Carnival Corp. chairman and CEO Arnold Donald said he doesn't expect
the truck attack at a Berlin Christmas market to affect the company's cruise
business.
"There's no reason at this time to have a higher level
of concern than normal," Donald said in a conference call with investment
analysts held to discuss fourth quarter and year-end results.
Arnold Donald
Carnival has several brands that cater to Europeans,
including German cruise line Aida. Most of the Europe cruises that are popular
with U.S. tourists depart in the second and third quarters, however.
Carnival reported fourth-quarter net income of $609 million,
up from $270 million for the prior year. Revenue rose $224 million, to $3.9
billion. For all of 2016, Carnival had net income of $2.78 billion, up from
$1.76 billion, while revenue rose by $700 million, to $16.4 billion.
On other topics, Donald said he's confident that Cuba will
approve cruises by a ship other than the Adonia after the ship's authority runs
out in May. "We have every expectation that one or more of our brands will
be approved from June on," he said.
Asked about how much Carnival was investing in a new
guest-experience technology that Donald plans to unveil at the Consumer
Electronics Show on Jan. 5 in Las Vegas, Donald said the money has come from an
annual earmark of 3% to 5% of the capital expenditure budget for R&D and
innovation. He said the technology, which will be invisible to the guest, has "breakthrough
potential."
"We're excited about the potential, but the guest will
decide," he said.
Commenting on the decision to devote a third Vista-class
ship to the Carnival brand rather than send it to Australia, Donald said it was
a "holistic" move with several factors involved, but one of them has been
the economic power of Carnival Cruise Line.
"The Carnival brand is doing very, very, very well here
in the U.S." Donald said.