 Guest-to-guest interaction on board cruise ships: Exploring social dynamics and the role of situational factorsAlexis Papathanassis Tourism Management, 2012, vol. 33, issue 5, 1148-1158 Abstract: Cruise ships are increasing in size, itineraries are becoming more standardised, and new customer segments are emerging. These factors induce a new social reality and represent a potential differentiator for the production and offering of cruise experiences. In this light, the study of guest-to-guest interactions will expectedly gain importance over time for cruise planning and operations. This explorative-interpretative study is divided into two phases. First, a survey of 173 randomly-selected respondents aimed at comparing the significance of social interaction on board, with that of other cruise product features. Social interaction emerged as a secondary issue and no significant differences were identified between customer categories. However, a deeper exploration of the collected data questioned this finding. Subsequently, the analysis of 76 semi-structured interviews resulted to a tentative model of factors affecting satisfaction with the interaction between guests on board. Finally, suggestions for further research and practical implications are discussed. Keywords: Cruises; Guest; Interaction; Social; Atmosphere; Triangulation (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:touman:v:33:y:2012:i:5:p:1148-1158 DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2011.11.016 Access Statistics for this article Tourism Management is currently edited by Chris Ryan More articles in Tourism Management from Elsevier |
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