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spk07: Good morning and welcome to Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings' third quarter 2021 earnings conference call. My name is Lori and I will be your operator. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions for the session will follow at that time. If anyone should require assistance during the conference, please press star then zero on your touchtone telephone. And as a reminder to all participants, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Ms. Jessica John, Vice President of Investor Relations, Corporate Communications, and ESG. Ms. John, please proceed.
spk00: Thank you, Lori, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our third quarter 2021 earnings and business update call. I'm joined today by Frank Del Rio, President and Chief Executive Officer of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, and Mark Kempa, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Frank will begin the call with opening commentary, after which Mark will follow to discuss our financials before handing the call back to Frank for closing remarks. We will then open the call for your questions. As a reminder, this conference call is being simultaneously webcast on the company's investor relations website at www.nclhltd.com slash investors. We will also make reference to a slide presentation during this call, which may also be found on our investor relations website. Both the conference call and presentation will be available for replay for 30 days following today's call. Before we begin, I would like to cover a few items. Our press release with third quarter 2021 results was issued this morning and is available on our investor relations website. This call includes forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from such statements. These statements should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary statement contained in our earnings release. Our comments may also reference non-GAAP financial measures. a reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure, and other associated disclosures are contained in our earnings release and presentation. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Frank Del Rio. Frank?
spk01: Thank you, Jessica, and good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining us today. And as always, I hope that all of you, as well as your loved ones, remain healthy and safe. Today, we will discuss commentary on three areas. First, the progress we have made on our great cruise comeback. Second, our recent booking and demand trends, which have shown particular strength for sailings operating in the second half of 2022 and for all of 2023 when our fleet is expected to be back in full operation and at normalized occupancy levels. And finally, on our exciting pipeline of new vessels, which we expect to contribute outsized IBAGIC growth and other important financial metric improvements. Slide 4 outlines how far we have come on our return to service plan. When we last spoke in early August, we had just relaunched the first vessel in our fleet, Norwegian Jade in Greece, and we're on the verge of resuming cruising in the U.S. with Norwegian Encore, making her West Coast debut, sailing to Alaska from Seattle. Since then, we have successfully relaunched 11 of our 28 vessels with all three of our award-winning brands resuming operations. We couldn't be more pleased with the performance of our relaunched ships. First, our crew has not missed a beat since returning, seamlessly adapting to our new health and safety protocols and going above and beyond to deliver the exceptional vacation experiences our brands are known for. This commitment to service has resulted in record high guest satisfaction scores with each month sequentially better than the month before. And second, we are seeing the power of our industry-leading bundling strategy pay off as guests are boarding our vessels with fresh wallets, which, coupled with robust pent-up demand for all kinds of experiences, is translating to remarkably strong onboard revenue generation. In fact, onboard revenue has exceeded our baseline expectations by over 20%, with broad-based strength across all shifts, regions, and revenue streams. While I would caution, though, against extrapolating these figures as permanent or indicative of steady-state future performance just yet, as there are several transitory factors that may be contributing to the elevated current levels, including pent-up demand, cabin, and guest mix, it is nonetheless an encouraging and positive signal of the healthy consumer demand we are experiencing. Lastly, and most importantly, these relaunch shifts have already contributed positive cash flow in the third quarter, even with our self-imposed occupancy level caps. Despite our return to service coinciding with the unfortunate summer surges of