How can cruise companies escape a sinking PR ship?
With Thursday’s news that a second Carnival cruise in as many months has been disabled by mechanical problems, the entire industry has some work to do.
It hasn’t been a great two months for Carnival Cruise Lines. A month to the day after the crippled Triumph cruise ship was towed into an Alabama port, the company announced Thursday that it would fly passengers off a ship docked in St. Maarten because of a mechanical failure.
Carnival was also involved in the deadly wreck of the Costa Concordia off the coast of Italy last year. It owned the line of which that ship was a part.
Friday morning, yet another Carnival ship was apparently having mechanical problems.
The company’s enduring a string of PR crises, but the trouble reaches beyond just one brand. The entire cruise industry is in danger of being associated with unsafe or unsanitary travel.
“The difficulties the industry has faced these past 12 months have been public and devastating,” says Jeda Engelmayer, senior vice president at 5W Public Relations.
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