This is a point, I think. Is it great with cruise traffic to Svalbard? Maybe not. Is it better than having all those people fly to Longyearbyen by plane, and wander around on guided tours in the wilderness? Definitively.

> Is it better than having all those people fly to Longyearbyen by plane, and wander around on guided tours in the wilderness? Definitively.

Don't see how you can make that determination. All those people are flying to Tromso or whatever anyway to get on the boat. And the boat is an ecological disaster. Plus the boat belching out 1000s of people into Longyearbyen is a mess for the people there. They don't stay in the hotels or go on the tours provided by local tour operators, hurting the local economy.

There's a reason why Svalbard is currently imposing sweeping regulation on cruise ships. They are not a plus for the archipelago or the community. Just like everywhere else cruise ships operate, they serve mostly to capture as much as the financial upside from tourism as possible while leaving as little on the plate for the locals as possible, while dumping them with externalities.