Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE:RCL) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

So it’s a hit and it’s very successful. We are opening Hideaway Beach on the fourth quarter of this year in preparation for Icon of the Seas. It will be arriving also towards the end of the fourth quarter. And of course, that Hideaway Beach will allow us to bring an additional 3,000 people to Perfect Day. So our capacity will be approximately 13,000 people a day. And yes, we have an appetite for other such ventures. And as soon as we’re ready to make any announcements, we will. But clearly, from our perspective, we think this is a really — it’s a wonderful part of the product experience, and our guests clearly demand this type of experience that we can now give them. So our intention is to continue to grow this piece of the experience for our guests.

Naftali Holtz: So let me just add one other thing, which is the financial returns associated with CocoCay and the like are exceptionally high and are significantly above our targeted returns. So this should be accretive to profitability and obviously to EBITDA and those are the type of investments that we obviously want to continue to make.

Benjamin Chaiken: Got you. And just one quick follow-up. Is the — those numbers are on Hideaway Beach, 3,000 a day. Is that incremental to the 2.5 million to 3 million at CocoCay? Or is 2.5

Michael Bayley: Yes.

Benjamin Chaiken: Yes?

Michael Bayley: Yes, yes. That’s incremental.

Operator: Your next question will come from the line of James Hardiman with Citi.

James Hardiman: And congrats on a great quarter and some really important benchmarks here. I wanted to dig in a little bit on Europe and Asia. Obviously, a year ago, WAVE season, there was — it was obviously marred by the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Being such a global brand, you guys do what you do, you adjust. And it sounds like both in terms of the destination markets as well as sourcing customers, things are getting better. I guess my question is on Europe, is there still a lingering impact of that conflict in your business that, who knows what’s going to happen with that conflict, but that could ultimately be a positive for next year? And then sort of similar question with China. I’m assuming there’s not much of a benefit yet from sort of the zero COVID policy going away there. But is there any way to sort of quantify or even anecdotally speak to what sort of a drag that is on your business that could potentially open up for you next year?

Jason Liberty: So I’ll just — I’ll start on the Europe one, and Michael can then take China. First off, I think the consumer — the impact on the Ukraine, Russia, I think, comes to us in two ways. One of which is a little bit of a deployment impact, and we’re not able to go more east into the Baltics because of the very unfortunate conflict that continues on. And then obviously, there’s some impact in the European consumer because of energy prices. That, I think, is the impact that hopefully will evaporate over time. But their propensity to cruise, their desire to go on a vacation experience is high. The value proposition for the cruise, as I noted in my remarks, that gap is still very significant. That’s too significant as we look to try to close that.

But I think that’s really where you see the effect. The consumers’ desire to go — or European consumers go to the Nordics, desire to go to the Western Med, Eastern Med, which is really kind of fully open to them to experience is that demand is there. I just think that they continue to probably be a little bit more pinched, certainly more pinched than the North American consumer because of the increase in energy prices and how that’s impacted their economy. And with that, I’ll let Michael comment on China.