Abstract

The cruise industry caters to a highly diverse customer base, making it crucial for cruise companies to craft different marketing strategies for different passenger segments. Therefore, it is quite surprising that the academic literature on the cruise industry that studies antecedents of satisfaction at the segment level is quite limited. To fill this gap, this study first segments cruise passengers into five most common segments based on passenger demographics and then determines the impact and relative importance of different cruise ship attributes on each segment's satisfaction. We collected 1000 post experience reviews from passengers of over 150 cruise ships. Our data comprises a diverse and large sample, which was lacking in prior studies. This provides a realistic picture of cruise passengers#x2019; perception and evaluation of factors that influence their satisfaction. We provide actionable implications for the managers of cruise companies which may be used for fine tuning advertising messages and customizing product offering for each segment.