The chairman of Carnival Cruises has played down suggestions that the company’s recent heavy discounts on its cruise holidays after it was alleged the price reductions had lead to incidences of “social unrest”.
Mickey Arison, CEO of Carnival Corporation which owns 11 cruise operators including Carnival Cruises, Costa Cruises, P&O Cruises and Cunard, has been forced to defend the apparent falling standards of passenger behaviour on board some of his liners, supposedly as a result of lower holiday costs.
The accusations come after an incident involving six passengers from the Carnival Victory and a local taxi driver resulted in a brawl with police officers in Antigua, after the Carnival ship had called there. The passengers from Brooklyn, New York could face up to two years’ in jail if found guilty.
Speaking at the recent Travel Convention in Barcelona, Arison said: “Fighting isn’t just something that happens to people on low incomes. Whether you earn 10p or £100,000 a week, it often comes down to how much beer you’ve drunk or the circumstances you’re in. It’s like with road rage, it doesn’t matter if you’re driving a Mercedes or a Fiat.”
In response to claims that lowering the cost of cruise holidays had attracted ‘a different type of passenger’, Arison said: “We carried eight million passengers this year, with three million of them taking their first cruise, and I’d expect anything from them. The reality is that a ship is a microcosm of any location and almost anything happens.”
Carnival has recently pulled Antigua from weekly itinerary of Carnival Victory, although the liner has denied that the move is related to brawl, instead claiming that it was looking to replace the stop regardless. The Carnival Freedom will continue to call at Antigua.
