Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd (NCLH), the world’s third largest cruise shipping group, said it has raised its 2019 full year net yield growth guidance on a constant currency basis by 50 basis points from the prior guidance to 3.5% to 4.5%.
However, NCLH now forecasts net cruise costs to rise by about 3.5% per capacity day, excluding fuel. The previous forecast was 3.25%.
As a result of higher pace of yield increase than that of net cruise costs, the company raised its full year earnings per share (EPS) guidance to the $5.40 to $5.50 range from a previous guidance of $5.20 to $5.30.
“The strong demand environment we have been experiencing for some time is continuing throughout 2019 and into 2020,” said Mark A. Kempa, executive vice president and chief financial officer of NCLH, in a statement.
“We remain confident in our outlook to achieve our Full Speed Ahead 2020 targets and have opportunistically executed $200 million in share repurchases in the quarter, bringing our total shareholder capital returns to $600 million over the last four quarters.”
