Four days after the cruiseliner Costa Concordia ran aground and capsized off the coast of an Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea, authorities are still searching the wreckage and have yet to arrive at a final casualty count. As of Monday night, 29 people were still missing and at least six were dead.

The Costa Concordia, docked during one of its early years at sea.

The details of how the accident occurred and how the evacuation was handled by crew are also still being investigated. And the impact on the cruise industry and on Carnival Corporation, which owns Costa Cruises, is also undetermined. Carnival says that its insurance deductible on damage to the ship will cost $30 million, and its personal injury liability insurance carries a $10 million deductible. The company estimates that the loss of use of the Concordia for at least several months will set Carnival back $85 million to $95 million.

Many early reports in U.S. media painted a picture of an emergency poorly managed by the vessel’s staff. For example, take this line from a CNN story: “Some crew members helped passengers and then jumped overboard, passengers said; remaining crew members seemed helpless to handle the melee.” In public statements, Costa has commended the reaction of its crew, but has harsher criticism for the ship’s captain, Francesco Schettino, who it blames for deviating from the prescribed course and causing the accident.

Unfortunately for cruise operators and travel agents, the accident occurred early during “wave season,” the peak cruise-booking period, which runs from January through March. This has ratcheted up speculation that the tragedy could cause a softening in the cruise market this year. And TravelAgentCentral.com points out that April will mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, which will also put cruising in the news for negative reasons.

As for the possible effect on the industry, here are some thoughts from experts:

“It’s hard to see the industry not experiencing at least a small short-term slowdown from this,” Florida-based Simon Duvall of SimonCruises.com tells USA Today. “The images and stories coming out of Italy are shocking even to those of us who love cruising and consider it safe, so to a first-timer or someone who is nervous about it, [this] very well might be a deal breaker.” — USA Today

Some investors may switch holdings into Royal Caribbean after the Concordia incident, according to Tim Ramskill, an analyst at Credit Suisse in London. “If the industry already didn’t face enough challenges—fuel price volatility, capacity absorption and weakness in the European economy—this unfortunate event will reverberate on the group,” he said. — Bloomberg BusinessWeek

[Brian] Robertson, [certified travel consultant and owner, Robertson International Travel Consultants], said the accident will not negatively impact his ability to sell cruises either short-term or long-term, or to change the way his agency sells: “People have a very short memory when it comes to this type of accident,” he believes. — TravelAgentCentral.com

As the story of the tragedy of the Costa Concordia continues to unravel, one good source of information is Cruise News Daily’s Cruiseblogger, which is adding updates to one continuously updated post, Costa Concordia Evacuated.

Photo: Aah-Yeah (flickr, CC2.0)

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