Arnold Donald, president and CEO of Carnival Corporation, said that the company has to make sure that it informs the public there is no reason to wait to cruise in the Caribbean.
“It is our job to make sure people know there is no reason to wait that the Caribbean is a wonderful place to go, many places to go there. We have 40 plus ports that were unaffected, plus our own destinations, plus all the ports in Mexico were unaffected,” he said, speaking on the company’s third quarter earnings call.
“We are still in Hurricane season, so we have to be fluid and pay attention to this and we are still in media season,” continued Donald. “So hopefully the media will begin to show the fast recovery and all the wonderful places they are to go. I mentioned I was in St. Maarten, I was in Nassau. The Bahamas of course are wide-open right now. I was in Nassau just last Friday and things looked good there. Plus going into next year we already have, we were ahead and so we have less inventory to sell now in 2018 then we’ve had in previous years.”
Donald said the key destinations that are offline now are St. Maarten, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, Dominica and Tortola.
“The vast majority of ports are open and again there are options and alternatives and plenty of fun places for people to go and do things and enjoy the great vacation experience and great location value that cruising is,” Donald added.