Delta variants, I'm happy to say that our robust, multilayered, sail-safe health and safety protocols work as designed to mitigate the introduction and transmission of COVID-19 aboard our vessels. The prevalence of cases we identified in pre-boarding testing, mid-cruise, and then at deportation were inconsequential and well below what we all saw in the general population during this time. In short, we were able to fairly evaluate and fine-tune our rigorous protocols during one of the highest heights of the pandemic, and the stellar results speak for themselves. Today, all ships in our fleet continue operating with a strict 100% vaccination requirement, coupled with universal pre-embarkation testing and multiple layers of additional protection once on board, including upgraded air filtration systems and well-resourced medical centers. We will continue to follow the science and evaluate and modify our protocols as needed with guidance from our team of experts led by former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb and from applicable public health authorities. As I have said time and time again, our commitment to health and safety is far and away the most important principle that guides how our company operates at all levels, and not just now, but pre- and post-pandemic as well. And we are willing to go to great lengths to protect our guests, crew, and the communities we visit. Just last week, we were pleased to receive positive news from the CDC with a temporary extension of the framework for conditional sailing order through January 15th of 2022, at which point the order will revert to a voluntary program. We view this as a positive step forward for our company and the industry at large, and we were encouraged to see positive recognition by the CDC of the successful resumption of cruising and the length we have all taken to enhance our already stringent health and safety protocols in response to COVID-19, which continue to be much more rigorous and much more comprehensive than those implemented by any other travel, leisure, or hospitality sector. With the progress society has made with vaccinations, therapeutics, and adapting to living in the ongoing pandemic environment, the worst is seemingly behind us. Each day we become increasingly confident in our ability to flawlessly execute on our phase-void resumption, which is detailed by brand and by vessel on slide 5. We continue to expect our full fleet to be back in operation by April 1st of 2022, and with this steady and prudent trajectory, we are well positioned for a projected return to pre-pandemic occupancy levels across our fleet no later than the beginning of the third quarter of 2022 and in time to capture peak summer season demand and pricing. While we expect to continue seeing some fits and starts as we ramp up our relaunch, we are keeping a close watch on port availability, travel restrictions, and any other changes to the global public health environment, which could affect our return to service plans as we are ready to adapt accordingly. Turning to slide six, we shift today's discussion to our booking and demand trends. I am pleased to report that we continue to see robust future demand for cruising, particularly for sailings operating in the second half of 2022 and all of 2023, as evidenced by our record cumulative book position during these periods. You'll recall at the beginning of our third quarter, our book position for full year 2022 was meaningfully and significantly ahead of 2019's record levels and at higher pricing. However, and consistent with the pullback seen by the broader economy and, in particular, the travel and leisure sector, the summer Delta variant surge resulted in a marked slowdown in our net booking volume. The impact was heavily weighted to closer in-sailings, particularly for fourth quarter 2021 and first quarter 2022, with the impact lessening sequentially throughout 2022 and beyond. Rather than chase scarce demand during the Delta surge by dropping prices and or spending marketing funds in a less than optimal manner, we strategically chose to wait for consumer sentiment to rebound as we have seen direct ebbs and flows in our booking patterns throughout the pandemic, coinciding with changes in the public health environment. Throughout this difficult 10-week period, we remain disciplined and continue to hold or even raise pricing, and the outcome is that today we see both record load and record pricing for the second half of 2022 and for all of 2023. We are intently focused on the long-term brand positioning and profitability of the company and are simply not willing to sacrifice pricing in order to increase load factors in the upcoming transitional quarters. As has happened in past surges and as the COVID-19 situation recently improved, we have experienced a rebound in bookings with net booking volumes improving sequentially over the past six