Tag Archives: Carnival Corporation

Carnival Corp. 2020 Outlook

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Carnival Corporation provided adjusted earnings guidance for 2020 on today’s Q4 and year-end earnings call from $4.30 to $4.60 per share, compared to 2019 adjusted earnings of $4.40 per share.

Carnival President and CEO Arnold Donald said that he expects cruise revenues to be up approximately 5 per cent on capacity growth year-over-year of 6.6 per cent.

At this point, he said, the company is entering 2020 with a record booked occupancy position but at slightly lower prices.

Donald noted the headwinds Carnival has faced this year, some of which will continue into 2020, including the impact of Cuba being off-limits to cruise calls, events in the Arabian Gulf, Hurricane Dorian, unscheduled drydocks and ship delays, compounded by a decline in market demand in Continental Europe, particularly Germany, while Southern Europe is also challenging.

Noting these as “unusual events,” Donald said they had had a $0.23 negative impact on 2019 earnings.

In order to improve the market situation and accelerate demand growth in Southern Europe, Donald said that two older ships are being removed from the Costa fleet in 2020, following the recent introduction of the new Costa Smeralda. He said the new ship is much more efficient than the ships being removed.

In the UK, Carnival has been able to grow revenue yield despite Brexit, and Donald noted that P&O Cruises’ New Iona is looking at a significant premium over other ships on comparable itineraries.

In North America, the Caribbean is strong and so is Alaska. However, Alaska is seeing what he called an over-concentration of capacity and will need to absorb another industrywide capacity increase of 10 per cent in 2020, on top of a 15 per cent capacity increase in 2019.

As for China, Donald said Carnival will focus on its new joint venture cruise line. Meanwhile, he said, Costa had a good year in China in 2019 and looks forward to another good year in 2020, with more direct business, but is also happy with its charter model.

Carnival will essentially have six new ships in six different markets for the full year in 2020, starting with the Carnival Panorama, which just entered service on the West Coast, the Costa Smeralda in Southern Europe; P&O’s Iona in the UK; the Enchanted Princess in Europe and North America; the Mardi Gras in Florida; and the Costa Firenze in China.

According to Donald, Carnival is also accelerating marketing and media spend in all of its key markets to drive demand in 2020.

CEO Conversations: Carnival Corp.’s Donald on stability and innovation

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Carnival Corp. CEO Arnold Donald, far right, was joined onstage during the CEO Conversation panel by John Chernesky-the-puppet of Princess Cruises. The session was moderated by editor in chief Arnie Weissmann, seated, left.

Carnival Corp. CEO Arnold Donald, far right, was joined onstage during the CEO Conversation panel by John Chernesky-the-puppet of Princess Cruises. The session was moderated by editor in chief Arnie Weissmann, seated, left. Photo Credit: Jamie Biesiada

FORT LAUDERDALE — Carnival Corp. CEO Arnold Donald told an audience at CruiseWorld that being the largest cruise company in the world comes with two key advantages — stability and innovation — that help Carnival’s brands deliver industry-leading results.

The company has more than 100 ships, and it operates in every segment and several global source markets. “One of every two people who cruise go with one of our nine brands,” Donald said, which include Princess Cruises, Holland America Line and Cunard Line, in addition to the namesake Carnival Cruise Line.

“Because we have such a large portfolio, it’s difficult for anyone thing happening somewhere in the world to take the company down,” Donald said.

Size matters in innovation too. “We have the scale and the capability to take on projects that others can’t,” he said.

A prime example of that is the costly OceanMedallion personalization technology that Carnival developed and rolled out initially on Princess Cruises.

“We invented it,” Donald said. “It’s not off-the-shelf apps.”

Donald ran down a list of developments at various Carnival brands, such as the roller coaster on next year’s Carnival Cruise Line newbuild, the Mardi Gras.

But when he forgot to mention Princess Cruises, a surprise guest made an appearance.

From behind the couch where Arnold was seated, up popped a Muppets-style character designed to look like Princess’ senior vice president of sales and trade marketing, John Chernesky. The puppet ribbed Donald and amused the crowd until the real John Chernesky bounded on stage to complain that the puppet has been impersonating him all over town.

The larger message to the puppet tomfoolery was to billboard the Jim Henson Creature Shop show, called “Inspired Silliness,” that will debut next month on the newest Princess ship, the Sky Princess.

When Donald finally regained the spotlight, he took some time to outline Carnival’s sustainability initiatives and defend the industry’s record.

He said that very little of the estimated 8 million tons of plastics in the ocean comes from ships, much less from cruise ships. “It comes from land; it comes through the rivers and gets into the ocean,” he said, adding, “Having said that, we don’t want anything going in the ocean. He said that Carnival has accelerated existing recycling efforts and processes to eliminate plastics from its waste stream.

Likewise, when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, a Carnival brand was the first to use liquified natural gas (LNG) to provide power in port, and Carnival Corp. will be the first to bring an LNG-powered ship to North America, with the Mardi Gras.

“Ultimately we want to get to zero-emission,” Donald said. But he said cruise emissions are a tiny fraction of the global equation. “The reality is if the cruise industry didn’t exist, you wouldn’t be able to measure the difference in emissions,” he said.

Princess Cruises claims Medallion Net offers ‘best WiFi at sea’

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Image result for Medallion Net

Princess Cruises claims it has rolled out the “best WiFi at sea” which will help attract new-to-cruise passengers.

Princess Cruises has fitted nine ships with Medallion Net WiFi so far and plans to complete rolling it out across its fleet by July next year.

The WiFi will power the line’s Ocean Medallion technology, which is fitted on new ship Sky Princess.

Speaking onboard the ship during its shakedown cruise from Trieste to Athens, Prag Shah, the line’s global head, experience and innovation, said: “One of the biggest detractors people have of cruising – like the younger generation – is that they cannot be connected as well as on a land-based holiday.

“Millennials always like to be posting and sharing their experiences with everybody.

“We wanted to make connectivity onboard better and a lot of effort and creativity went in to do that. From a cruising standpoint, being able to promote and sell longer cruises brings another type of cruiser into the equation.”

John Padgett, Carnival Corporation’s chief experience and innovation officer, addressed media and travel agents via the internet to demonstrate the connection strength on the new vessel.

He said: “There are no longer any sacrifices by coming on a cruise vacation. Cruise holidays have been an amazing value for years, but you have tended to sacrifice this feeling of connectivity.

“There are no longer any sacrifices there. We are the only cruise line that offers anything like this. I want you to use as much bandwidth as you like because that makes your experience better.”

Padgett told the audience Medallion Net, which costs $9.99 per day, as the “best WiFi at sea”.

Sky Princess is the first of the line’s vessels which was built with Ocean Medallion. Several guest services, including ordering food and drink anywhere on the ship, locating friends and family, and navigating your way around the vessel are available through the wearable technology.

The line has retrofitted four of its existing ships with Ocean Medallion.

When asked what developments would be made to Ocean Medallion technology going forward, Shah said: “Personalising [Ocean Medallion] is going to be where we are putting a lot more focus [in 2020].”