Cruise Shipping’s own Spring Break

Everybody who is anybody in the cruise business is in Miami Beach this week for the 30th annual Cruise Shipping Miami conference. There are almost 900 exhibiting companies and the organisers expect about 15,000 people to attend the four-day event filling all four halls of the city’s Convention Centre.
It kicks off today with the World Cruise Tourism Summit, a series of discussions led by industry experts, but the main event comes tomorrow morning with top executives from Carnival Corporation, Royal Caribbean Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line and MSC Cruises on stage to discuss the state of the industry.
The event is the big opportunity for all sorts of people to put their wares – and their wheres – on show to the cruise lines.
Represented in the trade show are the world’’s largest shipbuilders, 400 destinations, information technology providers, ship equipment suppliers and entertainment companies.
New this year is an interactive Food and Beverage Pavilion focusing on the latest in shipboard culinary trends, products and equipment. Other industry sectors include ship design and refurbishment, ship services and hotel operations.
The exhibition features trade delegations from Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, and the UK.
Don’t tell the organisers, but the big business takes place outside the convention hall, at countless cocktail parties and drinks receptions in bars and hotels throughout South Beach. The easy bit – I think – will be distinguishing between the business suits and the visitors just here for Spring Break.
Sadly, I can only experience a few hours of the mayhem before catching my flight back to the UK on Tuesday evening. I’ll do my best to keep up.