Half of Cruisers Want Smoking Onboard ‘Totally Banned’

Aug. 18, 2011 - PRLog -- As part of ongoing research in to the holiday habits of British cruisers, an independent cruise comparison website, http://www.CruiseCompare.co.uk conducted a study of 1,271 cruisers to discover the attitudes they had towards smoking cigarettes onboard cruise ships.

The study, conducted by http://www.CruiseCompare.co.uk, initially asked the respondents if they smoked cigarettes, to which almost a third, 32%, answered ‘yes’. A further 19% of the respondents admitted that they were ‘social smokers’, meaning they only smoked occasionally when in a social environment.  The remaining half, 49%, stated that they did not smoke at all.

The total number of respondents were asked about their attitudes towards smoking when onboard a cruise liner. According to the results, almost half, 48%, stated that smoking onboard a cruise ship should be ‘totally banned’. When asked to explain further, the majority, 37%, said they felt this way because of the ‘health implications of passive smoking’. 22% felt it was ‘too dangerous’ to have lit cigarettes on a cruise liner.

A further 27% of the respondents said that smokers onboard a cruise ship should be ‘assigned designated smoking areas’, much like the smoking ban introduced throughout the UK. This would mean non-smokers would not have to interact with or be near the passengers when they chose to smoke.

Of the respondents who stated that smoking onboard a cruise liner should be limited to designated areas, two fifths, 41%, said that they felt this way because smokers are ‘used to the same limitations when at home in the UK’.

According to the study from http://www.CruiseCompare.co.uk, 14% of the respondents cited that smokers on a cruise ship should ‘be entitled to smoke in their cabin’.

Danielle Fear, Managing Director of http://www.CruiseCompare.co.uk, said the following about the findings,

“I can’t say I was surprised at these results; society seems to have easily adapted to the smoking ban that has made it illegal to smoke in public places such as restaurants, bars and bus stops. I can see the logic of spreading this ban across cruise ships; after all, many non-smokers find being around cigarette smoke unpleasant.”

She continued,

“However, having said this, people who smoke can find it very relaxing, and in fact find not smoking stressful. It wouldn’t be fair to cause cruisers any stress, weather they smoke or not, as everyone is entitled to a restful holiday. Perhaps the best option would be to create designated smoking areas onboard a cruise ship, as this would mean those that didn’t want to be around cigarette smoke wouldn’t have to be, but smokers could enjoy their cruise stress free.”  

***ENDS***

For more information, please contact Charlotte Horsfall, 10 Yetis PR Agency on 01452 348 211 or Charlotte@10yetis.co.uk  

EDITORS NOTES

•         CruiseCompare.co.uk is the UK's largest cruise comparison website, comparing more than 10,000 cruise holidays on more than 200 cruise liners.

•         CruiseCompare.co.uk has partnered with leading agents to offer cruises from the leading brands including P&O Cruises, Royal Caribbean Cruises, Celebrity Cruises, Princess Cruises, Costa Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL), and Carnival.