Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (RCCL), the second largest cruise shipping company in the world, says that while it is very early in the 2013 bookings cycle and visibility at this time is limited, the company is encouraged by the trends so far.
For the year 2013, booked load factors and average per diems are both slightly higher currently than at this same time last year. This is particularly encouraging in light of the fact that these prior year comparisons relate to bookings before the Costa Concordia incident which occurred in January 2012.
The company increased its guidance for full year earnings per share by $0.15 to a range of $1.85 to $1.95. This increase has been mainly driven by stronger than anticipated revenue (+$0.06 per share) and expense reduction (+$0.06 per share). The remaining $0.03 per share improvement is principally due to currency benefits net of oil price increases.
For the full year of 2012, Net Yields are expected to increase approximately 3% on a Constant-Currency basis and to be up 1% to 2% on an As-Reported basis. Approximately 200-250 basis points of the expected improvement in Net Yields relates to deployment initiatives and changes to the company’s international distribution system.
For the full year Net Cruise Costs (NCC), excluding fuel are expected to increase approximately 4% on a Constant-Currency basis (up 2% to 3% As-Reported). Excluding deployment initiatives and changes to the company’s distribution system, Constant-Currency NCC excluding fuel are expected to be flat to up 1%
