Carnival Triumph Disaster Could Lead To Major Customer Fallout

As the passengers on-board the Carnival Triumph finally head home after nearly two weeks on the damaged vessel, it is anything but a "triumph" for Carnival or the cruise industry.

With this disaster and last January's Concordia disaster, in which a Carnival-owned ship ran aground and capsized in Italy, killing 32, according to USA Today, there could be a major decline in customers, which would result in huge drops in profits, leading to the cruises inability to handle day-to-day operations.

"It's still too early to tell" whether would-be cruisers will be turned off by the aftermath of an engine room fire on the Triumph, which had left the ship adrift in the Gulf of Mexico since Sunday, says Steve Loucks, spokesman for Travel Leaders Group, a network of independently owned and operated travel agencies in the U.S, according to USA Today.

For now, Loucks reports that "his company hasn't fielded any cruise cancellations over the past week and says cruise bookings so far this year are up nearly 10% over last year," stated USA Today.

Since the two disaster, "our agents have been fielding questions about what safety procedures the cruise lines have in place," Loucks says. "After the Concordia, new safety measures were implemented, and we believe something similar will happen after the (National Transportation Safety Board) investigation. But the big difference here is that there was no loss of life" reported USA Today.

USA Today also states that Six NTSB investigators were in Mobile to look into the cause of the fire, which happened some 150 miles off Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Spokesman Keith Holloway said "the agency was working with the U.S. Coast Guard and the Bahamas Maritime Authority, which is taking the lead in the investigation because the Triumph is a Bahamian-flagged vessel and was in international waters at the time of the incident."

Carnival and the cruise industry in general can ill afford another horrific diabolic like the Concordia and the Triumph--one more and it might not just be a few customers leaving, it could be the end of the industry, period.