Carnival Corporation has announced that it has signed a memorandum of agreement with Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri S.p.A. to build a new cruise ship for the company's Cunard brand.
The ship will be built at Fincantieri's shipyard in Monfalcone, Italy, with an expected delivery date in 2022. The as-yet-unnamed ship will join Queen Mary 2, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth as the fourth member of the Cunard fleet.
This is the 249th ship for Cunard since the company's founding in 1839.
With this announcement, Carnival Corporation now has 18 new ships scheduled to be delivered and added to its line between 2018 and 2022.
The company says that this new agreement to build a fourth ship for Cunard extends the brand's recent strength and momentum in the marketplace, including bringing in more than one million people to celebrate its 175th anniversary in 2015 and investing the equivalent of $172 million U.S. dollars in the past two years to refurbish the flagship Queen Mary 2 and Queen Victoria.
“While today's news helps drive Cunard's overall strategic growth plans, we also look forward to launching this next-generation cruise ship to help meet increasing global demand and entice even more travelers to explore the Cunard experience,” said Arnold Donald, CEO of Carnival Corporation in a press release.
According to the company, Fincantieri has built 63 ships for Carnival Corporation, almost two-thirds of the company's fleet. Nine more ships are expected to be built in the coming years.
Cunard is expected to announce additional details about this new ship starting in 2018.
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