S4, E10: These Two Cruise Lines Are Charting a Surprising Path to a Better, Healthier World

When it comes to the future of cruising, sustainability is steering the ship.

On this episode of Unpacked, Afar cruise expert and deputy editor, Michelle Baran, takes you to Seatrade, one of the cruise industry’s most important events for a panel discussion that asks the question: Is sustainable cruising the new luxury cruising?

From wind-powered voyages to community-centered tourism, she uncovers the surprising and inspiring ways two of the industry’s greenest cruise lines, Hurtigruten and Sea Cloud Cruises, are charting the way to a sustainable future.

Transcript

Kevin Smith, Sea Cloud Cruises:  There’s nothing more magical for me or our guests [than] when we have 28 crew members climb our mast, hoist our sails, and shut off the engine. You get a little keel in your sailboat and you start pushing along, um, and you’re being moved by the wind, right? I mean, when it comes to engines off, it doesn’t get any greener than that.

Aislyn Greene: I’m Aislyn Greene, and welcome back to Unpacked, the podcast that unpacks one tricky topic in travel each week. This week, we’re bringing you a dispatch from one of the most important cruise shows that happens each year: Seatrade. I’ve traveled to Miami with Afar deputy editor and cruise expert Michelle Baran.

Over this last week, we met with the cruise lines and cruise experts to discover what’s making waves in the industry, from a growing focus on health and wellness, to, yes, the ways in which cruising has become genuinely sustainable.

In fact, this week, Michelle hosted a panel on sustainability that featured two of the industry’s greenest cruise lines: Hurtigruten and Sea Cloud. Here’s what will inspire you—and what might surprise you.

Michelle Baran: Hello, Gerry and Kevin, and welcome to Unpacked. It’s so great to have you on. Before we dive in, can we just have each of you introduce yourself, what you do, and what your cruise line is all about?

Gerry Larsson-Fedde: I’m Gerry Larsson-Fedde. I’m the chief operating officer with Hurtigruten, located in Norway. We normally do cruises on the Norwegian coast, including up to 34 different ports in 11 days.

Kevin Smith: And I’m Kevin Smith. I’m the vice president of sales with Sea Cloud Cruises. Small-ship sailing is our specialty. We range from 64 guests up to only 136. The ability to float in less than 19 feet of water allows us to create unique itineraries, uh, that are kind of off the beaten path. So something that sustainability’s great for us to hook into.

So thank you for having us.

Michelle: So let’s get into it. When it comes to sustainable cruising, what are the ways in which cruise lines can and should be moving the needle the most? You know, I’m just gonna throw out there that both of you, while these are very different cruise lines . . . we have, uh, one of the oldest cruise lines, Hurtigruten, that’s very focused on expedition and coastal cruising, and then we have this very, um, niche, small, beautiful sailing ship company.

But both of you have a common element, which is this factor of wind that you’re working with. And one is sort of very forward thinking and one is very classic sense. So I’d kind of like to talk a little bit about actually sailing, as one aspect of sustainable cruising. But yeah, would just love to hear what you think are some of the most important changes cruise lines are making in the sustainable space right now, especially yours?

Gerry: It’s quite interesting to see, actually, that something that was taken away a hundred years ago is now coming back full, full throttle. And, and it turns out that the people a hundred years ago were quite smart, actually. You see that in many aspects of ship design. Uh, but I, I think for me, I think we need to start, start with the small steps.

I think, you know, we need to start looking at what actually, what we can do today. And then we need to start preparing for tomorrow. But today there are certain things we can do. Like we can ban heavy fuel oil; we can, uh, use more shore power connectivity when we’re in ports that provide you that; we can use advanced biofuels that are, uh, made out of waste. Then you can further down look at, you know, this new [fuel], whether it’s hydrogen or ammonia, or all these new things that are becoming very popular.

I think the most important thing is to look [at] what we can do to reduce the energy consumption. Because if we can reduce the energy consumption, obviously you can reduce the amount of fuel that you need to use, whether that is a green, whatever green fuel it is. So, so I think it’s, it’s very exciting times, I mean, for our industry in general. And fortunately, as with Kevin as well, operating smaller ships, in some sense, gives us a better opportunity to actually act out on some of this technology in a bigger way than maybe for a larger ship. So I think it’s really exciting what’s going on in the industry currently in the sustainability arena.

Michelle: Absolutely, I agree. And yeah, to your point, and Kevin can weigh in on this, like, I love that we’re going back to the original fuel source. And, and Sea Cloud is such a perfect example of that. So, um, tell us a little bit about that and how that works.

