World cruise boss warns Australia is driving ships away – and singles out union action

• The boss of the world’s biggest cruise lobby group, Bud Darr, visited Sydney to celebrate the start of the Australian cruise season.
• But Darr also had a warning for Australia.
• While the rest of the world is experiencing a cruise boom, Australis is going backwards.

The head of the world’s most powerful cruise industry lobby group has warned that union action over wages and working conditions on Carnival ships could deter cruise lines from sending vessels to Australia, as the country faces a billion-dollar decline in cruise tourism.

Cruise Lines International Association President and CEO Charles “Bud” Darr flew into Sydney with an unusually blunt message: global cruising is booming, but Australia is going backwards.

Speaking after Crown Princess sailed into Sydney Harbour to open the city’s five-month summer cruise season, Darr said Australia risked missing one of the largest periods of investment and expansion the cruise industry has seen.

He singled out the threat of imposing Australian employment standards on internationally crewed ships as the type of regulatory uncertainty that could influence where cruise lines deploy their vessels.

“If I’m a cruise line CEO and I have 10 ships, I don’t have to think about: is Australia just off the charts too expensive?” Darr said.

“It’s just: did Australia go from number 10 to number 11 on the 10 most economically viable itineraries where I can deploy that ship?

“The tipping point can actually be much more narrow than people really think.”

His warning follows action by the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) against Carnival Cruise Line, including a formal complaint lodged with the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.

The MUA has alleged that crew on Carnival’s three locally based ships can earn as little as US$2.50 an hour and has called for an International Transport Workers’ Federation collective agreement covering wages, time off, internet access and union representation.

However, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority has investigated and said it had found nothing. Carnival has previously said it has “nothing to hide”.

Darr argued that cruise employment is already subject to an international regulatory system and warned against applying Australian domestic standards to a global business whose ships can be moved almost anywhere.

“There is a global convention that is applicable worldwide for labour standards,” he said. “We pass that with flying colours all the time and implement it all day long. If we fail to implement it, by all means call us out and we’ll fix it.

“But when you end up with the call for, or the threat of, imposing domestic labour standards on an international business like that—this ship is here today, but next month or next year it could be in any place on the planet where a cruise ship can go. We really need to have a stable regulatory environment.”

Australia loses $1.1 billion

Darr’s intervention came as the industry urged governments to respond to a dramatic reversal in Australia’s cruise economy.

Cruise tourism generated $7.3 billion nationally during the 2024-25 financial year, but that represented a $1.1 billion—or 13.2 per cent—decline from the previous year.

“When you’re talking about a $7.3 billion denominator, $1.1 billion Australian in lost economic output year on year is a really big number,” Darr said. “If you’re maintaining the status quo and it’s a flat line, you’re losing pace. If you’re declining, you’re really losing pace with the rest of the industry.”

Globally, 37.2 million people took an ocean cruise in 2025, up from 34.6 million in 2024. Australia remains the world’s fourth-largest source market, with about 1.45 million Australians cruising last year.

But strong Australian demand is increasingly being met overseas rather than by ships based in or visiting Australia.

The contrast with the global order book could hardly be greater. Darr said 86 ships were on order, representing about US$96 billion in capital investment, with deliveries extending beyond 2036.

“You could have the biggest steamer trunk in the world full of cash and you can’t get a slot in a shipyard to build a ship before about 2037 right now, if it’s going to be a ship of significant size,” he said.

“That sort of order book can’t exist without optimism—not just among the cruise lines, but among the equity markets and the lenders.”

Some of the largest new cruise ships cost about US$2.2 billion. Deployment therefore amounts to a major allocation of foreign capital, Darr said, and cruise companies must put those assets where they can achieve the strongest returns.

Australia’s appeal as a destination and source market was not in doubt. Its disadvantages were geography, constrained port infrastructure, high operating costs and regulatory uncertainty.

Ships deployed seasonally to Australia also face long repositioning voyages which can be difficult to sell. Once port charges, taxes, labour rules and other costs are added, another region can become more financially attractive.

“Itineraries are planned three years in advance, sometimes more, and they’re sold 18 to 24 months in advance,” Darr said. “In luxury, maybe 36 months in advance.

“From the cruise industry’s perspective, it might as well be September 2029. Stability is very important.”

Darr met NSW Tourism Minister Steve Kamper during his Sydney visit and said the minister understood the need for a competitive and predictable operating environment.

But Darr was heading next to Brisbane for the Australian Cruise Association’s annual conference, with no Canberra meetings publicly indicated. That has intensified calls for the Federal Tourism Minister Don Farrell to lead a whole-of-government effort involving tourism, transport, workplace relations, infrastructure, border agencies and maritime regulation.

The objective would be to provide the certainty cruise executives require—and to take Australia’s case directly to the cruise companies making deployment decisions in Miami and other international headquarters.

CLIA Australasia Executive Director Joel Katz said Australia could not assume ships would keep coming simply because the country had attractive destinations and a strong cruise market.

“Other countries are increasingly recognising the economic benefits that cruise can deliver and are competing for ships, visitors and investment,” Katz said.

“That means our state and territory governments, working together with our federal counterparts, need to ensure Australia has sensible, practical and predictable policies and regulations that keep us competitive.”

Cruise supports 22,000 jobs

Katz said the benefits extended far beyond passengers and ports. Cruise supports more than 22,000 Australian jobs and an extensive supply chain that includes hotels, restaurants, travel agents, transport companies, tour operators, farmers, food producers and winemakers.

In NSW alone, cruise contributes almost $4 billion and supports more than 12,400 jobs, Destination NSW CEO Karen Jones told the Business Sydney gathering.

Business Sydney Executive Director Paul Nicolaou said the industry’s economic importance needed to be understood well beyond the cruise sector.

“We need to stress how important this whole sector is to Sydney, to New South Wales and to Australia,” he said.

Flight Centre Global Leisure CEO James Kavanagh said the industry had the three ingredients needed for expansion: new ship capacity, strong customer demand and people eager to work in travel.

Flight Centre receives nearly 5,000 job applications each month, he said, demonstrating the industry’s appeal as an employer.

“When you put that together around capacity, customer demand and people wanting to work in the industry, the main thing that comes to mind—particularly when I think about Australia—is enablement,” Kavanagh said.

For Darr, the central question is whether governments will enable Australia to compete for the ships already being planned years into the future.

“Australia has so much going for it,” he said. “It’s a wonderful destination. It’s a strong source market.

“The potential here is enormous. It’s yet to be fully unlocked. I’d really like to see Australia get its share of the growth.”

With Crown Princess framed against the Sydney Opera House, the opportunity was obvious. Darr’s warning was that without urgent action, the ships carrying the next wave of global cruise growth may increasingly sail somewhere else.