Abstract
Cruise tourism generates an estimated $18 billion a year in passenger expenditure and has been the fastest growing sector of the travel industry in the last years. Arrivals in the Caribbean region increased from three million in 1980 to more than 25 million in 2007. In this paper we describe the evolution of the cruise industry and review the experiences of different cruise destinations. We also describe different activities associated to the cruise ship industry to identify costs and benefits for the actors of the local economies.