Kevin: There’s nothing more magical for me or our guests [than] when we have 28 crew members climb our mast, hoist our sails, and shut off the engine. You get a little keel in your sailboat and you start pushing along, um, and you’re being moved by the wind. Right? I mean, when it comes to engine’s off, it doesn’t get any greener than that.

But for me it’s really respect. Right? And it’s not so much, you know, respecting, obviously, our guests, but the places we’re visiting, right? And the cultures and the communities we’re going into, right? It’s their land. It’s been their land for hundreds of years. So we go in there as sustainably as possible.

So whatever we bring in, we try to take off, right? But further than that, it’s working with the communities. So how can we help? I was on a trip with some signature advisors, and we came back and we had this great beach day, but the beach was dirty, and a lot of the Caribbean beaches can be a little filthy with trash.

And they came together and they’re like, What would be great for your cruise line is to do a beach cleanup. And it’s something that’s going into the community, helping, giving back, and trying to make a place better when you leave it, right? And see if you can educate and showcase a new way of travel and tourism.

And that’s something that’s so nice about being a small ship, going into destinations, having like-minded travelers—for us, that’s, that’s a huge pillar for our company.

Michelle: I’m glad you bring, bring up destination stewardship, ’cause that’s obviously an important piece of this, right? There’s sort of the hardware, and we can geek out a little bit more about that as well—like solar, which is fascinating to me. But, you know, a big piece of this is also, like you said, working with local communities.

And right now, especially in the cruise world, overtourism and overtouristed ports are a hot topic. Um, we’re seeing communities that are speaking out against overtourism. So what are some of your biggest concerns in terms of the communities, the environment, and the visitor experience in these places?

Right? You want everyone to get along, you want it to be, um, this sort of mutual relationship that’s mutually beneficial for all parties involved: the cruise line, the communities, and, and the visitors. So how are you creating relationships that are, are beneficial to all?

Kevin: The beautiful thing with Gerry and myself and our companies is our passenger count and our crew—we’re like a lifeboat for these mega-boats, right? So our destinations are completely different than everybody else. But I always talk about overtourism and whether you’re a big line or you’re a smaller line. I go back to the simple rule that my mother would say when I was on family vacation.

“Don’t ruin it for everybody else,” right? So it’s that simple motto, if you can get a company to have that culture and that mindset around it. It really isn’t rocket science, right? Like, what we’re doing is just trying to prolong these destinations so it’s not just us that gets to see it, it’s the generations after us.

I tell this story when I’m selling Sea Cloud about the brag book, right? And it’s putting pages into your brag book. And I think, you know, sustainability was not a big thing a few years ago, right? And now everybody’s looking forward toward that, and it’s, How can we give our guests that sense that they’re giving back to other places?

Whether you’re going in with 10,000 people or you’re going in with a hundred people. You know, it’s, it’s tying into that community, being a good visitor, right? Acting like you’ve been there before. Something my father always said to me: “Act like you’ve been there before, Kev.” Um, and I think if we can do that as a cruise line, if we can do that as a travel community, it’ll have an impact for years to come.

Gerry: I, I fully support that. And obviously the way Hurtigruten operates, we operate on the Norwegian coast, which we’ve done for 132 years. In addition to bringing tourists, we also bring local passengers. We actually have a task to bring the people from a small community, from one community to another. And believe me, in the wintertime, we do this same route year-round.

And in wintertime, the only way they can get from A to B is actually through our ships because the roads are closed due to snow, the flights are not going. In addition to that, 80 percent of all the produce that we’re using onboard, all the food, everything we buy locally, we buy it locally in the port. So if you’re in an area where there’s good fish, we buy the fish there.

If you’re an area where, where you have seaweed, we have our own seaweed farm where we, we kind of promote the small local communities and local producers for their business.

And, actually, the really good thing about that is the product that comes out of that, the food is just exquisite, so it’s nothing frozen. It’s really, really fresh. And I think we also carry, I think we can carry 300 to 400 guests on our ships. So we’re also quite small compared to some of the competitors that are coming up to the Norwegian coast—which, as you know, Norway is becoming a very, very popular cruise destination, not only in the summer but in the wintertime because of the northern lights and everything.

And our CEO has been pushing with the ministry to get a cruise strategy for Norway. Because we’re seeing this becoming a challenge with some of the ports with overtourism, especially in popular locations like Geiranger, the fjords, the royal heritage shores, etcetera. So, I think we need to have some regulations on how this should be, uh, kind of controlled during, uh, during the seasons here.

But, for us, we want to do this 130 more years.

So we need to take care of where we are because this . . . and I think moving forward, uh, we believe that, you know, sustainability is gonna be the license to operate in the future.

