SOCIAL
Our number one priority is the well-being and safety of our guests and workforce. We also want our diverse crew members to feel welcome and to have the support and training needed to develop long term careers within the company.
Diversity and inclusion
We depend on recruiting, retaining, and developing diverse talent with a range of backgrounds, skills, and capabilities and are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive organisation. Our recruitment strategy is to select crew from as many countries as possible, including where the cruise industry has not historically been a significant employer.
Their language, demographic, gender, LGBTQ+ status, and skill diversification provide real value to our business. We are committed to achieving gender equality and have a target of 24% women onboard by 2025 – an increase of 30% since 2022. In 2023, 54.7% of our shore-side employees and 19.5% onboard crew were female.
Diversity and inclusion
Crew well-being
The well-being of our crew is very important, and we have recruited additional HR Specialists across the fleet to improve HR support for our larger crews. We continue to support vulnerable crew through our safeguarding policy and a dedicated Single Point of Contact, who assesses situations and ensures the necessary timely support is provided.
Crew well-being
Onboard safety & security
Our robust Safety Management System (SMS) complies with the International Safety Management code and the ISO 45001 Occupational Health and Safety Standard. We ensure full compliance with the safety regulations under the IMO and the Maritime Labour Convention. An annual external audit assesses our SMS to ensure we comply with the code and the convention requirements. In 2023, we continued to install our digital platform that allows crew to report hazardous situations and work-related hazards. The platform is now available across all our vessels.
Food safety: In 2023, we enhanced our food safety management system, with a detailed revision of all food safety documentation. In 2023, we conducted 3,665 microbiological analyses on all ready to eat foods and food contact surfaces aboard all ships in the MSC Cruises division. A total of 21 ships have obtained certification to ISO 22000 Food Safety Management, demonstrating their commitment to ensuring the safety of food onboard. The latest ships to join our fleet, MSC Euribia and Explora I, will undergo certification in early 2024.
Onboard medical facilities: A fully equipped medical centre is available on all our cruise ships, assisting guests and crew. Our medical team comprises doctors and nurses from diverse nationalities, both onboard and ashore, available around the clock. A Medical Operations duty doctor supports our onboard medical teams via a dedicated 24/7 phone line and works closely with the Maritime Support Centre to assist with any serious medical incident or evacuation.
Onboard safety & security
Public Health
The COVID-19 pandemic increased awareness about ways to prevent and control infectious diseases on our ships. Although the threat has largely passed and we are able to lift restrictions, we have chosen to make permanent adjustments to housekeeping and general hygiene as set out in our Health & Safety Protocol. Another permanent change is to our medical facilities: the requirement for testing and treatment onboard during the pandemic means we now have much more comprehensive onboard facilities.
Onboard medical facilities: Each of our cruise ships is host to a state-of-the-art medical centre able to assist both crew and guests, in line with CLIA policies. We employ on-board and shore-side doctors and nurses from many different nationalities, all of whom are certified professionals, available around the clock to treat many ailments directly on board. We are aligned with the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) Health Care Guidelines for Cruise Ship Medical Facilities throughout our fleet. Our onboard teams can manage a spectrum of medical situations ranging from routine general practice cases and medical emergencies to those requiring intensive care. Our medical resources include the ability to perform X-rays, cardiac monitoring, pulmonary ventilation, and medical laboratory devices to assist with the prompt diagnosis and treatment of patients.
Public health and communicable disease control: Most ships in our fleet have a dedicated Public Health Officer (PHO), with others receiving support from travelling PHOs. Their role is to ensure compliance with all MSC public health procedures and the health authority requirements in the jurisdictions in which their ship operates.
Public Health
sustainability reports
Browse our Sustainability reports and find out what are our actions and goals to achieve sustainable cruising.
