Haiti cruise stops draw ire, support

Cruise line responds

Meanwhile, Royal Caribbean announced it would donate at least $1 million in humanitarian aid to Haiti and contribute all of the company’s net revenue from Labadee to the relief effort.

The company’s cruise ships are also delivering supplies — including rice, dried beans, powdered milk, water and canned goods — to the region.

Officials with the cruise line have been trying to reassure customers who may be having second thoughts about going on a trip that includes a stop in Haiti.

“It isn’t better to replace a visit to Labadee (or for that matter, to stay on the ship while it’s docked in Labadee) with a visit to another destination for a vacation,” Adam Goldstein, president and CEO of Royal Caribbean International, wrote on his blog.

“Why? Because being on the island and generating economic activity for the straw market vendors, the hair-braiders and our 230 employees helps with relief while being somewhere else does not help.”

Royal Caribbean says it has been one of Haiti’s largest foreign investors for almost 30 years. The company spent $50 million developing Labadee, Goldstein told NPR.

Considering the ethics

Haiti’s plight wouldn’t improve if the cruise ships were diverted to another nearby island and pretended the disaster wasn’t happening, agreed Chris MacDonald, a senior fellow at Duke University’s Kenan Institute for Ethics and a philosophy professor at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He also writes The Business Ethics Blog.

“The cruise ships aren’t hurting anyone, in fact they’re doing some good, they’re bringing some help,” MacDonald said.

People who believe it’s disrespectful for tourists to enjoy themselves so close to a disaster zone should realize that the alternative of avoiding the area wouldn’t be more respectful, MacDonald added.

The proximity sets off our gut reactions, but it doesn’t seem to make any real moral difference, he said.

Mullis pointed out that the Dominican Republic — Haiti’s touristy neighbor on the island of Hispaniola — is also close to the disaster but is doing business as usual.

“Anyone who doesn’t feel a bit of awkwardness at the thought of beach volleyball in the north of Haiti right now doesn’t have normal moral intuitions,” MacDonald said.

“[But] the world needs to signal that Haiti isn’t now just this fenced-off, quarantined place where you can never invest, you can never do business. Haiti is, to some tiny extent, still open for business. That’s a hopeful message in a very, very grim situation.”

It’s a message Catherine Jones is taking to heart.

After much discussion, she and her family are going forward with their Royal Caribbean cruise that will include a stop in Labadee, Haiti. She won’t be able to enjoy herself that day, Jones said, but she is hoping the money she spends will help the locals, and she is comforted by that thought.

“It’s one of those situations that you can have a million views on it. But the fact is it happened, they depend on us for our money that we bring, I guess we’ll go,” Jones said.