Leaders in the cruise industry consider overtourism of destinations that their ships visit time and again to be one of the major issues in their sector.
"We have to look at them with empathy, the ports that are out there," said Carnival chief executive Arnold Donald.
He said the cruise lines need to ensure that they spread out their calls to popular ports so that their cities are not overrun with tourists.
"Our guests don't want to go to someplace that's overcrowded," he said.
Donald said this earlier today as a panelist for a talk on "The State of the Global Cruise Industry" at the Seatrade Global Cruise conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
He was joined by chief executives Frank Del Rio of Norwegian Cruise Lines, Richard Fain of Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and Pierfrancesco Vago of MSC Cruises.
The keynote talk was moderated by Peter Greenberg of CBS News.
Greenberg said a recent study by the World Travel & Tourism Council found that "destination degradation" was the biggest problem in the cruise industry.
"We see it in Venice ... we see it in Barcelona and we even see it in Alaska," he said.
"The real question is where's the tipping point?" he added. "I've been to a port in St. Thomas and I didn't want to get off the ship because there were seven ships."
Fain said overtourism is a "misnomer" because it is not an issue of numbers of tourists but where the tourists should be allowed to go while on land.
"This is a game of doing it in a better way," he said. It's a question of where we put people, how we protect the environment ... bringing people in a way that also educates them."
He said his company revitalised two ports in such a way to allow more tourists with less destiny.
Vago said MSC Cruises "controls the flow" in and out of ports like Venice to minimise overtourism.
Fain said the key is to work with the local communities at these ports to prevent overtourism.
"Those we work with are very happy," he said.
