Is Cruising an Antitrust Product Market?
A cruise is only one of many options available to consumers taking vacations. Nevertheless, largely because of its increasing affordability, cruising is also a rapidly expanding industry, with a steadily growing share of an “all-vacation” market. Thus, at any given time, much of the demand for cruising comes from consumers who have never cruised before and have chosen previously to spend their vacation time and money elsewhere. In addition, although consumers who take a cruise typically enjoy the experience and state that they are likely to cruise again, repurchase frequencies are low. For example, even customers whom the cruise lines consider “frequent cruisers” typically take only one cruise every few years. Thus, cruising is unlike an expanding market in which consumers adopt a superior new technology or product and generally do not switch back: consumers who become cruise customers continue to patronize other forms of vacation.(7) The facts that many passengers have never cruised b
