Andrew Sheivachman

Chinese consumers want to cruise in Asia, and cruise lines are jockeying to meet the demand. If the Asia experiment doesn't work out, lines can send their ships back to high-demand regions like the Caribbean and Mediterranean.

No cruise company has yet to develop an effective online booking and marketing platform for consumers. For now, they need travel agents to act as their de facto North American marketing and booking force.

New ships are essential to any cruise line refining its brand identity. From a pure business perspective, it's surprising one of the major cruise lines hasn't purchased part of a shipyard in order to better integrate its ship construction pipeline into its overall operation.

Some lines call them service fees. Others call them gratuities. But one thing is for sure: cruise lines generate income by charging daily fees that aren't included in initial cruise fares. It's unclear whether the money is actually going to those who serve passengers, or represents a growing source of ancillary income to offset other costs. For now, we'll call this phenomenon hate sailing.

Multigenerational travel is crucial to cruise lines filling their ships and driving a profit. Partnering with visible entertainment brands helps them attract families with kids. Then parents can send their kids off to play with Shrek while they spend money onboard.

As storefront agencies have disappeared, home-based agents have picked up the slack in the travel agency community. One can't help but wonder, however, if this trend has contributed to the relative invisibility of travel agents to most Americans.

Cruise lines have spent most of the year dealing with economic and geopolitical crises in Europe, so they're prepared to make a profit regardless of continued chaos in the Mediterranean. A worst-case scenario is a messy incident involving a cruise ship and migrant vessel, however, that could scare the public away from European cruises.

Carnival Corp. is wise to leverage its global scale and overhaul its global connectivity infrastructure across all brands. Internet access lets cruisers have a better time onboard.

The cruise industry at large should follow Royal Caribbean's lead in ensuring all safety policies related to sexual abuse and violence are vetted by an experienced third-party.

By providing a hybrid of convenient digital travel shopping and on-demand personal service, agents can become more relevant to consumers.