Carnival Corporation has increased advertising spend across all its brands by nearly 20% in the final quarter of 2022 to improve customers’ product awareness and help drive bookings.
Chief executive Josh Weinstein confirmed he had been “actively working” with each Carnival brand on strategies and roadmaps since taking over from Arnold Donald earlier this year.
Strategy discussions involved how Carnival’s lines would spend advertising investment going into wave season.
Speaking during a quarterly results call on Wednesday (December 21), Weinstein said the trade was “excited” about the extra advertising investment and predicted a rise in new-to-cruise bookings.
Weinstein noted how a third of Carnival’s bookings were traditionally made by new-to-cruise customers.
He said: “To help support growth and overall revenue generation, I’ve been actively working with each brand on their strategies and roadmaps.
“As a result, I’ve authorised our brands to take a significant step up in advertising activities including a nearly 20% increase in our investment this past quarter over 2019 to elevate awareness and consideration and drive demand for both near and longer-term.”
He added that effective advertising would help “capitalise” on the “25% to 50% value gap” between cruise and land-based holidays as the sector went into 2023.
“So with respect to the advertising in 2023, we’ve be ratcheting up across all of 2022,” he explained. “We’re very excited with the momentum that we’ve got. We’ve started the wave season incredibly strong with our Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
“Our book position has moved nicely through the month of November. We think our advertising has a good amount to do with that to really reach first timers and generate awareness and consideration.”
However, he added: “We’ve got great brands, but we need to do a better job of getting the voice out. It doesn’t only help us; it helps our trade partners. The great thing about advertising is we can dial up and dial down where its working and where it’s not having much of any impact.”
Chief financial officer David Bernstein expects advertising “on a quarterly basis to be the highest in the first quarter and the lowest in the third quarter”.
“The third quarter has always been a low quarter traditionally in terms of advertising,” he added.
Weinstein said the trade had been “doing great recently” as agents continued to “build back up” after the pandemic.
“We could not be happier with how they’re progressing,” he said.
Five ships are due to be delivered to Carnival brands over the next two years, Weinstein added.
“This is our lowest order book in decades,” he explained. “We do not expect any new ships in 2026 and anticipate just one or two new-builds each year for several years thereafter.”