New book with an article from me: Perspectives on the Development of Cruise Travel

Today, I received my author's copies of the 2015 yearbook of the Forum Marinum maritime museum. Last year, they ran an exhibition on the development on cruising in Finland. As I had researched the subject for my Master's Thesis, I helped gather material for the exhibition and to provided an article for the yearbook. (The exhibit is actually still open for two days, until 10 January, if anyone reading hasn't yet visited and can make it to Turku, Finland by Sunday).

Perspectives on the Development of Cruise Travel has numerous articles about both proper cruising and ferry cruising in the Finnish context.

My contribution to the book is essentially an abbreviated version of my master's thesis, outlining the attempts by the Finnish shipping companies Finnlines and Effoa to run proper cruises on both the Finnish and international market between the years 1965 and 1980. In addition to covering the realised cruise service (cruise service with the Nili, Finnpartner, Bore Star and Finnstar by Finnlines, as well as the Ilmatar and Regina by Effoa), the article also looks at the abortive cruise attempts of the era, such as Finnlines' unrealised Finncruiser newbuilding project, which served as a template for the first-generation newbuildings of Royal Caribbean Cruise Line and Royal Viking Line.

There are seven other articles in the book, on a wide variety of subjects related to cruising in the Finnish context. These range from a look at the development on passenger ship interiors to a travelogue from a cruise with the most successful Finnish cruise ship of all time, the Kristina Regina. Personally, I find Pauli Kivistö's article on the cruise operations of Rederi Ab Sally particularly interesting (and also a perfect companion piece to my own article).

Perspectives on the Development of Cruise Travel is 180 pages, with trilingual text in Finnish, Swedish and English. The book is limited edition and should be available to buy from both Forum Marinum's physical museum shop, as well as the webshop of Trafiikki museums (though it does not appear to be available on the latter website yet).