ABSTRACT
Cruise tourism in the contemporary era has emerged from, and continues to expand within changing national and global political economies that explicitly validate free market competition and exchange. Flag states create open or second ship registries to compete against one another in the exchange of minimal regulatory power for cruise ship registration fees and tonnage taxes. Port communities compete with one another in the exchange of infrastructural services and port taxes for cruise line, passenger and seafarer expenditures. Cruise lines compete with one another and with landed firms for revenue from passenger-tourists, and the latter in turn, exchange monies for the opportunity to consume integrated sea-land experiences of pleasure. Seafarers (in some cases, with the help of labour sending states) compete to exchange labour in return for wages.
