The cruise industry is on a war footing. That means its deploy-ing more ships to places you can drive to. And its sharpen-ing the pricing pencil, again. In fact, it's continuing an approach that's been working for it reasonably well since 9/11. Cruise shipping often seems to defy economic logic. While many businesses struggled during 2002 to just keep their heads above water, cruise shipping had another record-setting year, carrying some 8.66 million passengers worldwide ― 7.6 million from North America. This was a 15.5% increase over 2001, according to Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), whose members control about 160 cruise ships and operate from 1,800 ports worldwide. So how did they do it? Simple: By slashing vacation package prices and increasing the number of drive and cruise itineraries. This enabled them to keep their ships sailing at about 97% full, despite consumer uncertainty generated by an impending conflict with Iraq and growing concerns about air travel.
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