New rules could see end of close-up polar bear photos in cruise brochures
Polar bears are a key draw for people embarking on sailings to Norwegian-ruled archipelago Svalbard, as they can be observed in their natural Arctic habit.
But concerns about interference from humans means the government has banned ships in the region from being closer than 500 metres from the animals.
Ms Marozaite said the sector is partly paying the price for 'always talking about polar bears' in relation to Svalbard trips.
She told the PA news agency: 'Of course they are something that people want to see, but expedition cruising to Svalbard is actually an incredible opportunity to experience a lot of other things about the destination.
'There is incredible human history, beautiful scenery, other species of wildlife.'
Ms Marozaite said cruise lines are continuing to show their guests polar bears, some by sailing closer to Greenland.
The impact of Norway's distance rule is 'more to do with how we communicate', she said.
'The communication around Arctic voyages is going to change.
'Companies hopefully will no longer be putting close-up images of polar bears on the brochure.
'That's a good thing, because finally we will start talking about the destination the way it should be talked about.'
But expedition leader and photographer Paul Goldstein criticised the new regulations.
He told The Independent's travel podcast: 'This is a classic example of what I term 'conservation fascism'.
'I have led small ship charters in the region since 2004.
'Never once have I seen a single incident where tourists intimidate or affect the behaviour of polar bears.'
He added that if a camera lens 'the size of a Stinger missile' is required to see polar bears then most visitors will miss out.
Norway's minister of climate and environment Andreas Bjelland Erikse previously said the rules are necessary as climate change is 'leading to more difficult conditions for polar bears on Svalbard'.
He went on: 'It is important for them to be able to search for food, hunt, rest and take care of their cubs without interference from humans.
'That is why we must keep a good distance.'
The minimum distance will be reduced to 300 metres from July 1.
The Norwegian government said visitors to Svalbard have 'a duty to retreat to a legal distance' if they encounter a polar bear that is too close.
Ships are also banned from carrying more than 200 passengers in the region.
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TOM UTLEY: From the bliss of my own bed to a decent cuppa... why the best part of any holiday is the heart-lifting relief of coming HOME
Oh, how heartily I agree with the 52 per cent who say one of the best parts of going away on holiday is returning to the comforts of home. My only quibble is that it's the best part, bar none. We may look forward all year to getting away from it all for that summer break, studying the travel pages, thumbing through the brochures and counting the days until we can pack our bags and head for the heaven of our dreams. But on average, apparently, it takes only five days away for us to start missing everything we've left behind, from the bliss of our own beds to our familiar routines, gardens and pets and our favourite TV programmes – or simply a decent British cuppa, with proper British milk. So says a survey of 2,000 holidaymakers from the UK, published this week by the sofa retailing firm, DFS. True, there was a time in my younger days when I wished that my holidays could go on for ever. I longed to explore the whole wide world, absorbing new sights, sounds, tastes and experiences, while going home just meant the start of a new term or, later, returning to the grind of the office. But since money was always tight in my bachelor days, I never got round to venturing beyond Europe. And when marriage and the four boys came along, further clipping my wings – except on the handful of occasions when my employers sent me abroad for work – I resigned myself to putting my wilder ambitions on hold until our finances looked up and our sons were old enough to fend for themselves. These days, with the boys now grown up, the school fees behind us, the mortgage paid off – and Rachel Reeves's dreaded Budget still weeks away – I can at last afford to take the two of us just about anywhere in the world we may fancy. Yet this summer, we found five days on the Isle of Wight more than enough. The trouble is that my feet stopped itching years ago, and Mrs U seems to feel much the same way. Far from yearning to travel, I find my heart sinking at the very thought of going through all the palaver, inconvenience and discomfort of another holiday abroad. I'm not a bit proud of the death of my spirit of adventure. On the contrary, all those people who say life starts at sixty or seventy – and spend their retirement swimming with dolphins, going on safari in Africa or sailing round the world – make me feel terribly inadequate. It's just that when I look back over a lifetime of holidays, I remember only a litany of disasters, and almost constant anxiety. There was the time in Pompeii, which I've mentioned before, when our then three-year-old eldest fell, bottom-first, into an enormous Roman wine-jar of the first century AD, with only the top of his head and the soles of his shoes visible. For several interminable minutes, as we heaved on his shoulders and ankles, I feared that we'd have to smash this priceless artefact to get him out, and I'd have to answer for the consequences to my bank manager (not to mention the Italian police). Then there was the holiday a couple of years later, at a friend's villa in Tuscany, where the same boy broke his arm on day two, after laughing so hard at a funny book that he fell on to the stone floor from his perch on the arm of a sofa. I still shudder at the memory of our long drive in the hire car to the nearest hospital, with the poor boy screaming in pain in the back. Indeed, trips to hospital feature prominently in my memories of holidays abroad. There was the time in Normandy when son Number Two suddenly developed a mysterious illness. He wouldn't eat or sleep, and when he tried to walk he developed a terrifying limp. Frantic with worry, and fearing he had picked up something like polio (all right, neither of us is medically literate), we drove him to hospital in Bayeux. As he hobbled round the consulting room, in apparent agony, two doctors said they were as baffled as we were. It was only when they told him he'd have to stay there a couple of nights for tests that he miraculously recovered in an instant, and walked down the hospital corridor without a trace of a limp. I'll never forget what one of the doctors said to his colleague, in French, presumably thinking I wouldn't understand: 'These stupid English. They watch far too much television!' Then there was the time near Toulouse, when I managed to skewer the top of my head on a spike hanging down from a chandelier. Blood gushed from my head like a Roman candle, and our gite soon looked like the set of a gruesome Quentin Tarantino movie. Before I knew it, I was lying in an antiquated ambulance – a converted Citroen Deux Chevaux, I seem to remember, though I wouldn't swear to it – on my way to have my wound stapled up in A&E. As for lesser holiday disasters, these include suffering a blow-out on our way to Saint-Malo, when we were already running late for the ferry home and, like so many other muppet tourists, having my pocket picked in Rome. (To adapt the famous saying: 'When in Rome… cling on to your wallet for dear life.') Yes, such disasters and mishaps can also befall us in dear old blighty. But the stresses are multiplied a hundredfold when they happen abroad, with an unfamiliar language and bureaucracy to contend with. Indeed, even when everything goes smoothly on a foreign holiday, I find the anxiety kicks in from almost the moment we leave home. Have we locked the rear bedroom window, cancelled the papers and remembered to turn off the gas? Which of us has the passports and the tickets – and where the hell did I put the booking reference for the hire car at the other end? Then there's that exhausting business at the airport – the endless, snaking queues at the check-in desk, passport control and customs, and that ridiculous rigmarole with the belts and the shoes at security. It's another interminable wait at the other end, for Mrs U's suitcase to appear (generally last) on the carousel. Then the hassle at the hire-car kiosk and that first, nerve-racking hour of getting used to driving a strange vehicle, on the wrong side of a strange road. That's not to mention the constant demands on our mental arithmetic, as we struggle to translate foreign currencies into pounds and pence. (One of the few things Mrs U and I have in common, apart from 45 years of marriage, four sons and five grandchildren, is that we're both completely hopeless at maths). Enough to say, oh, the heart-lifting relief of that first glimpse of the Isle of Wight or the White Cliffs of Dover, from the aeroplane window or the deck of the ferry on the journey home. And, oh, the joy of ordering a favourite takeaway and cracking open the duty free on our arrival in our own dear house, with our own familiar kitchen, our own telly and our own comfy bed. No, there's no question that this is the best bit of any holiday. It's just such a shame that we have to go through all the worries and bother of travel before we can fully appreciate it.
