Bookings for 2021 have started to pick up despite reduced marketing efforts, Carnival Corporation & plc said, adding that at the end of May, about half of passengers whose holiday has been cancelled have asked for a cash refund and the other half future cruise credit (FCC).
“Despite substantially reduced marketing and selling spend, the company is seeing growing demand from new bookings for 2021. For the six weeks ending May 31, 2020, approximately two-thirds of 2021 bookings were new bookings. The remaining 2021 booking volumes resulted from guests applying their FCCs to specific future cruises,” Carnival said..
At the end of May, the current portion of customer deposits was $2.6 billion with $121 million relating to third quarter sailings and $353 million relating to fourth quarter sailings. “The company expects any decline in the customer deposits balance in the second half of 2020, all of which is expected to occur in the third quarter, to be significantly less than the decline in the second quarter of 2020,” Carnival said.
At the same point in time, cumulative advanced bookings for the full year of 2021 capacity currently available for sale are within historical ranges at prices that are down in the low to mid-single digits range including the negative yield impact of FCCs and onboard credits applied, on a comparable basis.
“For the full year of 2021, booking volumes for the six weeks ending May 31, 2020, were running meaningfully behind the prior year. However, the company saw an improvement in booking volumes for the six weeks ending May 31, 2020 compared to the prior six weeks,” Carnival said.