Michelle: Absolutely. And I love how you bring up these sort of partnerships with local communities that create, naturally create goodwill, right? Like, if you’re providing transportation, if you’re, you know, working with local communities to get supplies, like, that goodwill is built into the product with that.

Um, that’s such a great example of that. So when it comes to sustainability, what are the things that passengers are noticing and asking for the most?

Kevin: So one of the big things Sea Cloud has done is we’re in the process of eliminating paper, right? Now we have these QR codes where we can download on our phones our daily programs, get information about the voyage, see our shore excursions, everything like that. The amount of paper cruise lines go through is just absolutely ridiculous.

I don’t think a high school goes through this much paper. The idea that using the technology . . . I love how we started that. You know, we’re going back to the original days of, you know, sailing and the way it made sense back then. But if you can sprinkle a little Starlink into that and have the ability to download and, and eliminate the paper usage, the plastic usage . . .

So we have the glass straws on board, right? There’s no plastic, uh, water bottles anywhere on our vessels. We give everybody a little flask, uh, that they can fill up in the hydration stations around the vessel. It’s those small touches that the guests truly see. It works for us because it’s like a floating advertisement, right?

They go home, they’re drinking out of it at their country club or at their yacht club, and somebody sees the logo. What’s that? It’s perfect for us, builds brand awareness. But it’s the small touches that truly get our guests excited. And then obviously, like, the beach cleanups, it’s just a, it’s just a fun activity. It’s, I mean, it costs us nothing, right? It’s rewarding to the guests. They have a sense of pride in what they’ve done, and there’s an accomplishment at the end of the day for not only our company, but our clients.

Michelle: Yeah, that goes to that kind of more meaningful travel experience too. I think people really wanna feel like they are giving as much as they are taking. Again, it benefits all parties involved when you can build that into the itinerary.

What about on your side and at Hurtigruten?

Gerry: I fully agree. I think we’ve done a lot of those things. We were actually the first, uh, cruise line, uh, that, that banned single-use plastics. And, and that’s just one of the things. We have our Hurtigruten Foundation, uh, which also offers these green stays onboard where you can actually say that “I don’t need to have my cabin cleaned every day” or “I don’t need to have the towel changed” and all this.

And, in addition to that, we have done this project where we’ve done hybridization of several of our ships and invested quite a substantial amount of money in some of the areas . . . We can also shut down the engines for certain periods of time and just let them sit there in the total quietness and [allow guests to] just experience the nature, because what we are selling is actually what’s outside the ship.

It’s actually what you can see, what you can experience, and also the fact that you experience the local communities as local communities, not as tourist destinations.

But you meet the people there. There are people that are living there year-round. They don’t change because you’re coming in. So that is a big, big difference for us. And I think what our guests are noticing is these little things, as Kevin is saying, is these little things that you’re trying to do the right thing that you’re doing these little changes to, to your product onboard, that you reduce.

We have a very large program on food waste, which they obviously notice, where we have a program for zero edible food waste, where we basically take our food waste and we take it ashore in one of the ports. It’s being composted, it’s taken to the farm.

They grow vegetables. We buy these vegetables back from that farm. So it’s a completely circular economy, which is great for that farm. It’s a great story to tell the guests. And I think, I think some of these things are what the guests are really noticing when they’re onboard. Because, as you said, there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes that they don’t see. Wastewater treatments and everything else. But I think, I think [those are] the things that they notice.

Michelle: Exactly. And it gets to also this sort of ongoing debate in the industry about whether travelers will pay the premium for that. Right? So there are a lot of things that you’re investing in. Some of them you choose to invest in, some of them you have to invest in. In Europe, there’s more regulations around, um, sustainability.

And you know, I am an optimist, so I tend to think that as things are evolving, consumers are willing and will be willing to pay more for that experience. ’Cause I do think it’s ultimately more rewarding for, for the travelers who care. But I think there are other skeptics who say, uh, they say that, but at the end of the day, they’re gonna go for the deal.

And so I’m just curious what, where you guys stand on, on that debate, like whether or not they will pay for all these advancements and put their money where their mouth is?

Gerry: I think we’re at the crossroad. Uh, I really do. I, I, uh, Kevin is fortunate. He has a very young child, as I understand. My youngest one is 19, but it’s a completely different mindset for that generation when it comes to sustainability and environment and preserving the environment than, unfortunately, [for] many from my generation.

So I’m convinced that in the future this will be the license to operate. I think that we’re seeing gradually that the guests are more concerned about your footprint and how you impact the environment as a tourist destination. And we are still kind of trying to get—when a guest goes to see, find a cruise, they normally want the price, what the cabin looks like, where’s the itinerary.

