What is a crew appreciation fee? Why one major cruise line is raising the price
(NEW YORK) — This summer brought lots of buzz around “tourist taxes” and other fees that can get tacked on to normal travel expenses. Now, another fee that may be familiar to avid cruisers is increasing on one major cruise line.
The so-called “Crew Appreciation” fee is a daily amount that’s automatically added to a guests’ onboard accounts with Princess Cruises “to recognize the efforts of a wide variety of crewmembers who contribute to the experiences of all our guests” and are pooled and distributed throughout the year in compensation and bonuses.
Travelers will pay slightly more starting later this month depending on the type of accommodations they book, according to the cruise line, which last raised the price in February 2023.
Echoing recent headlines surrounding updates to airline baggage prices, Princess Cruises’ Crew Appreciation fee is rising by just $1 per person, per day in various classes of cabins.
Travelers in suites will see a $19 daily fee, while those in mini suites, cabanas or Club Classes will pay $18. Guests in all other staterooms will pay $17.
“The crewmembers eligible to receive these funds work in various departments, many of whom rotate among different ships, throughout our fleet of ships,” Princess states on its website. “Guests have complete discretion to adjust these crew appreciation [fees] while onboard; however, crew appreciation may only be adjusted prior to disembarking the ship and not refundable post cruise.”
Travelers can choose a prepaid crew appreciation option while managing their booking, but if it’s not adjusted up to the time a passenger settles up the account prior to disembarkation, the payment becomes final and nonrefundable.
Full details of the policy are available on the Princess Cruises website.
(NEW YORK) — A worldwide selloff jolted markets on Monday in the aftermath of a weaker-than-expected U.S. jobs report that elicited fear of an economic recession.
Japan’s main Nikkei 225 stock index dropped more than 12%, its worst day of trading since 1987. Each of the major U.S. stock indexes plummeted more than 2%.
Nvidia, a chipmaker that had helped catapult market gains so far this year, dropped as much as 14% before recovering some of those losses.
Renewed warnings of an imminent recession arrive after years of doomsday forecasts that stretch back to the staggering rise of inflation three years ago. So far, the U.S. has defied alarm and sustained solid growth, proving many analysts wrong.
Economists who spoke to ABC News disagreed about whether current economic conditions warrant serious concern about a possible recession or foretell resilience of the kind that has followed previous bouts of uncertainty.
Some analysts voiced optimism, pointing to continued economic growth and a tendency for markets to overreact in the face of negative news. Others cautioned of a monthslong labor market cooldown that indicates wider economic weakness and a potential downturn.
“You can see the probability of a recession moving slightly higher, but for me it’s nowhere near the level at which you jump out of the window because the house is burning,” Olu Sonola, the head of U.S. regional economics at Fitch Ratings, told ABC News. “You can still safely take the elevator or the stairs.”
The stock market downswing was set off by a disappointing jobs report on Friday. Employers hired 114,000 workers in July, falling well short of economist expectations of 185,000 jobs. The unemployment rate climbed to 4.3%, the highest level since October 2021.
The unemployment rate has soared this year from 3.7% to 4.3%. That trend has triggered a recession indicator known as the “Sahm Rule,” which says that a rise of 0.5 percentage points in the unemployment rate within a 12-month period typically precedes a recession.
Some economists have doubted whether the trend signals a recession in this case. That’s because the rising unemployment rate owes more to an increase in eligible workers that has expanded the labor pool rather than layoffs that have reduced the number of people with jobs.
The labor market is still growing and the unemployment rate remains at a historically low level.
“I still think we’re in the soft-landing stage,” Stephan Weiler, a professor of economics at Colorado State University and a former Fed research officer, told ABC News, predicting an outcome in which inflation returns to normal and the economy averts a recession.
“Some people expected this recession two years ago or more, and it still hasn’t come about,” Weiler added.
Some economists rebutted that rosy outlook, however. Nancy Lazar, chief global economist at investment firm Piper Sandler, said the uptick in the unemployment rate marks a key piece of evidence indicating a recession will take place before the end of the year.
“It wasn’t just a one-month number,” Lazar said, referring to the jobs report on Friday. “This has been a rising trend.”
The recent labor market cooldown took hold roughly two years after the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates in March 2022 as part of an effort to dial back inflation. On average, Lazar said, the economy dips into a recession two-and-a-half years after the Fed begins a series of rate hikes.
“We’ve been expecting a recession to unfold,” Lazar added, acknowledging that Piper Sandler had previously forecasted a recession as early as the end of 2023. The firm had erred in part because it underestimated the staying power of pandemic-era government stimulus, she said.
