Role & Importance of AECO: The Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators

The Arctic is a superlatively beautiful and inspiring world, a place of raw wildness, ethereal polar beauty, and incredible Indigenous cultural heritage. For all the expressions of primal power in this top-of-the-world kingdom—a calving glacier off a mighty ice sheet, a polar bear swaggering its way across sea ice, the crash of a humpback whale’s flukes—it is, in fact, a fragile and vulnerable one.

Here at Antarctica Cruises, we take our commitment to responsible expedition cruising in both polar realms extremely seriously: Indeed, it’s a guiding principle of ours, right alongside providing guests with the trip of a lifetime. That’s why we only work with operators who abide by the standards and guidelines defined by the Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators, or AECO, which helps safeguard many top Arctic travel destinations.

Introducing AECO

Headquartered in Tromsø, Norway, AECO came about in the early 2000s as a result of the burgeoning growth in tourism in the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. Recognizing the need for greater travel management and collaborative practices, a group of expedition cruise outfitters banded together to create the Association, and it’s been going strong ever since.

As the AECO website states, the organization is “dedicated to ensuring that Arctic expedition cruise tourism benefits the region while prioritizing the natural environment and cultural preservation, local communities, and safe operations.”

The voluntary membership of AECO represents tour operators leading expedition cruises not only to Svalbard but also Iceland, Greenland, and Jan Mayen. Those members define AECO’s principles and guidelines, which effectively become Arctic cruise regulations that participating operators are required to adhere to.

Among the core focus areas of AECO are the Arctic environment, expedition-cruise safety, community engagement, and knowledge, the latter point reflecting the Association’s goal “to be the preferred point of contact for Arctic expedition cruise tourism, and the expert knowledge resource.”

AECO Arctic Guidelines & Programs

Those AECO guidelines set and followed by the association’s membership are wide-ranging, and include everything from not carrying heavy fuel oil onboard and submitting post-visit reports to avoiding the use of drones.

Besides general benchmarks for conducting cruise travel in the Arctic, AECO has also laid out site-specific guidelines for certain destinations—the isle of Ytre Norksøya and Alkhornet (the “Auk Horn”) in Svalbard, for example—as well as community-specific guidelines for visiting such settlements as Pond Inlet in Nunavut (Canada), Ilulissat in Greenland, and Grímsey in Iceland.

The Association also shares guidelines for tour operators and guests alike when it comes to behavior around Arctic wildlife: everything from steering clear of Arctic-fox dens and practicing responsible whale-watching to the responsible way to view seabird rookeries and tips on being “bear aware” when out and about in polar-bear country. Part of these travel-management efforts at protecting polar wildlife includes AECO limits on group size for excursions and how close groups may get to particular animals.

There are also AECO best practices for minimizing visitor impacts on Arctic vegetation and cultural-heritage and historical sites, of which there are many around and above the Arctic Circle. The biosecurity guidelines laid out by AECO, meanwhile, are intended to avoid introducing or spreading invasive species in Arctic ecosystems, which remain among the most pristine left on Planet Earth.

In the safety arena, AECO helps to support search-and-rescue response in the Arctic, collaborating on that front with organizations such as national coast guards. The Association also creates resources such as the Off-Vessel Risk Assessment Tool, a mobile app that helps minimize danger during cruise shore landings.

AECO also participates in a number of programs that facilitate hands-on participation in Arctic conservation, environmental preservation, and research. These range from the Clean Seas and Clean Up Svalbard programs to participation in citizen-science efforts, including (but not limited to):

• Recording observations of marine mammals in Svalbard for the Norwegian Polar Institute
• Logging data on seaborne litter to support the Marine Debris Tracker
• Collecting sea-ice observations for Ice Watch
• Recording data on plastic debris
• Contributing to eBird and iNaturalist records

Such citizen-science efforts give cruisegoers the chance to actually contribute to vital, active research on the Arctic environment: one of the hidden-gem perks of many polar travel itineraries.

Sustainable Polar Tourism: Experience the Arctic With a Reputable Tour Operator—and Be a Responsible Visitor

At Antarctica Cruises, we partner exclusively with Arctic cruise operators who are members of AECO, just as all of our itineraries to the Antarctic are with members of the analogous International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO). We’re proud to support the important work of these associations and align with their guidelines when it comes to safety, environmental sustainability, and cultural sensitivity.

Therefore, you can rest assured that the Arctic cruises you book with us are being led by the most responsible and rigorously managed partners. On these cruises to destinations such as Svalbard, Iceland, Greenland, and the Canadian Arctic, you’ll receive plenty of instruction when it comes to ethical and low-impact visitor practices. Indeed, your own conduct as a guest at the top of the world should always be front-of-mind, and taking individual responsibility is essential as part of your trip’s broader goal of enjoying the Arctic environment and its communities without adversely affecting them.

We encourage you to take a gander at AECO’s basic visitor guidelines for the Arctic, many of which we hope are common sense but are still worth thinking about ahead of your voyage.

We can’t wait to show you the marvels of the Arctic on a trip that takes this special place’s well-being very close to heart!