This mornings report from Travel Weekly shows how Cruise lines will be forced to alter their itineraries to counteract higher fuel costs, implement stricter environmental regulations by the middle of the decade.

The forecast came from Carnival UK chief executive David Dingle in an overview of the sector as part of the company’s 2011 annual cruise report. The report states that new rules will require all cruise lines to make changes in the way they operate. To meet its own environmental targets, Carnival UK claims to have reduced fuel consumption by more than 5% in each of the last two years and continues to do so.

But higher fuel costs from 2015 created by air emissions regulations will mean that the sector will have to modify itineraries to reduce cruise speeds, distances travelled and sometimes the number of ports visited, according to Dingle.

He revealed that the company’s ships have been cutting their speed for a number of years in order to preserve fuel. Dingle said the “ethical ambitions and the commercial realities” encourage Carnival UK to burn less fuel.

Mr Dingle said: “One way of doing this, and something which we have, largely unnoticed, done for a number of years now is to reduce the speed of our ships, Adding in an extra day at sea here and there and thinking hard about whether a particular port is really worth visiting in relation to the extra fuel needed, are decisions which we regularly make. This has, for instance, encouraged us to feature more ports closer to home, most notably on our one-week cruises.”

Mr Dingle has said these changes have seen increases popularity for those cruises which focus mainly on France, Spain, Portugal and Norway.

“Indeed, despite all the wonderful destinations to which we take our guests all across the world, the greatest destinations of all are our ships,” said Dingle.

“Green issues are always at the top of most headlines, however I know a number of the cruise lines we have spoken to have been making small changes for a number of years now. I don’t feel this will have too much of an impact on the growth of the cruise sector, I am sure it will continue to grow, and we will see more and more fabulous cruise itineraries emerging.” said Tim Pryor of Pryority Publishing Ltd.