Local collaboration at cruise destinations: Challenges and opportunities of sustainable value creation

We invite papers that address the role, challenges, and opportunities in creating and increasing local sustainable value from the cruise industry.

The cruise industry is an economically important tourism segment for many destinations along the European coastlines from the Mediterranean Sea to the Baltic Sea, the Fjords of Norway to North Cape and the European Arctic. However, not many studies have looked into how local service providers at the destinations can create and increase sustainable value from cruise arrivals.

Presenting challenging relations between local and global, uniqueness and standardization, and a complex array of players directly contributing to the final cruise experience, the cruise industry offers a particular vantage point to understand the evolution of global tourism, innovation and sustainable value creation, policies and industrial practices.

Local service providers at the destinations who, directly or indirectly, are involved in destination development - including local authorities, tourism companies, and communities - play an important role in providing products and services that deliver valuable experiences for tourists. At the same time, local service providers face challenges of co-creating sustainable value with the cruise operators and visitors, for example in dealing with waste and pollution, enduring the cultural differences from tourists, offering sustainable products and services, etc. The need for local service providers to be interactive and connected with cruise operators and tourists requires creative sustainable solutions to address those challenges and turn them into opportunities.

We welcome research from diverse perspectives related, but not limited, to the following topics and geographical destinations:

• Roles, challenges and opportunities for the local service providers at the cruise destination in sustainable value creation (i.e. new products and services).
• Best practices related to sustainable value creation for the destination’s local service providers.
• Interaction and collaboration between industry actors, public authorities, innovators in value co-creation.
• New products and services for cruise industry that enhance sustainability.