Pullmantur Cruises rolls out new 2016-17 Caribbean itineraries

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Written by Kari Reinikainen Kari Reinikainen

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Published: 12 February 2016 12 February 2016

Alan Lam reporting

Pullmantur Cruises, the Spain and Latin America focused brand of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., has just published its 2016-17 winter Caribbean programme on board its two ships, Zenith and Monarch.

For the 2016-17 season the line will offer a new “Caribbean Islands” (Islas del Caribe) itinerary on Zenith, touted as the “only East Caribbean itinerary with Latin American ambience”. The first departure is planned for 23 December 2016 from Santo Domingo, calling at La Romana, St Maarten, Antigua, St Lucia and Barbados.

The Monarch, Pullmantur’s flagship, will set sail on 4 November 2016 on the “Caribbean Legend” (Caribe Legendario) itinerary, visiting Puerto Limón (Costa Rice), Colón (Panamá), Cartagena de Indias (Colombia), Jamaica and Grand Cayman.

The company operates in the south, east and west of Caribbean. It uses Cartagena de Indias, Colón and Santo Domingo as its principal ports of embarkation.

Despite its recent refocus on Spain, Pullmantur still see Latin America as crucial to its future expansion. Nearly half of its customers are sourced from this vast region.

Latin America, according to Jorge Vilches, President of Pullmantur, represents “a significant weight” (un peso muy significativo) in its strategy and the company is “very satisfied” (muy satisfecha) with the recent evolution in this market. Vilches also stated that there were challenges in this region the company needed to confront; more investment and hard work were needed.

Royal Caribbean to strengthen storm avoidance effort after Anthem of the Seas saga

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Written by Kari Reinikainen Kari Reinikainen

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Published: 11 February 2016 11 February 2016

Royal Caribbean International, the contemporary market unit in the Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (RCCL) group, said it would strengthen its storm avoidance efforts after its Anthem of the Seas had run in heavy weather on the east coast of North America.

Anthem of the Seas will return to Cape Liberty, NJ this evening and it is expected resume service on Saturday.

“Despite that fact, the event, exceptional as it was, identified gaps in our planning system that we are addressing. Though that system has performed well through many instances of severe weather around the world, what happened this week showed that we need to do better,” the company said in a statement.

The severity of Sunday's storm, with its 120 mph winds, far exceeded forecasts. “Even so, it is our responsibility to eliminate every surprise we possibly can,” Royal Caribbean stated.

“As of today, we are strengthening our storm avoidance policy, and have added resources at our Miami headquarters to provide additional guidance to our ships' captains.”

TUI reports continued good performance of its cruise business

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Written by Kari Reinikainen Kari Reinikainen

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Published: 11 February 2016 11 February 2016

TUI AG, the world’s largest tour operator, said its cruise business had delivered stronger operating results in the first quarter of its financial year than in the corresponding period a year earlier.

Underlying EBITA increased to €8 million in the three months to 31 December 2015 from €2 million. The fresh figure included a €5 million benefit from the refinancing of Europa 2 and strong trading by Mein Schiff 4 which launched in June 2015.

This was partly offset by €2 million dry-dock costs for Hapag-Lloyd Cruises and non-repeat of a €2 million shipyard financing provision release in the prior year in TUI Cruises.

“Bookings and yields for both TUI Cruises and Hapag-Lloyd Cruises remain strong. We are pleased with the progress in bookings for Mein Schiff 5, which launches in July 2016,” TUI said.

The company owns 50% of TUI Cruises and 100% of Hapag-Lloyd Cruises. It is also the sole owner of Thomson cruises that operates on the British market with chartered tonnage, but its figures are not included in the cruise business on TUI, which has its main listing in London and legal domicile in Hannover, Germany.

Fred. Olsen plans to merge its two listed holding companies

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Written by Kari Reinikainen Kari Reinikainen

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Published: 11 February 2016 11 February 2016

The boards of directors of Bonheur ASA and Ganger Rolf ASA the listed holding companies controlled by the Fred. Olsen family in Norway, have resolved to propose a merger of the two companies.

Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines, which operates four medium sized vessels on the British market, is 50/50 owned by the two.

Bonheur, currently controlling 62.66 % of the shares in Ganger Rolf, will be the surviving entity in the merger and maintain its listing on the Oslo Stock Exchange.

Ganger Rolf shareholders to receive 0.8174 Bonheur shares for every one share in Ganger Rolf representing 23.95 % ownership of the combined company on a fully diluted basis.

“The boards consider that the merger will assist in providing a more transparent and accessible corporate structure which may yield capital and operational efficiencies,” the two companies said in a statement.

“The corporate structure of Bonheur and Ganger Rolf has historically taken the form of a cross ownership between the two companies with currently Bonheur owning 62.66% of Ganger Rolf and Ganger Rolf owning 20.70% of Bonheur and where these companies generally have invested in underlying companies on a 50/50 basis,” they said.