Supply and Demand Behavior in the Brazilian Cruise Market Based on the Concept of the Tourism Product Life Cycle

Abstract

Cruise tourism has gone through various stages of the tourism product life cycle since Brazil has opened its ports for cabotage cruises. After a rapid increase in demand, the Brazilian market has been showing negative growth rates unlike what is happening in the international market, particularly in the United States and Europe. This exploratory and descriptive study uses descriptive analysis to meet the overall objective, which is to identify how the behavior of supply and demand for cruises in Brazil has been, besides two specific objectives: (1) to identify in what stage of the life cycle supply and demand behavior for ocean cruises in Brazil are and (2) if the demand behavior is being influenced by the supply behavior in the cruise market in Brazil, or vice versa. In order to achieve these goals the reality of supply and demand for cruises in the Brazilian versus the world market has been described by historical data using indirect documentation, documentary and bibliographic techniques. The results indicate that the Brazilian market for cruises is in the decline stage of the life cycle of the tourism product. It was also identified that the reduction in supply of ships led to the fall in demand, and not the opposite. Thus, the study found that the behavior of supply has influenced the behavior of passenger demand in Brazil.