Sustainable Development Goals in the cruise industry: The contribution of sustainability disclosure

Abstract. This paper aims to investigate societal sustainability according to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), that is the 17 global goals for Sustainable Development settled by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015. The study focuses on the cruise industry that is a segment of the wider tourism industry that records a continuous positive trend by increasing its cruisers’ demand and size ships. Drawing from a review of the literature and practice on the topic by integrating the SDGs model and the sustainability disclosure framework, we investigate, through a manual content analysis of sustainability disclosure sources, the major cruise companies for explaining the way in which the cruise industry could follow and achieve the sustainable goals, mostly the SDG 11. Interesting and useful results for the academics and practitioners in the making-decision processes have been discussed.