Carnival said that they continue to see demand for cruises in 2021 across their nine cruise lines. The company provided a business update this week that covered the demand for cruises that they are seeing for next year.
Carnival’s cruise lines have announced various incentives and flexibility for certain booking payments on select sailings to support guest confidence in making new bookings. These incentives vary by cruise line and sailing and include onboard credits and reduced or refundable deposits.
Carnival Cruise Line is currently offering cruise deposits starting at just $50 per person that come with free upgrades.
Despite substantially reduced marketing and selling spend, Carnival continues to see demand from new bookings for 2021. For the most recent booking period, the first three weeks in June 2020, almost 60 percent of 2021 bookings were new bookings. The remaining 2021 booking volumes resulted from guests applying their FCCs to specific future cruises.
In addition, Carnival Corporation is providing flexibility to guests with bookings on sailings cancelled due to the pause by offering guests the flexibility of enhanced future cruise credits (“FCC”) or an election for a refund in cash. Enhanced FCCs increase the value of the guest’s original booking or provide incremental onboard credits. As of June 21, 2020, approximately half of guests affected have requested cash refunds.
As of June 21, 2020, cumulative advanced bookings for the full year of 2021 capacity currently available for sale remain within historical ranges at prices that are down in the low to mid-single digits range, on a comparable basis, including the negative yield impact of FCCs and onboard credits applied.
As of May 31, 2020, the current portion of customer deposits was $2.6 billion, the majority of which are FCCs. $121 million of the company’s customer deposit balance relates to third quarter sailings and $353 million relates to fourth quarter sailings.
Carnival Corporation continues to expect 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.
