Are you saying that smokers make up 25% of the 'cruise customers'? I've never been on one, but that figure sounds pretty high to me. I'm curious what percentage of the population smokes. From the statistics I have read, the smoker's predominate the lower income brackets. I'd attribute the lack of passengers to the stock market setbacks, the recent recession and the lost jobs in the IT industry. Cruises aren't typically a cheap thing. The economy was probably more of a factor than anything else.
So if the economy has gone south and a cruise line is losing money on all their boats, the answer is....make the non-smoking cruise a smoking one?
They started this in '98 during the high tech boom. It never garnered the amount of non-smoking customers they thought it would.
Does that include cigars and pipes?
No, I said that Carnival alienated 25 percent of their "potential customer base." That's a wider superset than their cruise customers. And I have no data on how many of their customers use tobacco or the socioeconomic breakdown of tobacco use by income.
I'm curious what percentage of the population smokes.
According to Infoplease, the current figure is 23.1 percent (a slightly higher percentage of men than women).
From the statistics I have read, the smoker's predominate the lower income brackets. I'd attribute the lack of passengers to the stock market setbacks, the recent recession and the lost jobs in the IT industry. Cruises aren't typically a cheap thing. The economy was probably more of a factor than anything else.
Well, the statistics I've seen don't seem to bear out this theory. The number of cruises and passengers on those cruises increased by 9.3 and 11 percent respectively between 2002 and 2003.
And if economic reasons alone were the cause for the change in Carnival's policy, then why did they change the smoking policy on just this particular ship? If smokers were not a significant percentage of their customer base, it seems to me that they would have made all of their ships non-smoking. Also, a non-smoking ship, the only non-smoking ship in Carnival's fleet, should have been packed to the gills with passengers trying to get away from all that evil tobacco smoke.
And you would be Wrong.
2004 Wave Period Points to Another Record Year For North American Cruise Industry, Says CLIA
So almost every Cruise ship is being booked to the Max except for the one Non-smoking Ship.
Note: Carnival has a total of 20 Ships, If Non-smoking was such a good idea why didn't they make more than 1 of them totally non-smoking?
Where have you been, 25% is the smoking population, and smokers takes cruises as much as the non-smokers, the proof is in the pudding, non-smoking cruises doesn't work.
Economy my foot, the cruise business is booming.
Smokers now make up approximately 20% of the population. But you have to think of the customer base. That is 20% of the entire population, to include children and infants. If you only consider the fare-paying adult public, then the percentage of potential customers they are alienating is much higher. And then you have to consider they alienate even more than that. Note that they said they had trouble booking groups. Many smokers have non-smoking friends and family members. When families and friends go on vacations together, do you think they'd pick a non-smoking cruise which is sure to alienate a percentage of the group over all the other alternatives? Personally, I'd love to see them turn much smaller ships that they can fill into 100% smoke-free cruises. That way folks like you can have your fun hobnobbing with those with like minds and the rest of us can enjoy our vacations without hearing the grousing.
1) Most of the people who go on cruises are probably more younger and younger people smoke at a higher %
2) Who says only US citizens ae going on these Cruises, You have a lot of Europeans and Asians going to(Someone from Germany or Japan is going to take a Carribiean cruise from America not all the way from Germany or Japan) and they smoke at a much higher % than Americans
Never been on one? My wife and I have been on many, and here's how it works.
Port side of the ship (left side) is where smokers light up. No smoking on the starboard side (right side) and in the dining rooms. Smoking allowed in cabins, in lounges and bars on the port side, the casino, in the Showroom during Bingo games, and in other deck areas. Some ships flip-flop the port and starboard designations. On Holland America, starboard smokes, port is non-.
About 25% of the pax on a Caribbean cruise smoke, about 40% on a Mediterranean cruise. Non smokers can enjoy the smoke free bars and lounges on the non- side of the ship. Ventilation on the typical modern cruise ships is fabulous, and the overall air quality away from areas where smoking is allowed is top-notch. You don't walk down the retail promenades smelling smoke. It's exhausted away. And, as I said, all the dining rooms are non-smoking. You're free, at any point in the dinner, to get up and wander over to the bar for a puff. It's all very well-planned to accomodate the preferences of all pax without stepping on anyone's toes.
Carnival's Paradise wasn't the only non-smoking ship. Rennaissance Cruises was non-smoking, but they went belly-up. And Carnival's Zero-Tolerance Policy was modeled right out of the typical governmental public schools' ZT program. The Carnival Smoking Nazis would throw you off the ship if you had even one cigarette in your possession.
The n/s Paradise was an ill-conceived move because Carnival failed to realize that the group that was clamoring for a ship with no smoking wasn't conprised of people who had an interest in cruising, only in CONTROLLING others' lives.
Michael
I've never been on a cruise either, but I would imagine a popular activity among many cruise customers is to share a cigar and a cocktail on the open deck. Your typical cigarette smoker may not be a cruise customer, but demographically, cigar smokers are likely to be cruise customers. Given the choice, they would be more likely to choose a ship on which they could have that cigar.