ABSTRACT
In 2005, 14 million passengers worldwide sailed on cruise passenger vessels (Staff 2006a). The worldwide growth in cruise passengers in the foreseeable future is expected to be 9 percent per year (Speares 2005); worldwide cruise vessel capacity is expected to increase 75 percent by 2015 (Staff 2006b). In North America the annual cruise passenger growth was 8.2 percent for the years 1980-2004, increasing from 1.4 million passengers in 1980 to 9.1 million passengers in 2004 (Cruise Lines International Association 2005).
