Sustainability - Social

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 shoreside employees and 19.5% onboard crew were female.

Diversity and Inclusion

Public health

A dedicated Public Health Officer (PHO) is present on most of our ships, with Travelling Public Health Supervisors guiding the onboard PHOs, conducting oversight inspections, and providing additional support where needed. The PHOs ensure that we comply with our standard operating procedures, public health procedures, and health authority requirements where their ship operates. Regular tasks include ship inspections, focusing on areas such as food preparation and service, recreational water, potable water, pest management, and management of acute gastroenteritis. PHOs also conduct basic public health familiarisation training for all crew, specific on the job training, and more advanced training to managers.

At any time, our ships may be subject to external public health inspections. In April 2023, MSC Seaside failed a routine port inspection. As a result, a cross-functional team of experts was immediately dispatched from various departments to assist in addressing the identified issues. This collaborative effort ensured the vessel’s readiness for a reinspection and successful compliance with all relevant regulatory standards.

Public health

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

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.