The unfortunate accident of luxury ship Costa Concordia was reminiscent of the Titanic. Amidst the sorrow, it struck me that there is a possible design flaw in current cruise ships. And there could be a new selling point for cruise ships.
Ships have been designed with the ship as the focus. If we look at the Titanic, it was build with the hardest materials and boasted to be unsinkable. The money was spent with the ship in mind, focusing on the ship but not the passengers. If we could design a revolutionary ship with the passengers in mind - yes the ship could sink, but a passenger could always escape from this ship - it would make all the difference. For example, instead of having passengers from the lower floors escape to the deck, design and construct emergency escape routes in the low level of the ships where passengers could jump in and land on the lifeboats for evacuation immediately.
And thus, I think a good idea for the design direction of the new ship to focus on safety systems and escape routes. The cruise ship need not be unsinkable, but its passengers are definitely "undrownable". People might pay for the high level of safety.
