Cruise tourism has become significant for a number of ports because cruise tourists are higher yield tourists, spending, on average, much higher amounts per day than other categories of international tourists. In a study of cruise tourism in Australia, Dwyer and Forsyth reported that home-porting cruise ships, with a marketing emphasis on flycruise packages for inbound tourists, had the greatest potential for generating large expenditure inflows to Australia. In addition, they reported that because of leakages due to foreign ownership and foreign sourcing of inputs, the average expenditure per passenger per cruise injected into the Australian economy is twice as great for the coastal as opposed to the international cruise. Nevertheless, there is significant debate over the impacts of cruise ships. Ritter and Schafer, for example, argue that the ecological impact of cruises is low; spending by individual tourists high, and accultural processes minimal, and claim that although the number of jobs directly created as a result of cruises is low, it compares very favourably against most other forms of travel as a sustainable development option. In contrast, Marsh and Staple in a study of cruise tourism in the Canadian Arctic concluded that given the environmental fragility of much of the region and the vulnerability of small, remote, largely aboriginal communities to impact, great care should be exercised in using the area for cruise tourism.Similarly, in examining some of the cultural dimensions of the cruise ship experience, Wood argued that the global nature of the cruise market has meant that cruise ships have become examples of ‘globalisation at sea’ with corresponding deterritorialisation, cultural theming, and simulation. In addition, concern over the environmental impacts of cruise ships led the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to host a series of meetings in 2000 to solicit input from the public, the cruise ship industry and other stakeholders on the issue of discharges from cruise ships. These meetings were part of an information gathering effort on the part of the agency to prepare an in-depth assessment of environmental impacts and existing and potential measures to abate impacts from these discharges. Cruise discharges are currently regulated through a combination of domestic and international pollution prevention laws and the EPA was assessing whether these laws adequately protect the environment and whether there are gaps in the coverage or application of these laws which may pose a risk to the environment