To be upfront, I doubt I’d enjoy a cruise. I’m not particularly into the lawlessness of international waters, nor do I enjoy being forced to endure poolside activities with hordes of strangers. And like Sen. Jay Rockefeller, I have concerns about who, exactly, cruise lines are beholden to. In the case of Carnival, as outlined nicely by Quartz’s Gwynn Guilford, the answer is pretty much no one. For starters, the company is incorporated in Panama, which means it’s outside the bounds of U.S. wage and safety laws. In addition, its shipping business is exempt from U.S. taxes. This is a big deal when, as Rockefeller points out, the U.S. Coast Guard (aka the U.S. taxpayers) has “responded to 90 incidents with Carnival ships in 5 years.” As for the cruise company, a spokesperson urges caution, saying that all the incidents were quite different in nature, and that the company has a strong overall safety record.
That said, you kind of have to admire the brilliance of the business model. Except maybe if you’re one of these people.
The Future of the Business Travel (The Boston Consulting Group)
Most millennials aren’t quite full-fledged business travelers, according to The Boston Consulting Group, but that’s likely to change in the next 10 years or so. This offers up a great opportunity for airlines and hotels to mine for early brand loyalty — and to eventually increase profits — but only if they understand how very different this generation of flyers is from the last. Some things to consider: While millennials tend to be more brand loyal than non-millennials in most cases, this fact doesn’t yet apply to airlines. And while millennials don’t much mind chaos at the airport, they’re more likely to be annoyed by a complicated booking process and are more likely to turn to aggregators like Kayak or Expedia for their travel needs.
THE IRAQ WAR: WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
Absolutely $138 Billion (Financial Times)
Now that we’re done with our brief travel theme, a note about war. Specifically the Iraq War, which began 10 years ago. And even more specifically, the staggering amount of money the U.S. doled out to private contractors: $138 billion. KBR, for example, reaped almost $40 billion during a decade of government contracts, which included preparing and serving “more than 1bn meals” and producing “more than 25bn gallons of drinkable water and 265 tons of ice.” While Sen. Claire McCaskill claims that many of the contractors’ services and projects “did little — sometimes nothing — to further our military mission,” a KBR spokesperson argues that they “performed with honor and sacrifice in a hostile, complex, ambiguous and unpredictable environment.”
Habemus Papam
Vatican’s Bureaucracy Tests Even the Infallible (New York Times)
A Simple Ritual for Harried Managers (and Popes) (HBR)
Social Media Lessons from the Vatican — Really (Australian School of Business)