But we do see that sustainability is climbing up the ladder on that, on that kind of list. So, so I, I’m convinced that, that moving forward, we do the investments because it’s the right thing to do, but we also do the investments because we believe that those investments will pay back more and more as we move, move ahead in time. I thoroughly believe that.

Kevin: You know, I look at this and it’s not so much is a client gonna book because X, Y, Z is occurring? For me, it’s, let’s look at the destination, right? And then with the destination comes a certain client, right? Like my client that wants to sail round trip Venice is completely different than my client that wants to go to the Canary Islands.

So when I’m marketing those Canary Islands, I’m talking about eco-friendly tourism, I’m talking about going into farms and going into, to explore like the horticulture and the, that realm of travel as opposed to looking at history. So I think it really is driven by destination.

And, for me, destination and the immersive experience really drives, you know, whether or not we’re talking about sustainability enough. And the more important it becomes to the ports and the destination, the more important it becomes to the clients.

At the end of the day, we’re the vehicle that gets everybody there, right? So what we can do is great, but we need to have a louder voice in this together, and that’s really where you’ll see it fully change.

Gerry: I, I fully agree with that. But I think then when there are, a lot of these destinations, there will be multiple operators or cruise lines going to those destinations, and then at some stage you will have a competitive edge if you go to that destination and you’re also sustainable in the way you operate and you’re supporting the local communities in that destination. Adding those things up I think will put you higher on the list of getting those clients and more guests onboard to you.

Michelle: Right. And I love that we keep, it keeps coming back to destinations ’cause I think it’s so important for this idea of like, that’s what we’re doing here, right? We’re, we’re bringing people to places. The ship is just the vehicle, but like the place is, is, so important. And I’m just curious as, as we look at again at this idea of overtourism and getting off the beaten path, like in one sense it’s a wonderful idea to explore more remote destinations and bring people, you know, to somewhere, somewhere else that maybe some of the bigger cruise lines aren’t going.

But it also presents some other challenges, whether that’s infrastructure issues or also just this idea of is that the right thing to do? Should, you know, we go be going somewhere more remote, and what kind of potential problems or challenges does that present? So I’m just curious when you guys are thinking about itinerary planning and, and growing your itineraries responsibly, like how do you balance kind of, um, the pros and cons of, of where you take your ships?

Kevin: So I think a destination that drops off to the top of my head is Chatham Bay, uh, down the islands. This island is straight out of a Jimmy Buffett song. All right? It’s absolutely incredible and unfortunately it went through a terrible hurricane last year that completely wiped it out.

And the only thing on this island was a very eco-friendly hotel with the best view, in my opinion, of the Caribbean, just totally wiped out, right, through this hurricane. And they’re in the process of rebuilding. And a lot of money goes into that. What we’ve done is we’ve teamed up with them where we go into the island and we do our beach barbecue there for our guests now.

And it’s just an amazing experience. But it’s a tie-in to help them build back. And, and it’s the hard part about some of these destinations, especially down in the Caribbean. I mean, like, it’s sad to say, but they’re getting recycled every three or four years with global warming and everything that’s happening with the weather.

And, you know, we don’t have the money to go build our own island, right? Uh, like the big boys. So it, it’s trying to find these partnerships with these small, authentic, off-the-beaten-path places that are also kind of in line with what we’re in line with. And sustainability is certainly important to us.

So it’s helping those communities, getting our guests to go there. Because let me tell you, prior to the hurricane, their guests were staring at our beautiful vessels saying, What in the heck is that? And that’s how they learned about us. And they come on and they realize that we deliver something that they like to travel on.

My favorite thing is not kind of moving market share, it’s finding a new client from the hotel side, from the land side and bringing ’em over because, you know, they’re, they’re an affluent traveler that has the same touchpoints that we like to have as an operator. But Chatham Bay, I mean, look it up. Beautiful.

Gerry: Yeah, and I think for us, obviously we have, I mean, one of the advantages is that we are operating predominantly our ships, not after we split the company between Hurtigruten and HX, Expeditions. The part that we do, we are operating, uh, predominantly in Norway and Svalbard. But the thing is, we also have some of the challenges when we’re looking ahead on, on sustainability with some of these smaller ports, is that having that infrastructure that can support some of what we would like. Like with our, with our future project, which is an electrified vessel, we need to charge and, and obviously there are some of these ports that won’t be able to provide that amount of, uh, electricity.