weeks. We believe this improvement will accelerate moving forward as, first, our brands begin to ramp up their demand-generating marketing investments in mid-November, coinciding with Black Friday and Suburban Monday promotions, and, second, the much-anticipated and expected recovery in the travel agent channel space. And lastly, the approval of vaccines for children ages 5 through 11, which came just last night, and will allow for an expanded group of 100% vaccinated guests, especially families, to sale on our brand. Our go-to-market and full vaccination strategy has paid off in droves. And today, our full-year 2022 load factor remains in line with 2019 record levels and at higher pricing, even when including the dilutive impact of future cruise credits. In addition, we are meaningfully better booked for second half of 22 and full year 23 sailings and at better pricing than at any similar point in time in the past. Our primary focus continues to be on these periods. When our fleet is expected to be in full operation and at normalized occupancy levels, And as I mentioned before, just in time to capture the all-important third quarter peak summer season, which traditionally is the most profitable quarter for the industry. Now, breaking down our book position for full year 2022 further, more than 55% of bookings are from loyal repeat cruisers to our brand. In addition, approximately 75% is comprised of new cash bookings, with the remainder comprised of future cruise credits. So far, approximately 60% of the total value of our outstanding FCCs have been redeemed. As a reminder, the value-added 125% future cruise credits that we issued at the beginning of the pandemic can only be applied to sailings through year-end 2022, resulting in zero yield dilution when we look to 2023 and beyond. And while still early, booking trends for 2023, as I've hinted thus far, are also off to an impressive start. Our booking windows continue to be elongated versus historical levels, with guests booking further into the future, particularly for the Oceana Cruises and Region 7 Caesars Cruises brands. Case in point, in August, Regent set a record for the largest booking day in its 29-year history with the launch of its 2023-2024 voyage collection. Reservations surpassed its previous record by approximately 15%. And while all itineraries were popular, notable destinations of interest were Africa, Asia, and the Baltics, demonstrating our guests' continued appetite for long and exotic itineraries. And in September, the sales launch of just a single ship, Oceana Cruises' new 1,200-passenger Vista, which doesn't debut until April of 23, set an all-time single-day booking record for that brand that surpassed the most recent record set in March of 2021 by nearly 60%. Half of the available inventory for Vista's inaugural season was sold in a single day, with 30% of bookings coming from new to brand guests. These incredible, record-breaking milestones are further proof of the exceptional demand we continue to experience for our brand's unique product offerings from both new and loyal guests alike. Strong future demand in both load, factor, and pricing is also empirically evident in our advanced ticket sales bill. Our advanced ticket sales increased approximately $500 million in a gross basis in the quarter, equating to an approximately 65% increase versus the prior quarter's build. In addition, and more importantly, our cash advanced ticket sales for sailings beginning in the second quarter of 2022 and beyond are approximately 45% higher than at the same time for record year 2019. As we move forward with phasing in the rest of our fleet, we expect this tremendous momentum to continue sequentially. Looking to the future, 2022 will also mark an exciting new chapter for our company as we welcome the first ship in the next class of vessels for Norwegian Cruise Line, Norwegian Prima, in summer of 2022. I just returned from the shipyard in Italy a few weeks ago where I was able to witness firsthand what an evolution Prima is for the Norwegian brand and for the industry at large, which you can see on slide 7. Everything about her was impressive, as she has been meticulously designed to elevate the guest experience. Last month, we unveiled Prima's entertainment lineup, including its interactive headline show, the Tony Award-nominated musical, Summer, the Donna Summer musical. Norwegian Prima will also showcase numerous cruise industry firsts, and new-to-brand experiences, including the world's first transforming venue that converts from a three-story theater into a Vegas-style nightclub, exhilarating free-fall drop-dry slides, and a tri-level, 1,200-foot-long racetrack, the largest at sea. The Prima Speedway will be the first-ever three-level racetrack and is over 20% larger than that on Norwegian Encore, featuring 14 turns where drivers can reach speeds of nearly 40 miles per