Given choices, some consumers will choose what is best for them - and push the envelope in novel ways.
A case is currently before the Supreme Court. It deals with apparent discrimination against cruise ship passengers with disabilities. Spector et. al vs. Norwegian Cruise Line Ltd. recounts a tale that need not have occurred in today's world.
The incident makes several things clear.
Disability accompanies aging, and seniors have two of the three things the cruise industry craves: time and money. Whether they have the third, the desire to cruise, depends on the behavior of those suppliers, agents, and ports-of-call who accept their money but not their needs.
What is also clear, with this "shot across the bow," is that a struggle has been engaged by a community that, to be blunt as well as historically accurate, simply never gives up.
I will not pretend to have the legal knowledge necessary to judge the case on its legal merits.
I do not have the ability to predict the unintended consequences of demanding that foreign-flagged vessels doing business in the US adhere to the minimal standards of human rights preserved in the Americans with Disabilities Act.
It is not yet clear whether this litigation approach can scrape away years of accumulated prejudice in business practice or whether it is too blunt an instrument to chart a new, inclusive course for the travel and hospitality industry.
However, cruising is popular. It is disproportionately popular among seniors and those with disabilities. Travel decisions made through word-of-mouth recommendations by peers are also disproportionately characteristic of this group of travelers.
Business decisions to embrace discriminatory practice - under "flags of convenience" or otherwise - will not only redirect cruise customers toward land-based vacations employing Universal Design strategies of inclusive destination development but they will coalesce a perfect storm: customer dissatisfaction and the mobilization of senior and disability advocates at just the moment when the traveling Boomer Tsunami is about to crest.
Heed the early warnings.
Informed consumers in a globalized world exhibit travel behavior that is not indifferent to questions of equality and justice. They will not be satisfied with business strategies that allow adherence to outmoded ethical behavior or inadequate design responses to passengers.
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