On my travel-related Twitter account I follow quite a few cruisebloggers and vloggers, some of whom have recently expressed an interest in attending the Cruise Show at London. We don’t actually live that far from London and we had nothing planned this weekend so I thought I’d take a look, especially after I’d seen someone remarking that some of the big cruise operators weren’t exhibiting. I didn’t know why they weren’t, and still don’t, but was intrigued enough to see who was there as it’s always nice to discover something new.
Anyway, long story short, we won’t be going to the Cruise Show in London, or the one in Birmingham either. Our favourite cruise company, Princess, aren’t going to be in attendance, nor are our second choice line, P&O, and I have to say that I’m very, very glad of it. There’s a good reason I wasn’t that familiar with the Cruise Show despite being a keen cruiser and that turns out to be because it’s presented in a partnership with the Daily Mail, something I stay as far away as possible from. This is, as everyone with at least half a brain knows, the country’s most reviled, most hate-spewing, most divisive newspaper, and that word is arguably incorrect because the only two things it really does is scrape content from other sources, rewording them and attaching photos of any attractive women it can find connected to the story, or stoke the fires of racism and xenophobia by blaming the self-centred, utterly dreadful decision-making of right wing politicians on foreigners or lefties, knowing full well that its readers do not have the intelligence or inquisitiveness to question what they’re being told or seek out the truth.
And that’s a big part of what makes anyone who exhibits at the Cruise Show quite baffling. For many of them, running a business based on the premise of getting people to see other cultures, often staffed by people from other countries, yet supporting the unending hatred of those same foreigners is anathema to me. You’ve got a slew of companies lining up to promote themselves in an industry with a very uncertain near future largely thanks to the event partner who’s one of the primary sources of bile that’s helped to send this country on the path to more difficult travel worldwide, more expensive travel worldwide, and less welcoming travelling worldwide. These are not companies I want to do any business with. At absolute best it’s short-sighted naivety, but at worst it’s complicit support of hatred.
I’m also very disappointed with anyone who attends the Cruise Show. I’ve no doubt that some won’t really be aware that their attendance in some ways validates the Daily Hate. I can already hear some of the paper-thin justifications they’d probably come up with. Others probably don’t care or even actively closely align themselves with the politics of “harking back to the days of Empire and looking down on the darkies” (we’ve been on enough cruises to unfortunately meet those sorts of cruising scum).
I’m not organising a protest, I’m not calling out anyone I know on Twitter directly, I’m not asking anyone else not to attend, and I’m not linking to any of the people or companies involved directly. This is just me, being true to myself, and keeping a list of cruise companies and other businesses who I feel are supporting hatred through their attendance at the Cruise Show in order that I can ensure as much as possible that I avoid them. Not always possible, and easy to forget, but this list might help me out.
- Amadeus River Cruises
- American Steamboat Cruises
- APT Luxury River Cruises
- Azamara Club Cruises
- Bamboo Connections
- Beauty Gate Ltd
- Chimu Adventures Ltd
- Cloud Spa
- Conservatory Insulations
- Cruise Critic
- Cruiseco
- Crystal Cruises
- Cyclo-Ssage Ltd
- eFoldi
- Ella & Cherry
- eWaterways Cruises Ltd
- Far Horizon
- Flat Roofs Resolved
- Food and Travel Magazine
- Freddie’s Flowers
- G Adventures
- Gate8 Luggage Ltd
- Geographical Magazine
- Greenpeace
- Guide Dogs
- Hapag-Lloyd Cruises
- Hebridean Island Cruises
- Hello Fresh
- Holiday & Cruise TV
- Husen Moda
- Ice Warrior
- Korea Tourism Organisation
- Lou Grey Ltd
- Luggie Scooters
- Marella Cruises
- Misty Cashmere
- Noble Caledonia Ltd.
- Norwegian Cruise Line
- Ocean Liner Society
- Oceania Cruises
- Pashmina UK
- Pieroth
- Poetic License Distillery
- Portsonachan Hotel
- Radisson Blu Hotels & Resorts
- Regent Seven Seas Cruises
- Rocky Mountaineer
- RSPB
- Saga Group Ltd
- Seafarer Cruises
- Shawbury Vintners
- Shore Therapy Ltd
- Silver Travel Advisor
- Southampton Harbour Hotel
- St. James’s Place Wealth Management
- Star Clippers
- Steppes Travel
- That Cosy Feeling
- The Independent Traveller
- The Tipsy Tart
- Thornton & Baines Independent Financial Advisors
- Titan Travel
- VIA Rail Canada
- Viking Cruises
- Vision Cruise
- Volga Dream
- Windstar Cruises
- WSL Ltd
- WWF