hour. Prima's advanced sales continue to impress, even after her record-shattering sales debut in May, which set a single best booking day and best initial booking week record, doubling the previous record set by Norwegian Bliss in 2018. And despite her introduction being six weeks later than Norwegian Bliss, her booking volumes are trending in line with that of Bliss, the previous fastest-selling new build for the line, and at materially higher prices. As you can see on slide 8, Norwegian Prima is just the first shift to look forward to in our industry-leading growth profile of nine world-class shifts coming online through 2027. These new bills will grow our birth count by approximately 40%, adding 24,000 additional births across our three brands. In 2023, when our fleet is back in full force, we expect our berth capacity to be approximately 20% higher than 2019's pre-pandemic levels. The addition of these new cutting-edge ships will also favorably change our cabin mix, as illustrated on slide 9, with premium cabins increasing to approximately 65% of total berths versus approximately 60% today. In addition to the premium mix of real estate on board, our new ships have all the bells and whistles, additional streams for onboard revenue generation with new and innovative experiences, and the latest technology to improve efficiency versus our existing fleet. Excitement around new shifts is also a significant demand driver and a powerful engine to fuel future yield, EBITDA, cash flow, and ROIC growth. It brings new guests to our brand, and it brings back repeat guests as well, helping us to appeal to every segment that we are targeting. And given our base of only 28 ships in our fleet, we are ready and eager to easily and profitably absorb this new capacity as it will allow us to further diversify our product offerings and penetrate numerous attractive and high-potential unserved and underserved markets globally. The strategic addition of the Prima and Prima Plus class, for example, which are smaller but more upskilled than our previous Breakaway and Breakaway Plus class at approximately 3,200 births for the first two Prima class shifts and increasing to nearly 3,600 births for the next four Prima Plus class shifts will give us additional bandwidth and flexibility to optimize the deployments that are most profitable and allow the line to continue commanding premium pricing with the right size shift in the right place and at the right time. And as slide 10 shows, we have historically demonstrated our success in not only absorbing capacity, but translating this capacity growth into outsized revenue, outside adjusted EBITDA, and operating cash flow growth that significantly outpaces the growth in absolute capacity. We fully expect to continue this trend and drive meaningful growth to the top and bottom lines with the addition of these exciting new shifts. I'll be back later to provide an update on our ESG efforts as well as provide closing remarks, but for now, I'd like to turn the call over to Mark for a financial update.
spk02: Mark? Thank you, Frank. We reached a significant financial milestone in the third quarter, with our first voyages resuming sailing after a previously unimaginable 500-plus days with zero revenue generating operations. Our return to service has been very successful, and we remain on track to execute on our phased voyage resumption plan. By the end of the third quarter, we had started 37 voyages, completed 29, and had eight ships in service. representing approximately 40% of our birth capacity. Occupancy in the third quarter was approximately 57%, in line with our expectations and reflecting our self-imposed occupancy limits. As we have outlined previously, we have taken a conservative approach to occupancy with our voyage resumption, which proved to be prudent with the rise of the Delta variant to ensure that health and safety remains our number one priority. Increasing our occupancy is not a race, and we are focused on being diligent and thoughtful in ramping up of occupancy levels to protect not just our guests and crew, but also our long-term brand equity. Despite the reduced occupancy levels in the quarter, I am extremely happy to report that the fleet that operated in the period was cash flow positive. Looking ahead, by year end, we expect to have 17 ships representing approximately 75% of capacity and back in service with the full fleet operating as we enter the second quarter 2022. Turning to liquidity and cash burn on slide 11, we ended the quarter with approximately $1.9 billion of cash and cash equivalents. In addition, earlier this week, we further enhanced our liquidity profile by entering into a $1 billion commitment through mid-August 2022. This liquidity backstop enhances our financial flexibility and provides immediate and additional liquidity should the need arise. If drawn, the commitment would convert into an