The World on a Ship: Producing Cosmopolitan Dining on Mass-Market Cruises

Abstract

This article analyzes how mass-market cruise lines mobilize food, laborers, and built environments to offer passengers cosmopolitanism with the purpose of maintaining a unique business model. It is argued that while companies target a growing demand for culturally immersive dining experiences, they do not seek to offer complete immersion in any one culture but cosmopolitanism through a combination of multiple themed establishments on a mobile platform. Culinary themes are installed using labor and built environments, for instance through the placement of visual and material culture in eateries. While some onboard dining experiences are themed around the cultures of nations on the ship’s itinerary, many evoke international cultures. In studying how mass-market cruise ships as mobile spaces of containment combine both international and localized dining experiences to offer the “world on a ship,” scholars of tourism can better understand how touristic companies produce cosmopolitanism at destinations.