Royal Caribbean Says Just About Everything Is Going Right
Photo Credit: A climber is shown on the rock climbing wall aboard Royal Caribbean International's new Harmony of the Seas during a preview cruise in Barcelona. Parent company Royal Caribbean Cruises reported better-than-expected financial results Tuesday. Royal Caribbean / Simon Brooke-Webb Photography
Skift Take
Royal Caribbean Cruises has stuck by its plan to avoid lowering fares to fill up ships, and that strategy appears to be working. But the cruise operator is benefitting from a lot of other factors right now too.
In January, Royal Caribbean Cruises CEO Richard Fain took stock of the way 2017 was shaping up and declared the company was getting ready for a "sensational year."
"Life is good," he told analysts at the time. "Long may it continue."
It has.
During the cruise operator's second-quarter earnings call Tuesday, Fain said his early suspicion that the year could be "particularly positive" has proven true.
"Since then, the outlook has only gotten better," he said.
Revenues increased from $2.1 billion in the second quarter last year to about $2.2 billion in 2017. Profits rose nearly 61 percent to $369.5 million, or $1.71 per share — higher than the company and Wall Street had expected.
Net yields, or revenue generated per passenger per day, rose nearly 10 percent.
The company raised its full-year forecast again — "another beat-and-raise quarter," one analyst wrote. Shares closed at $116.86, up more than 3 percent.
Demand was strong from North American passengers, wh