“We’re now at the highest risk of the economy moving into a recession,” she added.
On Sunday, Goldman Sachs economists raised the probability of a U.S. recession in the next year from 15% to 25%.
The market downturn has triggered calls for a large interest rate cut at the Fed’s next meeting in September. Some investors have voiced an even more urgent request for a rare emergency rate cut as soon as this week.
In theory, interest rate cuts would ease borrowing fees, unleash consumer demand and business investment and help the economy avert a downturn.
Economists, however, said an interest rate cut likely would not help the economy avoid an imminent recession, since rate changes typically affect the economy only after a period of several months.
Pointing to the market drop-off on Monday, economists said investors have a track record of overreacting to emerging trends in the economy. But, experts added, market swings can help bring about a recession anyway.
“Markets always tend to overreact to the upside and overreact to the downside,” said Sonola, adding that market sentiment may in turn weigh on business investment and economic activity. “It can be a self-reinforcing feedback loop.”
(NEW YORK) — Fearless Fund, a venture capitalist firm that invests in female entrepreneurs of color, has settled a discrimination lawsuit over a grant program specifically for Black women.
The lawsuit from the American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER) claimed that the fund’s Fearless Strivers Grant Contest, which was open “only to Black females,” was discriminatory.
The grant program was at its end when the court case began in 2023, according to an online post by Fearless Fund founder Arian Simone, and the fund said it was motivated to avoid a court ruling so as not to lead to a Supreme Court decision that could end minority-based funding nationwide.
The Fearless Fund said it will continue to focus on “helping under-resourced entrepreneurs who have been ill served by traditional capital markets for far too long.” In a statement on the settlement, it announced a new $200 million debt fund with the goal of lending to more than 3,000 under-resourced founders.
Representatives of Fearless Fund partners Simone and Ayana Parson told reporters in August 2023 that the fund was established to address the wide gap in venture capital funding for businesses led by women of color “who confront barrier after barrier to obtain support and investments for their businesses.”
The Fearless Strivers Grant Contest was created specifically for Black women because Black women-owned businesses receive less than 1% of venture capital funding, according to the organization.
AAER called the grant program “divisive and illegal” and claimed that it “encouraged the Fearless Fund to open its grant contest to Hispanic, Asian, Native American and white women but Fearless has decided instead to end it entirely.”
White women-founded companies take home 64% of “Diversity Investments” by deal count, meanwhile women of color-owned businesses only take home 10%, according to an analysis of Crunchbase data by venture capital firm BBG Ventures.
Fearless Fund partners have long defended their work, citing the poor representation of women of color among venture capital recipients and evidence of racial bias in the investment decisions of asset allocators.
“From the moment the lawsuit was filed, I pledged to stand firm in helping and empowering women of color entrepreneurs in need. I stand by that pledge today and in fact my commitment remains stronger than ever,” read a statement from the organization’s co-founder Arian Simone. “Our overarching mission remains focused on helping and empowering entrepreneurs who have been historically overlooked in the venture capital marketplace.”
AAER’s founder Edward Blum also leads the Students for Fair Admissions, the group that initiated the anti-affirmative action case that reached the Supreme Court and won the case, setting new limits on the use of race-based policies in college admissions.
The conservative group claimed that affirmative action, which was implemented to address racial inequities in access to higher education, violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. economy grew much faster than expected over three months ending in June, accelerating from the previous quarter and defying concerns about a possible slowdown.
U.S. GDP grew at a 2.8% annualized rate over three months ending in September. That figure doubled the annualized rate of growth undertaken over the previous quarter.
The economic expansion reflected a surge in consumer spending, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis said on Thursday. The uptick in spending included purchases of housing, and cars, among other items, the BEA added.
The fresh data delivers a strong bill of health for the nation’s economy. The robust performance defies a years-long period of high interest rates, which typically weigh on demand and slow economic activity.
However, the continued growth could complicate the path toward a widely expected interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve in September.
Until the most recent quarter, the economy had been cooling. That trend gave the Federal Reserve confidence that its high interest rates had indeed slowed output and contributed to a slowdown of price increases.
Price increases have slowed significantly from a peak of more than 9%, though inflation remains more than a percentage point higher than the Fed’s target rate of 2%. An outright drop in prices in June compared to the month prior marked a major sign of progress in slowing inflation.
If the Fed cuts interest rates as the economy is heating up, however, the central bank risks rekindling rapid price increases.
The chances of an interest rate cut at the Fed’s meeting in September stand at more than 80%, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment.