Yeah. Jason joining us from Terminal A in Miami.
Jason, welcome back to CNBC.
Hello. Hey, Sam, I hope you're doing well.
Happy to be here. Well,
we're watching your results, stronger bookings on higher prices
at a time where you're investing more in new ships.
It was Icon earlier this year,
now Utopia out this summer.
Is that what is essentially driving demand,
these newer offerings?
Well, I think it's a combination of a lot of
things that's driving demand.
Certainly the new ships, you know Icon
really kind of I think blew the minds of of
of our guests.
And so demand has been exceptionally high,
but we have seen strong demand patterns
across our like for like as well as our new
ships as they come on.
I think the new ships you provide a broader Halo
as well as the incredible destination experiences that we continue
to bring online
for our guests. But the consumer is doing exceptionally well.
Demand is very strong and and and and it's accelerating
as we try to understand the inflation story better.
Prices are moderating when it comes to hotel rates,
airfares as well. But cruising not so much.
What's allowing you to continue to raise prices on your
consumer.
Yeah. Well I I think there's I think there's a
lot of things.
One I think that cruising has really come into the
forefront
as as a competitive choice in travel.
You know the overall travel
industry is 1.9 trillion, you know the cruise industry is
about 65 billion of that
1.9 trillion. So I think consideration for cruising is that
different is at a much different level than it was
a pre pandemic which I think is a very strong
element of that that's that's that's
you know that's driving that.
Also there's a huge value gap to land based vacation
and so we've closed that gap pre COVID was about
15%
coming out of COVID it was about 40 to
45% and we've taken about 20 points off of that.
But there's still a large value gap to land based
vacation that I think that combined with demographic and secular
trends you know that are driving very strong demand for
cruise and and higher prices.
It's interesting because you're also expanding into land,
you're building and developing these new private islands.
Walk us through the return on investment for private islands
versus
allowing your cruises to enter new cities and new markets.
Yeah. Well we really get into the private destination space
to enhance the guest experience,
especially in places where we have a lot of volume
and these, you know these are these investments have you
have return profiles that are in the,
you know one to two to three-year period
on a payback standpoint. And so when we get the
formula right where we have the right experience for our
guests,
we see that our guests are willing to pay for
that,
but we have to have the volume up in order
to support that.
And we also need to make sure it's going to
enhance the experience on land.
Hey, Jason, one thing we're hearing anecdotally is that the
dollar strength is really
becoming a motivator of travel intent and I'm wondering if
that's done anything to demand route by route.
Well, hi, Carl. I think for the most part,
you know our, our product is is sold in U.S.
dollars for the 80% of our guests that you know
that come here that
that come from North America.
But I do think what it does is it's it's
extending the vacation experience pre and post cruise and we're
seeing that in very strong demand trends
going into Europe this summer.
And so we're we're really pleased with the demand we're
seeing in Europe and other parts of the world.
A lot of that's from the US consumer looking to
travel and explore and dream about all the different places
they want to go.