Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Opens Shareholder Q&A Platform

Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings announced its new shareholder Q&A and engagement platform is now open for questions ahead of its investor and analyst event on Thursday, October 6th at 10 a.m. Eastern Time.

Starting earlier this week, all NCLH shareholders can submit and upvote questions by visiting: the NCLH Investor Event Q&A link.

The Q&A platform will remain open until October 4, at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time.

Management will address a selection of top-ranked, appropriate, questions relating to business and financial results or strategic priorities during the upcoming event. Attendance at the live investor event is by invitation only. The event will be live streamed to all interested parties via the Company’s Investor Relations

website https://www.nclhltd.com/investors. A replay of the event, including the related slide presentations, will be available here on the Company’s website for 30 days following the event.

Cruise & Maritime Voyages adds new vessel to fleet

Cruise & Maritime Voyages adds new vessel to fleetThe 600-passenger ship Astor has been acquired by Cruise & Maritime Voyages.

The vessel, which was built in 1986, was refurbished four years ago and has been bought from bankrupt German owner, Premicon Hochseekreuzfahrt.

CMV, which had been chartering the 21,000 tonne vessel, is reported to be in the final negotiations of the purchase agreement.

Astor will return to Australia for its 2015-16 season, which will be its third year based at Fremantle.

The season will include an Asian cruise from Fremantle to Hong Kong with stops in Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Sabah, Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia.

Astor originally joined the CMV fleet in December 2013 under a charter with ship management services provided by CMV’s majority shareholder, Global Maritime Group, which has acquired the vessel.

Astor will operate under long-term charter to CMV.

Christian Verhounig, chief executive and chairman of CMV, said: “The acquisition of the Astor is another important milestone in the strategic development of the group’s presence in the international markets.

“Astor has a fine pedigree and provides an important smaller ship premium option within our cruise portfolio,”

CMV commercial director Chris Coates said: “Astor has added 22,000 passengers to our global carryings and since her introduction has proved a firm favourite with high levels of customer satisfaction and repeat business being achieved.

“Next year we have programmed a special eight-night ex-London Tilbury round Britain cruise before Astor starts her German market season and forward booking levels are very encouraging”.

Astor arrived in Fremantle on Saturday following a 38 night re-positioning voyage from Tilbury and will continue to operate cruises under the CMV brand for the Australian market during the southern hemisphere summer season.

The ship will then reposition to Europe in April 2015 to operate a summer season of ex-Kiel and Bremerhaven sailings for the German market under the TransOcean brand.

Cruise must provide shareholder value to invest and grow

Cruise must provide shareholder value to invest and grow

By Lee Hayhurst

Shareholder return is a vitally important part of the cruise industry if it is to attract more investment to allow it to grow, says Celebrity Cruises chief executive Michael Bayley.

Bayley told the Clia Columbus Day in Liverpool that profitability was a core component for cruise operators that need to invest billions of dollars to build new vessels.

“It’s incredibly important that we are providing an adequate return to shareholders and investors who put literally billions of dollars into the product. The marketplace for capital is very competitive. It’s not just available anywhere, people want to know that when they invest in whatever sector that they can get the return associated with any risk.

“We need to be able to encourage more investment. We need to introduce new brands and products and certainly need to introduce new ships. To achieve that we must achieve more revenue and reduce costs.”

Bayley, for instance, called for a more collaborative approach to port development in emerging cruise markets, the costs of which are currently passed on to the cruise lines which in turn pass them on to customers. “That’s really something that needs to be worked on,” he said.

Bayley added that the cruise industry must look to develop new sources of passengers like in the fast-growing markets of South East Asia, China and South America.