unsecured note maturing in April 2024. For sake of clarity, we have not drawn on this facility and do not intend to do so given our current projected recovery at this time. As for cash burn for the third quarter, Our average monthly cash burn rate was approximately $275 million, lower than prior guidance of $285 million. For the fourth quarter, we expect our average monthly cash burn to increase to approximately $350 million as we continue to ramp up restart expenses and additional vessels reenter service. During the quarter, we are expecting a ramp-up of demand-generating marketing investments as we head into the holidays with Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Wave Season. It is important to note that this cash burn estimate does not include our expected cash inflows from both new and existing bookings or the contribution from ships that have re-entered service, both of which we expect to accelerate as we move forward. On a net basis, based on our current resumption plan, we continue to expect to reach a crucial inflection point with operating cash flow turning positive toward the tail end of the first quarter of 2022. In addition, based on our current trajectory and market conditions, we are on a solid path to return to profitability for the second half of 2022. Turning to slide 12, our cash balance in the third quarter decreased to $1.9 billion of cash and equivalents, driven by approximately $825 million of operating cash burn, including OpEx expenses, SG&A interest, and CapEx, customer cash refunds of approximately $115 million, and net working capital and other inflows of approximately $125 million, which is net of health and safety investments and cash collections from current and future voyages. With 2022 now just around the corner, we have provided some additional guidance to assist with modeling for certain metrics on slide 17, including depreciation and amortization, interest expense, fuel consumption, and capital expenditures. In addition, we have provided detail on our annual capacity growth expectations on slide 18, as we gear up to deliver on our impressive growth profile through 2027, which we expect to be meaningfully accretive to both earnings and cash flow generation. Lastly, with much of the focus in the market on inflationary pressure, I wanted to touch quickly on what we are experiencing. We are still fine-tuning our 2022 plans and related projections to and will provide more color on our cost outlook on our next earnings call. However, similar to almost all other industries, we are seeing pockets of pressures in areas such as fuel, food, and other commodities. Our supply chain group continues to work diligently to mitigate these costs, and we are fortunate that the timing of our ramp-up in operations is relieving some of the transitory cost pressures. The good news is that we are a primarily fixed-cost business, which is beneficial in an inflationary environment. On the labor front, we have a high degree of visibility on our costs as the vast majority of our crew, which comprises the bulk of our employee base, are covered under multi-year agreements. On the flip side, we are also seeing very strong pricing power, which is helping to offset inflationary pressure. Even with the pricing power we are seeing, cruise vacations continue to offer an incredibly compelling value proposition versus a land-based vacation alternative. We have said in the past that a cruise vacation typically offers at least 20% to 30% better value than a similar land-based alternative. With the current inflationary backdrop and on a relative scale, we believe our offering and value proposition is even more compelling now than ever before. Without the same labor market pressures that many of our land-based peers are experiencing, we can provide a consistent and exceptional level of service for our guests, which is evidenced by our record-high guest satisfaction scores since resuming sailing. These factors combined will continue to allow us to further increase our prices on our multi-year strategy to achieving pricing parity to that of land-based vacation offerings. Before handing the call back to Frank, I want to reiterate that while the global public health environment remains fluid and we are not yet completely out of the woods, we are increasingly optimistic as we continue on our road to recovery. We are now in a position to pivot to a more offensive approach and shift our attention to executing on our medium and long-term financial recovery plan, which is outlined on slide 13. As part of this plan, we will remain focused on rebuilding our strong track record of financial performance, optimizing our balance sheet, and delivering on our attractive and disciplined growth profile. I look forward to updating you on our progress in our next call, but for now I'll hand the call back over to Frank to provide closing commentary. Frank?
