Cruise tourism in Malaysia: A SWOT analysis - Theory and Practice in Hospitality and Tourism Research - page 191

3.2.3 Labour shortage
Although the cruise industry is well-known for its
globalised workforces on-board yet labour short-
age has become one of their weaknesses that might
harm the cruise liners or even the cruise industry
itself (Gibson, 2008; Terry, 2011; Larsen et al.,
2012). Burke (2009) had identified that mistreat of
cruise employees is part of the labour issues that
lead to labour shortages in this industry as cruise
liners will have a chance to escape from labour laws
when they registered their cruises and company in
foreign countries.
Additionally, Larsen et al. (2012) also reveal
that jobs on-board is considered as very isolated
as compared to others whereby the employees
have no choice, but to be cut off from any recrea-
tional activities, their own families and friends.
Indeed, low work engagement, job autonomy and
departmental resources will lead to low employee
retention.

However, it is an opportunity for the cruise
industry of Malaysia whereby an exemption
from the Malaysia Cabotage Policy was given to
all international cruises by the Malaysian govern-
ment (ETP, 2012). By having this opportunity to
be exempted from this government policy, interna-
tional cruises are now allowed to disembark and
re-embark cruise passengers at more than one
Malaysian port in any of its stopover destinations
throughout the itinerary (ETP, 2012; Malaysia-
kini, 2009). In return, this will helps to develop
the cruise industry in Malaysia by attracting more
international cruises to stopover to more destina-
tions in Malaysia.

3.3.3 Government supports and initiatives
Cruise industry is part of the high impact project
of Malaysia, which is the Economy Transfor-
mation Programme (ETP) that introduced and
launched in year 2010 (ETP, 2012). Thus, cruise
industry in Malaysia is being considered as one
of the national key economic areas by the gov-
ernment. Furthermore, a policy-making public-
private stakeholders' advisory committee were also
formed under this programme with the function
of providing direction for policies, developments
and frameworks required by the cruise industry in
Malaysia (ETP, 2012). In fact, this advisory com-
mittee is known as The Malaysia Cruise Council
(MCC) whereby another six sub-task forces were
also formed underneath to address and streamline
the specific issues of those six identified ports in
Malaysia (ETP, 2012).

3.3 Opportunities
3.3.1 Increase of Spending in Travel and Cruising
As reported in the study done by Travel Weekly
(2012), 43 percent of consumers are expected to
spend significantly more while 31 percent spend
somewhat more for travelling. This economy factor
is considered as one of the opportunities for cruise
tourism in Malaysia to boost as this situation will
enable more people around the world to travel with
cruises as their spending on travel is increasing.
Despite international market, the cruise industry
of Malaysia also might be benefits from its domes-
tic market as 73 percent of Malaysian indicated
that they would increase their budget for travelling
in 2013 in the research done by Trip Advisor (The
Star, 2013b).
According to Travel Weekly (2012), the number
of global cruise passengers increased approximately
two million (10%) as the figures increased from
18.7 million in 2010 to 20.6 million for 2011. In
terms of Asia and Pacific region, its total number
of cruise passengers goes up to almost 800,000
which contributed a 6 percent market share with
a combined growth rate of 90 perecent from year
2001 to 2004 (WTO, 2012). Hence, these evidences
strongly shown that people were not only spent
more in travelling but there is an increasing trend
for cruising.

3.3.4 Free from severe natural disaster
The fact that Malaysia is free from any severe
natural disaster such as Tsunami, earthquakes,
typhoons and volcanic eruptions since it is strategi-
cally located out of the “Pacific Rim of Fire” (Dis-
aster Management Division of Malaysia, 2011).
This is an opportunity to promote and develop
Malaysia as an international cruise destination
because the safety issues of a particular country
or destination is basically a main concern and
consideration when choosing a cruise destination
either by the cruise operators or cruise passengers
(Manning, 2006; London, 2011). This is also jus-
tified by the research done Travel Canada (2014)
who found that 87 percent of the target respondent
(cruise passengers) revealed that the safety issue is
definitely their main concern for cruising.

3.3.2 Relieved from Cabotage Policies
In Malaysia, Cabotage Policy was initially imple-
mented with the main objective to improve Malay-
sian ownership and local shipping as well as to
control the dependence of Malaysia on foreign
vessels that lead to the outflow of foreign exchange
(Malaysiakini, 2009).

3.4 Threats
3.4.1 Negative perceptions towards cruising
One of the most common negative percep-
tions towards cruise tourism would be the safety
issues of the cruises due to the emergent of cruise