Cruise lines cutting back.

For the first time in the modern cruise ship era, cruise lines are cutting back on Caribbean cruises, the lifeblood of Port Canaveral and other Florida cruise portsm, reports Florida Today (March 12, 2008):

The cruise industry plans to reduce total passenger ship capacity in the Caribbean

by about 5% in 2008, according to statistics presented at the industry's annual Seatrade convention at the Miami Beach Convention Center. The reduction comes after cruise lines watched the Caribbean's total share of the cruise market slip to about 35% in 2007 from 39% a year earlier. The Caribbean remains the industry's largest market. However, faced with the faltering U.S. economy and the weakened dollar, cruise lines are turning more attention to growing markets such as Europe, cruise executives said during a "State of the Industry" panel discussion;

Gerald Cahill, president and CEO of Miami-based Carnival Cruise Lines, said that despite such negatives the industry has survived other bad times, including the recession of the early 1990s and the travel slump from the 2001 recession and Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.