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He did say that Diamonds International had won this lucrative monopoly because “cus-
tomers know they can go and shop there and know that if for any reason they don't like
what they bought, they get their money back. . . . In the end, they are paying us to be ad-
vertising their stores to our guests onboard. And in return for that they make a promise to
our guests . . . you can get your money back.”
A perusal of the Internet reveals hundreds of complaints that Diamonds International
does not automatically refund money for jewelry that is appraised back home at less than
what was guaranteed at the ports or onboard. It is hard to say whether Diamonds Interna-
tional is any worse than any other jewelry chain.
On the cruise, this emphasis on buying diamonds felt out of synch with the idea of a
carefree vacation. The pep-rally shopping lectures in the ship's huge auditorium added to
the sense of a trip aboard a shopping mall—destination nowhere.
For all those reasons, though, cruise ships are the face of modern mass tourism. The
industry has turned travel into a shopping spree. Airports have resembled shopping malls
for several decades. The most glorious cathedrals and monuments are surrounded by high-
end luxury stores with the same brands for sale whether in Europe, the United States or
Asia.
You won't find spokesmen extolling cruise vacations as the chance to shop until you
drop. More common is this description by Terry Dale, the former president and CEO of
the Cruise Lines International Association, the trade group, who told me in a telephone
interview that “we have passengers, customers who have wanderlust and a desire to see
and experience. That is part of what we're providing them—intellectual and spiritual en-
richment.”
There is one more profit center for onboard revenue that seems counterintuitive.
Cruise lines make significant money from what the passengers do when they leave the ship
and go ashore on those excursion trips.
Cruise lines essentially apply the same system to excursion trips as they do to diamonds
and artwork. The ship sells the excursions onboard, offering guarantees and then warning
against taking competing excursions. Then the ship takes a nice cut from every excursion
sold. On average, the cruise lines collect a commission or fee from the local tour agency
as great as 50 percent of the price of the tour. In one year, Royal Caribbean earned a third
of its profits from selling shore excursions.
Excursion might be a misnomer. They are designed by the hour. On a Caribbean stop,
you can choose to take a bus tour of an island's beaches and historic sites or go snorkeling
near coral reefs. At ports near cities like Florence and Rome, the passengers are bused to
the cities for a visit to a museum or a walking tour, always with great guides and time to
eat and shop before returning to the ship.
This is a complete reversal of the original idea of the passenger liners, when the voyage
itself was the excursion.
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