"Reinvention and the Empty Space"

It is often said that nature abhors a vacuum, and something must inevitably fill it. This paper will look at empty space, i.e., under-utilized capacity in two different passenger transportation industries in two different eras: The international passenger shipping industry that peaked in the 1910s, and the international airline industry that peaked 100 years later in the 2010s. The analytical framework used in this paper will be a synthesis of the theory of cultural change used in Intercultural Communication and the theory of changes in supply and demand found in basic Economics.
In cultural studies, cultures are seen to change via three paths: 1) invention or innovation of new ideas or products, 2) diffusion of previously unknown ideas or products within a culture or between cultures, and 3) calamities which force unforeseen changes on societies and their cultures that in turn must adapt and acculturate to new situations and environments. There are parallels in microeconomic theory which explains major demand and supply shifts in terms of changes in incomes, preferences, prices, regulations, and technology.
The international passenger shipping industry experienced a series of political and economic shocks that left it with under-utilized capacity from the 1920s onward. Each shock forced the industry to experiment with different temporary “reinventions” until two technological innovations in the late 1950s eventually forced the passenger shipping industry out of the transportation business completely. The excess shipping capacity was acquired cheaply, and passenger shipping was “reinvented” as a holiday industry known as cruises. Similar shocks began to hit the international airline industry in 2020 with the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic. The airline industry has done some reinvention to survive the last two years. The key question is: What can be learned when comparing the two cases?