conference was that the industry needs to do more and better storytelling about how it is working toward that net-zero future.
"We have indeed overcome the complex challenges around decarbonization ahead of many other sectors or businesses in society today, but people don't know how far we actually have come, and this is a failing on our part," Vago said.
"We need to sing from the same songbook," said CLIA CEO Kelly Craighead, who urged audience members to tell the industry's story on sustainability in order to help advocate for regulations that support cruise lines.