Friday, April 12, 2024

Arnold Donald's time as Carnival CEO: Navigating turnarounds and the pandemic: Travel Weekly

ceo of carnival cruise lines

He's also taken a front-and-center role in the company's comeback from the pandemic shutdown in his most recent positions as chief operations officer and head of the company's two U.K.-based brands. The brands include everything from big, mass-market lines such as Carnival, Princess Cruises and Holland America, which offer cabins starting at under $100 per day per person, to luxury line Seabourn, which sells rooms on its ships for more than $1,000 a day in some cases. Carnival Corporation also operates some of the world's biggest cruise brands based outside of North America, including U.K.-based P&O Cruises and Cunard; Italy-based Costa Cruises; Germany-based AIDA Cruises; and Australia-based P&O Cruises Australia.

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Carnival Cruise Line to get 4th Excel-class ship, sister to Canaveral's Mardi Gras - Orlando Sentinel

Carnival Cruise Line to get 4th Excel-class ship, sister to Canaveral's Mardi Gras.

Posted: Tue, 13 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]

It’s certainly been devastating to the travel and tourism sector overall and maybe even more so to the cruise industry in particular. Even though we had no revenue, we had to continue to man the ships with minimal manning, so we had a significant burn rate with no revenue coming in. The question may seem extreme, given the way Carnival Corporation's brands have begun bouncing back. But cruisers already have been burned by the failures of several much smaller cruise companies since the pandemic began, most notably Crystal Cruises and its Asia-based sister brands Star Cruises and Dream Cruises, and the U.K.'s Cruise and Maritime Voyages.

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Carnival to add new Excel-class cruise ship in 2027, following Jubilee - Axios

Carnival to add new Excel-class cruise ship in 2027, following Jubilee.

Posted: Tue, 13 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Under Duffy, the first female president of CCL, the line's fleet of ships has grown to 24. Carnival also introduced the world's first roller coaster at sea and fleetwide biodigesters aimed to reduce food waste. Weinstein is taking over as president and CEO of Carnival Corporation from Arnold Donald, who is stepping down from the position after nine years on the job. Since 2020, Weinstein has reported directly to Donald as the chief operations officer for the company and also the head of its U.K.-based cruise lines. In the short term, of course, Weinstein will need to navigate the company through some major financial hurdles. No other segment of the travel industry has been hit as hard by the pandemic as cruise lines, which were forced to shut down operations completely in the early days of the pandemic and went many months without operating a single trip — or bringing in any revenue.

ceo of carnival cruise lines

Cunard Officially Welcomes Queen Anne To The Fleet

We have to remember that back in 2020 the company had capital raises of $5.75 billion in junk bonds to help it survive in the short term, though the sailing was far from smooth. That the company would be in good hands as it approaches the next phase played into Donald's decision to step down August 1. Donald says there's no perfect time to do it, but he feels comfortable because the fundamentals are in place. To that end, Donald has prioritized building a team of people -- a community -- that offers a variety of backgrounds and ideas.

The new president and CEO of cruise giant Carnival Corporation — he takes the reins today — is confronting a business that has been turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic. Once enormously profitable, the parent company of nine cruise brands has been hemorrhaging money for two straight years. It’s been difficult for Donald to steer Carnival away from the financial Covid headwinds. The Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) group, which includes cruise giants Princess, Carnival, and Royal Caribbean cruise lines, estimates that the suspension of cruises during the pandemic snuffed out more than $25 billion in economic activity. CultureBanx note that now as the cruise giant gradually restarts operations after a long pandemic-led hiatus it has to navigate new issues including a surge in fuel prices.

Spend any time with Arnold Donald, and you'll find yourself enraptured by the conversation. The man, who never worked in the cruise industry before joining Carnival (though he was on the board), has an easygoing manner, a deep laugh and a way of making even the most complex topics accessible to anyone. He also declared his commitment to being "best in class for compliance," and since 2016 Carnival has invested more than $350 million in energy-efficiency improvements and announced the goal of being net carbon-neutral by 2050. It was the first company to launch cruise ships powered by liquefied natural gas, which is considered more environmentally friendly than traditional bunker fuel.

