Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings has forecast a full recovery by the second half of 2022 and will not cut prices to boost demand.
NCL Holdings president and chief executive Frank Del Rio insisted: “We’re not willing to sacrifice pricing. Rather than chase bookings, we chose to wait for consumer demand to return.”
Speaking on a call as he reported results for the three months to September last week, Del Rio said: “We’re not in a race to raise volume. We want to maintain price discipline. We’ve seen time and again companies drop prices [and] it takes years and years to get prices back up.”
He hailed the relaunch of 11 of the group’s 28 ships this summer and said: “We’ll have 17 ships in the water by the end of the year and introduce 11 between January and April 1. We’re getting ready for a big marketing push.”
Del Rio reported “robust demand particularly for the second half of 2022 and beyond when our full fleet is expected to be back in operation at normalised occupancy levels”. For now, the fleet continues to operate with caps on occupancy.
He confirmed ships will “continue to operate with a 100% vaccination requirement [which] continues to offer a competitive advantage”.
Del Rio added: “Our booking position for 2022 is meaningfully ahead of 2019 and with higher pricing. We are better booked than at any single time in the past.”
This is despite a slowdown in bookings this summer due to “consumer concerns surrounding the Delta variant”. Del Rio insisted: “We expect to see some fits and starts but we are ready to adapt.
“We expect the full fleet to be back by April 1 next year and pre-pandemic occupancy levels no later than the beginning of Q3 2022, just in time for the peak season.”
The group reported advance ticket sales worth $1.7 billion at the end of September, including $750 million in future cruise credits (FCCs), with Del Rio noting “approximately 60% of outstanding FCCs have been retrieved”.
He reported a net loss of $846 million for the three months to September compared with a $678 million loss in the same period in 2020, with losses rising due to the cost of bringing ships back into operation.