Antarctic Cruise Tourism - a short history with an emphasis on recent changes and passengers from Asian countries

This paper reviews development of Antarctic cruise tourism from its early beginnings to present day, focusing on recent changes due to an increased participation of Asian passengers in the Antarctic cruise tourism. Beginning with a history of Antarctic cruise tourism the paper argues that up to today, Antarctic tourism has been dominated by companies and passengers from Europe and North America with English being the most relevant language spoken aboard the ships. In the following the paper traces the increased participation of Asian passengers in the Antarctic cruise industry and predicts that it will be only a question of time until Asian operators start to operate their own cruise ships in Antarctic waters catering exclusively for Asian tourists and using an Asian language as the main language aboard the ships. Based on personal experiences of the author in the industry, it is discussed how the increasing number of non-English speaking passengers is creating an operational challenge for the tour operators as well for adherence to the strict regulatory system for Antarctic tourism. In the concluding section some proposals will be made how regulations for Antarctic tourism can be modified to mitigate these challenges and how a system can be established that allows for participation of Asian operators and tourists within the Antarctic cruise industry while avoiding or at least minimizing negative effects of potential overtourism.