Now what we did to speed this up in Norway some years back is that in, in one of our ports, we actually built the land infrastructure as well. So we paid for the charging tower and everything, uh, to be able to connect, because our ships have had shore connections since 2017 and we needed to speed up the process of being able to connect the ships.

So this is what we did. And, and I think this is one of the challenges when you look globally is one of the challenges, is that when you’re also changing over to more sustainable energy, it’s gonna be even more challenging to go to some of these remote places and find that kind of energy that you’re looking for, whether that is gonna be hydrogen, ammonia, or electricity.

It’s hard enough as it is in some [of] these places. But I think, I think for us, uh, fortunately in one way, we do the same route for most of our ships, uh, year round. So, so we, we do understand, uh, the needs and where we can actually get what we need.

Michelle: Yeah, that’s such a good point about, you know, technology is your friend and your foe, always. Right? It’s always this, like, juggling act between like two steps forward, one step back, and, um, all the pros and cons. But then just sort of lastly, you know, how do you convince your guests that you’re not just greenwashing? And I think this is where obviously the onboard experience I’m sure plays a lot. Like you just have to come see it, ’cause I also believe that consumers are so much smarter than we give them credit for.

Like we all know. We know when we go to a resort on land, whether it’s the real deal.

And so do you feel that’s how guests know? Like they just come onboard and they see it and they feel it in the crew and the way you’re running the ship. Or is there always a little bit of this skepticism kind of built in? Whether they sort of believe in the advancements and they, when they see it, or if it’s always gonna be a little bit harder for cruise lines to convince them?

Gerry: I think, uh, we are fortunate in a way. We, we are fortunate in the fact that we do carry local passengers. We do carry cargo in addition to the guests. An interesting point is that the most photographed pictures on a Hurtigruten is when the loading ramp is down and there’s a forklift on it. So we are also doing a task for our community and for our country, in addition to bringing the tourists. I think that that is helping and I think, uh, by, by receiving several awards from Germany, which is our big market, big market for us on sustainability. I think Hurtigruten is known for being in the forefront of sustainability through all the things we have proven to do, uh, at an early stage banning heavy fuel oil, single-use plastics, etcetera, etcetera.

So as a brand, a lot of our guests that are coming already know, and I don’t think we need to use it in marketing as much because we use it more PR- wise. We talk to the media, they can come and see for themselves. We don’t, we don’t, uh, need to, greenwash anything, because what you see is what you get basically. So we invested a hundred million U.S. dollars in hybrids on our ships. We’re spending a lot of additional, uh, money on, on, mixing in advanced biodiesel into our fuels. So I think for us, I think, we are in a, in a good situation in the fact that we also have this task of doing a job for the communities as well.

Kevin: And for Sea Cloud, it’s, it’s being truthful and authentic, right? We put pictures in our brochures, we talk about our short excursions into the cheese shops, into the local markets, and when we bring it back, our guests get to see that. To Gerry’s point, right, it’s looking at the panga boats in the Caribbean coming up to us and selling us fish on ice and our guests seeing it.

It’s the fact that there are very, uh, few cruise lines that are allowed to sail up the Grand Canal in Venice and dock in the heart of Venice, we can still do that. So it’s staying authentic, telling the true story of who we are, and our guests get onboard, they know we’re not perfect, but they know we’re trying, and I think that’s the best thing.

Again, it’s great for us to see it, but you know, I want that three year old child to have the same point of view in a few years and be able to sail up the Grand Canal in Venice. So, for us, again, it’s just being true to ourselves, true to the destination and authentic.

Michelle: Well, I love to hear it as a mother myself. I too, you know, am hopeful for a better future for our kids.

Aislyn: Thanks everyone for joining us for this special Seatrade episode of Unpacked. In the show notes, we’ve linked to both of the cruise lines featured in the episode, as well as several of Afar’s sustainability-focused cruise stories. In the coming weeks, we’ll share more of what we heard—and what we learned—at Seatrade. But in the meantime, join us next week for our exploration of our nation’s capital. We’re going to dig into the difference between Washington and DC.

Aislyn: Ready for more Unpacking? Visit afar.com and be sure to follow us on Instagram and Tiktok. We’re @afarmedia. If you enjoy today’s exploration, I hope you’ll come back for more great stories. Subscribing always makes that easy, and be sure to rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platforms. It helps other travelers find it.

And if you want to ask a question or suggest a topic for coverage, you can leave us a voicemail at the link in the show notes, or email us at unpacked@afar.com

This has been Unpacked, a production of Afar Media. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene and Nikki Galteland. Music composition by Chris Colin.

And remember, the travel world is complicated. We’re here to help you unpack it.