Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (RCCL), the second largest cruise shipping group in the world, says that uncertain development of the European source market is the biggest swing factor in the group's 2013 performance, while tensions in relationship between China and Japan is a new concern.
RCCL expects yields to improve in Europe this year, although about 50% of the 2013 inventory remains unsold at the moment, although the group has cut 10% of capacity in Europe this year to 27% from 2012. The Spanish market is showing weakness on both pricing and volumes and the outlook remains weak for quite some time.
In the UK, pricing has firmed on last year, but volumes lag. Adam Goldstein, head of the group’s contemporary market Royal Caribbean International (RCI) unit, said in a conference call that it would take two to three months to see how the British markert would respond to various measures to fuel sales. In case desired results do not emerge, the company will take into use more aggressive measures.
In the Far East, RCI has replaced calls at Japanese ports with those in South Korea until June on sailings from two Chinese ports due to political tensions between China and Japan.