spk01: Thank you, Mark. Before we wrap up our prepared remarks, I'd like to provide an update on our global sustainability program, Sail and Sustain, on slide 14. We are committed to driving a positive impact on society and the environment through the advancement of this program. On the environmental front, in addition to ongoing initiatives to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions rate, During the quarter, we made the first purchase under our new carbon offset program. As a reminder, over the summer, we announced that we have committed to purchasing high-quality, verified carbon credits to offset the equivalent of 3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide over a three-year period. This is a measurable step in near-term emissions reductions, which will help bridge the gap in our decarbonization efforts until new technologies become feasible. Our 3 million ton commitment is sizable, and we plan to increase offset purchases in future years to help us reach our goal of carbon neutrality. We also strive to maintain a supportive and empowering workplace for our team members across the globe, who are without doubt our most valuable asset. As such, we recently announced that we have indefinitely moved to a 4-1 flexible work model for our shoreside team members globally. which requires employees to work in office Monday through Thursday and remotely on Friday. This new work model allows us to provide additional flexibility for our team members while also supporting our business goals, maintaining productivity, and fostering the in-person collaboration and workplace culture that we are so proud of. We are honored that this commitment to our team was recognized with our naming to the Forbes World's Best Employers List. This recognition came after also being named to the Forbes America's Best Employers list earlier this year, in which we ranked among the top 75 companies in the overall large employer category and among the top 10 companies in the travel and leisure sector. And while we are pleased with the progress we have made to date on our ESG efforts, we have no plans to stop here. We are committed to continuing to drive positive change and make a lasting impact on the world as responsible corporate citizens. In addition, we remain focused on enhancing disclosures around our ESG efforts to ensure transparency and accountability around this critical topic for our key stakeholders. And I look forward to sharing additional details with you as we continue to on our ESG journey. Turning to slide 15, I'd like to leave you with a few final key takeaways. First, our return to service is on track, and initial voyages have been successful on all fronts. Our health and safety protocols are working as intended, and we are seeing strong onboard revenue and high guest satisfaction scores. We are increasingly confident and our ability to execute on our phase-void resumption plan with a target to have our full fleet in operation by April 1st of next year. Despite headwinds in the third quarter related to the Delta variant, we continue to experience strong future demand for cruising with positive booking and pricing trends, particularly for the back half of 2022 and throughout 2023. And lastly, we believe we are nearing an inflection point with the worst of the pandemic now appearing to be behind us. Our future is bright, and we look forward to the next chapter in our company's storied history as we deliver on our industry-leading growth profile, which we expect will provide a meaningful boost to our financial results and shareholder value in the coming years. And with that, Laurie, let's open up for questions.
spk07: Thank you, Frank. And if you have a question at this time, please press the star, then one key on your touchtone telephone. In order to get as many people through the queue, please limit your time to one question. If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press the pound key. Our first question comes from Steven Grambling of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
spk05: Hey, thank you for taking the questions. I know you don't want to give too much color on 2022 yet, but I would love to just hear any kind of guardrails to think about for a load factor over the course of the year. And then maybe looking longer term, as you compare and contrast the company versus 2019, what structural changes are you contemplating as it relates to either itineraries, marketing approaches, or otherwise, as you assess consumer behavior and changes to your own operations?
spk01: Thanks. That's a mouthful, Steve, but I'll try to get through it. Look, we thought we have perfected our itineraries, our deployment, and so I don't see major changes in how we deploy our vessels in 22 and beyond, assuming that the world reopens. Today the world is in the process of reopening. As you know, Asia is still primarily closed. But we believe that by the time our next Asia season begins, which would be about this time in 2022, that it will be open. We do have new vessels coming online, like I said, four over the next two years, and we're eager to take possession of those vessels. We've said time and time again we have many unserved and underserved markets because we only have a fleet of 28 vessels. So we're anxiously awaiting the receipt of those vessels, which we believe will be accretive to the yield and certainly EBITDA and ROIC and all the financial metrics. Turning to 2022, we have to start looking at 2022 not as a year, not as a block, but But sequentially, certainly the back half of 22 today is looking much better than the first half, partly because of the effects of the Delta variant and on booking trends and consumer behavior will affect Q1 more than Q2 and Q2 more than Q3. But sequentially, 2022 is ramping up very, very nicely. We said in our prepared remarks, the back half of 22 today is meaningfully and significantly better booked than we were at this time for 2019 or any year. So we're way ahead in load. And that gives us confidence to continue with the price discipline because today we Not only do we have that meaningful load, but we're ahead in pricing. So I feel very, very good about 2022, and I can make the same identical remarks about 2023. Ahead in load, meaningfully, and ahead in pricing. Q2 is what I would really call the pivot quarter. We see demand coming back strongly for 22. But as you know, we still have, by the end of the year, we'll have 17 ships in the water. That means that we're going to introduce 11 vessels. between January 1 and April 1, those will be ramping up. And so second quarter will be a transition year, a transition quarter where all the vessels will be in operation. But we feel very, very good about Q2 as well. So, look, I'm... I'm feeling better than I have in nearly two years. Advanced bookings are strong. One of the wonderful things about this industry is that we have incredible visibility into the future, and because consumers are booking earlier than ever, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we have visibility further into the future than we ever have, and that visibility is a very positive one.
