The cruise industry grew up in North America, where tipping for services is common, and for years many of the biggest cruise lines have relied on hefty tips from American customers to provide the bulk of their workers' incomes.

But what do you do when you start branching out to other cultures that don't tip quite as much if at all? It's a growing problem for cruise companies as they expand rapidly around the globe.

On Thursday, industry giant Carnival Corp. announced its fast-growing subsidiary in Australia, P&O Cruises Australia, would stop adding tips automatically to customer bills -- a sore point for Australian customers who are not as accustomed as Americans to heavy tipping.

‘Tipping is a personal decision for Australians, so we have decided to update our policy in response to both passenger feedback and community expectations," Carnival Australia executive Jenny Laurey said in a statement.

P&O Australia currently adds about $7 per day to passenger bills for tips.

Carnival's move comes just two months after Royal Caribbean disclosed it was grappling with how to handle gratuities on ships based in England, another country where heavy tipping is not part of the culture.

Royal Caribbean's managing director for the UK and Ireland, Robin Shaw, told a cruise forum in October that the company is rethinking its tipping system because the British won't tip.

Shaw told the forum it has become a "significant issue" for Royal Caribbean as the number of British customers at the line surges. In the last few years Royal Caribbean has based one of its largest ships, the 3,634-passenger Independence of the Seas, in Southampton, England for the summers, and next year the ship will begin sailing out of the port year-round.

Unlike some lines, Royal Caribbean doesn't automatically add tips onto customer bills, instead relying on customers to present cabin stewards and table waiters with gratuities at the end of voyages.