Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd, had tough decisions. Should they continue stopping at Haiti during Caribbean cruises, or drop Haiti as a port of call, at least for the time being, while Haiti works its way out of its earthquake disaster? If they stopped visiting Haiti, when would it be the right time to resume visiting, a month, 3 months, 6 months, a year, longer?
To my mind, these are “damned if you do, and damned if you don’t” decisions.
Royal Caribbean has committed a minimum of $1M toward the Haitian relief effort. They will make their contribution via support for Food For The Poor, the Pan American Development Foundation, and other organizations in Haiti that are engaged in the massive effort to help Haiti recover from last week’s earthquake. Royal Caribbean is carrying relief supplies in their cruise ships docking in Haiti. They’ve already delivered food and water, and more will continue to be delivered as their ships dock in Haiti.
In addition, Royal Caribbean is donating 100% of its net revenue from its port stops in Haiti, for the foreseeable future.
Those were easy decisions for Royal Caribbean, as was making donations, including chairs, bedding and mattresses to the makeshift hospital created in the gymnasium in Cap Haitian, about 15 miles from Royal Caribbean’s Labadee, Haiti, port of call.
On the surface, one would think its decision about continuing Haiti as a port of call would be easy; discontinue having their cruise ships stop at their private beach destination in Labadee, Haiti, where their passengers would be vacationing less than 100 miles north of the destruction and death in Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince, and its surrounding area.
Like most things in life, there is a lot under the surface which must be considered.
Royal Caribbean has 230 employees on Haiti who service their Labadee facility. In addition, local vendors, and local businesses which support the private beach destination in Labadee are dependent on the cruise line’s business. Over the years, Royal Caribbean’s ships’ visits to Haiti have contributed about $100M to Haiti’s economy.
Suspending stops to its Labadee port of call would have put an estimated 500 Haitians out of work and would have seriously impacted their families.
Royal Caribbean decided to continue stopping at Labadee, continue to employ 230 men and women on Haiti, continue to bring customers to the vendors of Labadee, continue to use local businesses, continue to be an important contributor to the damaged Haitian economy which was one of the poorest in the world even before the earthquake disaster.
I know some may think it reprehensible for Royal Caribbean to bring its passengers to the beach of a country in such horrible distress, but wouldn’t it be worse for Royal Caribbean to abandon the men and women who have worked hard for the company and made its Ladabee destination a success.
I’m sure many passengers will be apprehensive stopping at Haiti during these days. I know I would, yet I think Royal Caribbean has made the right decision, and I would ask its critics to consider the words of Leslie Voltaire, Haitian Special Envoy to the United Nations, who said in a statement,
Given the terrible economic and social challenges we now face in Haiti, we welcome the continuation of the positive economic benefits that the cruise ship calls to Labadee contribute to our country.
After many years working in corporate America as a chemical engineer, executive and eventually CFO of a multinational manufacturer, Ned founded a tech consulting company and later restarted NSL Photography, his photography business. Before entering the corporate world, Ned worked as a Public Health Engineer for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. As a well known corporate, travel and wildlife photographer, Ned travels the world writing about travel and photography, as well as running photography workshops, seminars and photowalks. Visit Ned’s Photography Blog and Galleries.