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"Each [of the brands] have their own ethos, their own way of creating that happiness," Weinstein says. "I think the more focused each brand can be in clarity around what its proposition is, the better we'll be." "There are very, very different target audiences for each of those brands," Weinstein notes. "Somebody who goes on a Carnival cruise, which I do with my family, loves the waterslides and the boisterous nature of [the trips]. The idea of what it means to create happiness in that environment is completely different than [what it is on] a world cruise on Cunard." It's that sort of feeling that Weinstein says he wants to make sure Carnival Corporation's customers continue to have.

Many cruisers who paid in advance for cruises on these defunct brands have yet to get their money back. To that point, Weinstein says his job in the coming years won't be to tell each individual brand what to do. It will be about "making sure that each of our brands is doing everything they do based on their guest and target market. It's a transition that is unlikely to bring major changes to the way the company operates — at least at first. Weinstein tells TPG that he is "on a bit of an exploration path" of understanding the company's various divisions and how they're delivering on the promise of happiness that he talks about — each in their own way. But ask Weinstein, 48, for a big-picture overview of the task that lies ahead of him and his vision for the company, and he doesn't even mention its current financial troubles.

Cruises

Carnival Corporation is perhaps best known as the company behind Carnival Cruise Line — the world's second-largest cruise brand. But it also operates eight other major cruise brands, each offering something a little different. MIAMI (AP) — Carnival Corp. said Tuesday that CEO Arnold Donald will step down on Aug. 1 and be replaced by the cruise line company's chief operations officer. This was more favorable than eating at a restaurant (57%), taking a commercial flight (44%) or attending an indoor wedding (29%). Under Donald's leadership, the company achieved record profits and tripled its corporate earnings between 2013 and 2019. In 2017, after Carnival beat an earnings estimate, Jim Cramer, host of CNBC's "Mad Money," said that Donald was "the man who may be the best turnaround artist of our time."

Cruise companies are using artificial intelligence (A.I.) in a wide array of applications, from itinerary planning to predictive sales tactics to supporting their decarbonization efforts. Cruise companies like that private destinations allow them to deliver a controlled, high-quality product that meets their standards. MSC Cruises is in the process of updating its private island in the Bahamas, Ocean Cay MSC Marine Reserve, ahead of new ship MSC World America’s launch next year. With eight new ships coming online between 2026 and 2036 across its three brands, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings also plans to make enhancements to Great Stirrup Cay. CLIA member lines also have 35 total ships in the works between 2024 and 2028.

ceo of carnival cruise lines

"We know in his new role ... he will continue to support travel advisors and their contributions to this great industry." "If you look at the leadership team in the management team, how we work together, that has dramatically changed," he said. "The brands have extensive communication, collaboration and coordination, and they didn't have it before from a diversity standpoint. The majority of our fleet now, a commercially is led by women." Donald, who started in the role in 2013 and led Carnival through the COVID-19 pandemic, will be succeeded by Josh Weinstein, who previously served the company as its chief operations officer. As the head of the world's largest cruise operator, Donald quickly became the face of the industry at the height of the pandemic when numerous ships with Covid-infected guests and crew were left stranded on board for days on end.

Josh Weinstein is taking over from Arnold Donald as CEO of Carnival Corporation. Donald was named President and CEO for Carnival Corporation & plc in 2013. During his nine-year tenure as CEO, Donald led the company to record results, including achieving the company’s highest profits in its history. When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fought hard to keep its no sail order in place, Donald played a leading role in driving discussions with lawmakers, industry leaders and the White House in trying to change the course of that order. While much of the recent focus has been on megaships—like Royal Caribbean’s new Icon of the Seas—industry leaders also reiterated that small ships have their place, too.

Cruise lines are building a plethora of new ships—and they’re counting on travel advisors to help fill them. Although the company had limited inventory available for the remainder of 2024, Carnival Corp. said booking volume hit an all-time high with customers buying cruises departing in 2025 and 2026. That strong demand has driven cruise prices higher than they were a year earlier, said CEO Josh Weinstein. For people who haven’t cruised and don’t understand it and don’t know what it is, sure, those images make it a harder hill for us to climb.

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