Cruise lines have been urged to think “in a much broader sense” when advertising products as a leading agent called a lack of diversity in the UK travel industry “disturbing”.
Speaking as part of a panel discussion on diversity and inclusion at the Clia Forum on Thursday (December 8), Edwina Lonsdale, owner of Mundy Cruising , said: “Part of the problem is within the cruise industry, and the travel industry in general, in the UK, we’re so white. It’s quite disturbing.
“There’s nobody talking on behalf of different communities.”
More: Celebrity Cruises campaign tackles lack of diversity in travel marketing
Fellow panelist Jo Rzymowska, Celebrity Cruises’ EMEA vice-president, said the travel sector had a “long way to go” to become a more diverse and inclusive workforce.
But she added that having panel discussions at conferences on the subject was “a great thing”.
Rzymowska (pictured) said: “I think it’s really important and I’ve said this before – there’s no competition in diversity, equity and inclusion. Together we can really make a change.”
Celebrity Cruises this year launched a campaign to tackle a lack of diversity in travel marketing.
“If you look at our imagery in the travel industry it’s still mum, dad and 2.4 kids,” she said. “We wanted to try and get real people that were travelling with us and not use models.”
Ryan Uhl, chief strategy officer at Mail Metro Media, pointed out how a “community is broader and bigger than the community itself”.
“If you look at the disabled community, you’re only really thinking about that community,” he explained. “You’re not thinking about their spouse, their mother, their grandparent, the person who is going to bring their autistic child on the cruise.”
He went on to say “we need to think about this in a much broader sense when we do advertising”.
Lonsdale has launched a partnership project with a secondary school in Battersea, London, to offer pupils from a mix of ethnic backgrounds work placements across the industry.
She explained: “We’re going to go in and do some classroom training about the cruise industry and the cruise lines and then get them out and do some work experience with a view to making it a passage into work [in the travel industry].
“They are then able to come back and talk to pupils the following year, and the year after that.”
Shane Lewis-Riley, Virgin Voyages’ vice-president of international sales, called on people working in the travel industry “to be comfortable being uncomfortable” and ask questions about terminology.