Royal Caribbean Group hails strong outlook after ‘exceptional’ 2025

Royal Caribbean Group has hailed its “outstanding” 2025 performance which has put it in “a position of strength” for 2026.

 

The parent company of Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea credited “strong demand” which helped it carry a record 9.4 million passengers in 2025, with this projected to grow to more than 10 million in 2026.

 

Speaking on its earnings call, company chairman and president Jason Liberty said: “2025 was an exceptional year and we enter 2026 from a position of strength, with a differentiated vacation platform, strong balance sheet and disciplined approach to growth.”

 

Liberty was optimistic this would “accelerate” in 2026 thanks to “strategic investments” in private destinations, new hardware, entry into the river sector and a revamped loyalty programme.

 

“Our business is growing and capacity is growing 6.7% this year,” Liberty said. “What we have seen during Black Friday and Cyber Sale activities is an acceleration in demand which more than matches the capacity that we have coming online.

 

“We continue to see a very strong consumer who is really attracted to our brands and the experiences that they are delivering, and we are seeing an additional tailwind on the loyalty side with an increase in the percentage of guests that are loyalists.”

 

He said research into its consumers showed 40% were “planning to increase leisure travel spending in the next year”.

 

He also highlighted travel agents globally had been “delivering meaningfully more bookings than last year and at higher rates”.

 

Chief financial officer Naftali Holtz revealed the cruise company had increased its total annual passengers by 45% on pre-pandemic levels in 2019.

 

Within that, millennial and younger passengers have nearly doubled and there has been “strong growth from new and repeat guests”.

 

Holtz said the cruise group has been “transformed into a stronger, more profitable and more resilient vacation platform”.

 

He added 2026 was “off to a very strong start” with approximately two-thirds of inventory for the year already booked “at higher rates” and a deployment mix “consistent with last year”, with the Caribbean representing 57% of capacity, up 8% year on year with the addition of Star of the Seas and Celebrity Xcel.

 

“Caribbean yields have grown by 35% since 2019 and we expect continued yield growth in 2026 even as capacity in the region is increasing,” he said. “The Caribbean continues to be the most desired cruise destination by consumers.”

 

European sailings “continue to perform well on rate and volume”, with strong demand from US and European passengers, and will account for 15% of capacity in 2026, a jump of 5% on last year with the Legend of the Seas debut.

 

Liberty added river was “an exciting growth opportunity”, and insisted the order for an additional 10 ships was “a point of evidence” entering the sector was “not a hobby”.

 

Holtz said demand for Celebrity River Cruises had “exceeded our expectations”, and roughly 80% of those currently booked were existing customers that had never experienced a river cruise before.

 

Liberty hinted at expanding the river offering to more destinations, adding: “Europe is just one area of the world where our guests want to go on a river.”

 

Meanwhile, Royal Caribbean president Michael Bayley said the new Discovery Class ships, with the company agreeing an initial order of two vessels, would be “a gamechanger” like the Icon Class ships.

 

Bayley added: “We’ve been working on Discovery for the last couple of years and from a business perspective we are really excited with the innovation, creativity and product we have now created.”

 

He said there would be a promotional campaign “ready to go soon”, but insisted that “many of the assumptions” on social media about size and capacity were “probably inaccurate”.