spk05: Perhaps as a quick follow-up, when you look at the strong booking trends in the back half of the year, can you provide any color on the composition between new to brand or new to cruise versus the existing customer base and what's driving that?
spk01: Look, I think it's not much different than what we said earlier. About 55% of repeaters, slightly higher than normal. You know, we've moderated our marketing spend, and so when you moderate your marketing spend, you tend to go to that segment of the market that you know best that's and least expensive to go after, and that's our past guests. So we have a little bit of an elevated past guest, which is good. They know the brand. That's what you want. We're not getting ready to roll out our big marketing push in anticipation of Wave to promote Black Friday, to promote Cyber Monday, and we have high hopes for a very, very good Wave season.
spk05: Fair enough. Thanks so much. I'll jump back in the queue.
spk07: And our next question is from Brandt Montour of JP Morgan. Your line is open.
spk08: Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Frank or Mark, I was hoping you could provide a little bit more color on occupancy near term, perhaps maybe exit rate coming out of the third quarter, or maybe even better, just talk a little bit about the self-imposed caps and how you foresee the your ability to raise those in the next, call it two to five months.
spk02: Yeah, good morning, Brent. Look, so third quarter was in line with our expectations. I think we had roughly 57% occupancy. As we've said time and time again, we're not in a race to just fill volume. We want to maintain price discipline, and we're going to do that. When we look ahead at the fourth quarter, we're going to have, I believe, 17 ships in operation, approximately 75% of our capacity. And as we continue into first quarter, we'll have almost our entire fleet operational effectively by the end of the first quarter. So rather than look at occupancy, I think a better metric is looking at the number of passengers that we're carrying. I think in the third quarter we had about 60,000 roughly passengers carried. That's going to increase to roughly 150,000, 175,000 in Q4, 250,000 to 300,000 in Q1, and then you're up back into the half a million. So our occupancy is ramping up in line with our fleet rollout. Pricing discipline is important to us. we've said time and time again we want to protect that. We want to protect the long-term brand equity. So we're going to do it in a thoughtful and rational manner rather than chasing that cheap customer just to gain that point of occupancy.
spk08: Thanks for that, Mark. That's helpful. And then as a follow-up, you know, I think one of the themes of travel and leisure this quarter is just trying to figure out how long the pent-up demand can last and positively impact consumer spend. Frank, I was wondering if you wanted to just give some thoughts on the onboard spend picture, and is there any reason why it doesn't eventually revert to 2019 levels? Anything structural you would call out as why it might settle above those levels going forward?
