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After last year completing at a cost of $510 million the buyout of Costa Cruise of Italy, Miami-based Carnival has announced the transfer of two other ships to Costa from other company lines and will dispatch a Carnival Cruise Line vessel on some European itineraries for the first time.
``We want to allocate more capital to building in Europe,'' Carnival Vice Chairman Howard Frank told reporters after the company's annual shareholders meeting.
Carnival, whose fleet of 44 ships sail in six lines such as Holland America and Cunard, has been hit by sluggish booking volumes in its Caribbean, Alaskan and other core routes and weak pricing since last year.
Other cruise groups have also seen a downturn after robust growth in the 1990s. A boom in new ships and the downturn on Wall Street and the U.S. economy have been blamed for the slowed pace of business. Carnival itself is spending nearly $7 billion on 16 new ships through 2005.
Carnival cautioned late Monday in a government filing that slower booking volumes that had begun in March were continuing and that sustained sluggishness might weigh on earnings for fiscal 2001 and net yield, a key measure of revenues per passenger. The company made no change in its profit targets.
Shares of Carnival closed off 82 cents at $26.50 on Tuesday. Other big cruise group stocks were also down. Royal Caribbean (NYSE:RCL - news) ended at $20.10, a loss of 90 cents. And P&O Princess (NYSE:POC - news), the No. 3 cruise group after Royal Caribbean, ended off 75 cents, or 4.3 percent, at $16.60.
UBS Warburg analyst Robin Farley cut her full-year share earnings forecast on Carnival to $1.74 from $1.78 for 2001 and $1.96 from $2.00 for 2002.
Frank told shareholders at the annual meeting that the importance of Costa and the European market to Carnival were underscored by the three new ships scheduled to be added to Costa's fleet before 2005 at a cost of more than $1 billion.
``It's going to be a pan-European brand, not just an Italian brand,'' Frank said. ``The fleet will be doubled in size by 2005.''
Costa, whose itineraries include the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and Latin America, would soon be offering new routes meant to appeal to Germans, who already constitute a significant share of the seven-ship line's passengers, he said.
Frank said potential cruise customers in the five richest European economies, Costa's main target, outnumbered Americans, and each year took more than twice as many vacation days as the 13 Americans allow themselves but had had very little exposure to cruises.
``There's a huge opportunity to grow our business in Europe,'' Frank said.
Frank said a seasonal assignment of a Carnival Cruise ``Fun Ship'' to Europe might be announced for 2002 but more likely for 2003. Bob Dickinson, president of Carnival Cruise Line, said of the move from line's traditional North American sailings, ``It's not a question of if but when.''
More competition in Europe can only be good news for the European Cruises.
(We tend to get a minimum of 20 days leave per year here in the UK, with some folks getting 25, 30 or even 35 days!)
Carnival is in a very good position to blow RCCL straight out of the water. RCCL just owes too much $$$ on their ships. Carnival is sitting pretty.
It is going to be a VERY interesting year!
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