This Week in Cruise - Carnival's Third Quarter 2013 Earnings Down

Carnival Corp. vice chairman Howard Frank conducted an earnings conference call with financial analysts last week, reporting that Carnival's third quarter 2013 earnings fell 30 percent over the same period one year ago, despite higher revenues. Despite this, multiple markers were higher than Wall Street estimates.

"For Carnival Cruise Lines, booking volumes and pricing over the last 12 weeks are both lower year-over-year in the low-single digits and mid-double digits range, respectively," Frank said in an address to travel agents. He also revealed that the brand's booking volumes have shown improvement during the last six weeks and are running higher year-over-year, with expected improvements coming to cruise pricing as booking volumes continue to increase.

Frank also addressed Carnival’s new national fall advertising campaign, which is focusing to drive more business to travel agents.“This is one of the largest fourth quarter national marketing expenses for Carnival in recent years and is designed to further accelerate the improvements we are seeing in brand perception and consideration,” Frank said.

Un-Cruise Adventures is partnering with Cruise Strategies, which will provide strategic sales and marketing support in Canadian markets. The company will be providing support to travel through public relations, communications, sales and product training, sales calls, webinars, promotional opportunities and cruise and client event presentations. 

“Cruise Strategies’ team has the industry knowledge and product expertise to make our uncommon adventures more visible and accessible in Canada.” said Tim Jacox, Un-Cruise Adventures’ EVP of sales and marketing. “We look forward to a long, productive partnership and hosting Canadian travelers in our near future.”

Cantor Gaming and Celebrity Cruises entered into an agreement to provide the cruise industry’s first complete mobile casino gaming solution at sea. Celebrity’s guests will now have access to an entire suite of casino games from Cantor Gaming via smartphones and tablets by downloading the application, which is compatible with Apple and Android devices.

The free download will be available to Celebrity customers across its shipboard Wi-Fi network. These games will include a selection of slots, table games and video poker, all of which will be available on the Cantor Gaming mobile gaming platform. The new technology will be installed on Celebrity’s five Solstice Class ships and four recently “Solsticized” Millennium Class ships, in the coming months.