by Brian Major
Last updated: 3:50 PM ET, Wed November 1, 2023
Carnival Corporation’s nine brands are riding the wave of
consumer wanderlust to what company officials, speaking Wednesday at
Northstar Travel Group’s CruiseWorld conference in Fort Lauderdale, describe as
historic highs in passenger bookings revenue and company earnings.
“Last year we were in full-on recovery mode, with huge
occupancy gaps and the winding down of covid protocols,” said Josh Weinstein,
Carnival Corp.’s CEO. “And now here we are, full steam ahead for the cruise
industry [with] incredibly robust demand and record bookings.”
“We’ve attracted more people [of] all ages from around the
globe, all of them eager to experience the joy of vacationing at sea,” said
Weinstein, who said the company’s success is shared among the major cruise
lines.
“This is all setting up the entire global cruise industry for
a banner 2024,” Weinstein said.
After the unprecedented shutdown of global cruising during the
pandemic and the slow ramp-up to full operations in its wake, the cruise industry
is experiencing the most successful period in its history.
“We’ve returned to full-scale global guest operations and
we’re getting a glimpse of the power of our portfolio of world-class brand,” he
said.
Weinstein’s comments at the conference follow a banner
performance for the cruise giant detailed in the company’s third quarter results.
The results “Broke records for our company [in] revenue per
diems, revenue yields, total revenue, customer deposits and bookings for the
future,” Weinstein. The results were spread across all of the company’s nine
brands in every global region the organization operates, he said.
Additionally, the Carnival Corp. brands’ third-quarter booking
volumes continued at elevated levels while advanced bookings for 2024 exceeded the high end of the company’s historic range at higher prices compared with
2023.
Indeed, the cruise giant’s 2023 results augur positively
for the coming years, said Weinstein. “I was so happy we could say definitively
[that] we see no signs of a slowdown in our consumer spending,” he said.
Carnival Corp.’s record performance is tied to strong
productivity among travel advisors, said Weinstein.
“This collective momentum is due in no small part to all of
you. You play an incredibly critical role in supporting and expanding the
entire cruise industry,” Weinstein said.
“Simply put, we can’t do what we do without [advisors],” he
said. “We have the wind at our backs and [travel advisor] engagement with
cruise is at an all-time high.”
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