Carnival Cruise Lines set a one-week reservations record, taking gross bookings for 187,283 guests between Jan. 28-Feb. 3, 2013.
Bookings were at unprecedented levels across the line’s 24-ship fleet, which operates three- to 18-day voyages from a wide range of convenient North American homeports as well as a variety of attractive European and Australian itineraries.
Carnival President and CEO Gerry Cahill attributed the record booking activity to a number of factors, including continued recognition among consumers of the exceptional value provided by a Carnival cruise vacation, particularly given the line’s $500 million Fun Ship 2.0 product enhancement initiative, strong support from the cruise line’s highly valued travel agent partners, as well as recent sales and marketing activities.
The latter includes the Vacation Awesome-ation sale and prize giveaway held last week, and a variety of promotional activities surrounding the upcoming debut of Carnival Sunshine, the line’s most comprehensive ship transformation project ever which will encompass a $155 million makeover followed by the launch of Mediterranean voyages in April.
“Consumers continue to seek value in their discretionary purchases and we’ve taken the value of a Carnival cruise vacation to a completely new level with an extensive range of product innovations and enhancements that are receiving tremendous accolades and enticing more and more consumers to vacation with us,” Cahill said.