Cruise Industry News talks to two new cruise lines starting service in 2012,  FTI cruises will operate the 1980-built Berlin, and Seoul-based Harmony Cruises has started service with the Club Harmony, the ex-Costa Marina.

It made sense to enter the market with their own product, said Thomas Kusch, director of FTI Cruises, as demand is growing and FTI is already selling cruises for other companies via its subsidiary, BigXtra, and the company-owned TV channel, Sonnenklar TV.

Forever gone, and thankfully so, are the days when lifeboat drills are taken lightly. The words “in the unlikely event of abandoning ship” will be questioned for some time. The drills are no longer party time and hiding in the bathroom (to avoid participating) will no longer be tolerated.

Having taken part in many lifeboat drills over the years, we have seen passengers show up late and some not showing up at all. However, in all fairness to the industry, most cruise lines have for some time been running much stricter drills than in the past and, in our experience, have been conducting lifeboat drills before departure. Still, with many passengers already in party moods, these exercises have seldom been taken very seriously.

The challenge is the same industry-wide, said Alvin Dennis, vice president of purchasing and logistics at Norwegian Cruise Line. “Prices are going up across the board, especially for protein products.

“I have reached out to my counterparts at other cruise lines,” he continued, “and we are all on the same page. We will not do anything to diminish the product or affect the passenger experience negatively.”

“In the unlikely event of having to abandon ship” is how the importance of lifeboat drills is typically stated to passengers. With the Costa Concordia grounding and the lingering pictures of the capsized ship, that event may not seem so unlikely anymore to the millions watching television and reading newspapers.

The cruise industry provides a value-based sector to the overall tourism product mix in the Caribbean, according to Ricky Skerritt, chairman of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO). However, no shortage of unique challenges remain for Skerritt and the entire Caribbean.

Port costs, return on shore excursions and sailing distances (fuel costs) drive itinerary planning today, according to Neil Palomba, corporate operating officer for MSC Cruises and chairman of the port subcommittee of the European Cruise Council. Palomba said that while deployment strategy is fundamentally passenger-centric, other factors are increasingly affecting the planning process.