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Research Firm Estimates When Ships Will Sail


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"When will ships sail?"

We all want to know the answer, or maybe we thought we did.  

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2020/12/18/research-firm-forecasts-royal-caribbeans-gradual-cruise-ship-restart-plan

  • The research firm concluded that across the Royal Caribbean Group brands, 44% of the fleet will be operating by December 2021 for an average of 20% sailing for the full year.
  • They also think 100% of the fleet will be in operation by mid-2022 and will finish fiscal year 2022 with 84% capacity.
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Ugh...so discouraging.  I am mentally giving up my August cruise (as price has shot way up so even Royal isn't hopeful...plus vaccine distribution across the world), but was thinking with a vaccine that Dec 2021 has a good chance. But if only 44% of RCL ships running (which isn't just Royal ships), then Anthem isn't likely to be one of them as it's an indoor ship.  I sure hope this prediction is wrong.

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Keep in mind this appears to be a company that does research but may not have extensive experience with the cruise industry.  They went through investors calls, talked with travel agents and reviewed orders from public health agencies then ran projections using who knows what algorithms.  

Many on the internet have also looked at some of the same material and with equally uninformed public health experience or industry experience we made our own projections.  At least some of us have been on a cruise ship before.

It's one estimation, no more or less valid that any other estimation.  Only time will tell which of us has guessed or estimated more accurately.  

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Here's the full text of the report. 

I don't think they have any more insight than anyone here.  However, they are looking at it from a different perspective (investment vs fandom).

Also worth noting that percentage is for all of RCG, that those percentages include Celebrity, RCI, Azamara, et al.

Cruise+Industry+Update+12_18_2020__1.pdf

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5 hours ago, Matt said:

Here's the full text of the report. 

I don't think they have any more insight than anyone here.  However, they are looking at it from a different perspective (investment vs fandom).

Also worth noting that percentage is for all of RCG, that those percentages include Celebrity, RCI, Azamara, et al.

Cruise+Industry+Update+12_18_2020__1.pdf 818.27 kB · 4 downloads

Aren't they the folks that get to call in to the earnings call and ask questions?

 

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I’ve done stuff like this for companies I work for and it’s purely a model to attempt to predict revenues...certainly not a bottoms up look.  So I wouldn’t draw too many conclusions for a particular sailing you are booked on, but I do think it highlights the gradual ramp that is a function of so many barriers that the cruise lines have to overcome as they come back. It just won’t be a light switch. 

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9 hours ago, twangster said:

Nope.  Only major investment firms get the "ask questions" privilege.  No indication they are or they represent a major investment firm for all the cruise lines they estimated.     

I noticed that they were asking questions during RCL Q2 2020 conference call, so they must have something at stake or representative for a company. Someone’s footing the bill for them to do the research? My question is who, because there not doing this for free.

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44 minutes ago, mworkman said:

I noticed that they were asking questions during RCL Q2 2020 conference call, so they must have something at stake or representative for a company. Someone’s footing the bill for them to do the research? My question is who, because there not doing this for free.

They sell their research.  Check out their website.  

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Just found this thread. I'd compare this presentation similar to the Adler profitability piece. Also noted DunwoodyDad's post which is informative. The perspectives in both these presentations is business and investment oriented. I've been skeptical of modeling in the area where I have some experience - medicine. I put more weight and by extension value into what practitioners that have a lot of clinical experience when it comes to patient management. There is evidence that the conclusions the author arrives at are based on modeling not actual experience. Therefore, recognize that they are models, subject to the vagaries of them and often horribly wrong.

So, talking about clinical experience as it might apply to the question when does cruising re-start???..... until health authorities, and I include the CDC but there are other players with the authority to impact re-start dates, see an appreciable decline in COVID-19 prevalence regionally where cruise ships will operate, a re-start isn't likely. Caveats apply.  The CDC will tell you up front, it's not their job to find balance between economic, social and public health costs when advising what measures are appropriate to reduce the impact of a serious public health threat like SARS-CoV-2 presents.  They are interested in one thing: data driven public health interests. The cruise lines are going to battle this reality for some time. However, caveat, other factors are starting to weigh on that premise. It is a good sign that officials are starting to look at the economic costs of continued mitigation measures that presumptively confer little public health benefit - completely closing restaurants, for example, instead of limiting hours.

Vaccines bring a new calculation to the balancing equation though. That is a reduction in disease burden. So, while prevalence of infections may remain high for the next 90 or so days, I believe we will start to see deaths and hospitalizations decline. Possibly sharply once vaccines get wider distribution among the 65 and older populations. While these so called models may predict hard times ahead for avid cruisers, my take is that they won't be anywhere near as awful going forward. That is because the armamentarium in the tool box for combating the pandemic is increasing rapidly.

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