spk01: In terms of your pent-up demand question, you know, no one has a crystal ball. All I can tell you is the empirical evidence that we have based on bookings, people are booking further out than ever before. That's a combination of the fact that we have introduced itineraries earlier than ever, so they're available for sale. but also people's, you know, the psyche of the consumer. They want to cruise. They want to travel. Maybe they don't want to travel this quarter or maybe even next quarter, and they're pushing it out further and further, hoping that the COVID situation, you know, improves drastically. So I do believe that we're going to continue having greater visibility than we've had in the past, and that will continue for some time. In terms of onboard revenue, look, We've seen that consumer spending across lots of different sectors are up, and it's no different on board our vessels. As you know, we lead the industry by a very wide margin in on board yield, on board revenue yield, and that continues. I cautioned in my prepared remarks. that I'm not ready to declare victory in the sense that the very positive trends in onboard revenue, higher than they've ever been before, will continue indefinitely and then you can put it in the permanent column because it's just too early. Is the reason why people are spending so much because of the pent-up demand? Is it because of cabin mix? We're at least in the third quarter and you'll see it in the fourth quarter as well. Slightly elevated percentage of our cabins that have sold are in the upper categories, the suites, the balcony cabins. And one of the truisms of this business is those who pay more to get on board pay or spend more once on board. But it also goes to the fundamental strength of our industry-leading bundling strategy. We believe in the bundling strategy. We're doing more and more bundling across the three brands. And that gives people a very fresh wallet because the combination of them booking further out means they have even more time to refill that wallet and make it even fresher, if you will. And so all these factors are contributing to the higher onboard spend. I hope it continues. We'll do everything possible to fuel that continuation. But I just wanted to throw a little bit of caution to the wind that I'm not ready to chalk it up as a permanent shift, if you will, And we've always, you know, led the industry on.
spk02: And, Brant, just one piece of additional color there is we are getting smarter, not only with the bundling, but our marketing systems around the pre-onboard sell. We're getting smarter throughout the booking cycle. You know, we started really working on that heavily. you know, a couple years ago, and we started to see some fruit bearing on that in 2019. So, again, that's just going to be another propellant to help us. But I think, as Frank has said, you know, we'd be naive to think that there's not going to be some settling.
spk08: Excellent. Thanks for the thoughts, guys.
spk07: And our next question is from Vince Seepill of Cleveland Research. Your line is open.
spk09: Thanks for taking my question. I'd be curious. A lot of moving pieces as it relates to occupancy ramp, and it sounds like pricing is quite strong. You alluded to some cost pressures in the business. Fuel prices are up. Curious on the other side of this, exiting next year when hopefully things are more back to normal, what do you think the margin opportunity is within the business going into even 23? And if you think efficiency is gained there, can put your margins higher than they were pre-COVID. Thanks.
spk01: Hi, Vince. Look, I think we're setting ourselves up nicely for margin expansion and ROIC improvement. That's why it's so important to keep that pricing discipline. You know, we've seen time and time again that Companies had dropped prices, as we saw back in 2008 and 2009 during the Great Recession. It takes years. There are some who have not yet recovered to their pre-Great Recession yields a decade later or more than a decade later. So we're fixated. maintaining pricing. We'll sacrifice short-term load factors in order to preserve long-term pricing. And long-term pricing, at the end of the day, is what's going to drive margins, along with the fact that we're going to be introducing four vessels that are premium, including the Norwegian new Prima vessels, more balcony cabins. We're increasing our percentage of our premium accommodations to 65%. And so all those factors, including the fact that we have gotten a lot smarter during the pandemic about how we market to our customers using technologies, you know, the so-called Zoom world, marketing is becoming more efficient, and we'll see whether the general – inflation pressures that are being called transitory are transitory or not. But as Mark mentioned, we are primarily a fixed-cost business, and during inflationary times, we come out ahead. And we're seeing it that... We have pricing power. Pricing power is the pretty word of inflation. Yes, we have inflation pressures on some line items, as Mark mentioned, fuel, commodities, food. But we've got that pricing power that is translating into high yields. So we believe that in late 22, 23 forward, our margins should improve.
spk02: And, Vince, on the new capacity that comes online, generally speaking, you know, as we're bringing new capacity, it tends to be anywhere from 10% to 15% more efficient on a unit basis. So that inherently provides some tailwind for us as we move forward. And with our growth profile, I think there's some tremendous opportunity there.
spk09: Great, thanks. And as a follow-up to that, I thought your comments were interesting. cruising relative to land-based alternative. Look at hotel leisure prices are a good amount ahead of 2019 levels. Curious if there's any way to kind of quantify that gap. I mean, do you see it being a significant opportunity, 10, 20% of value relative to land-based or any way to qualify moving towards parity of land-based and what that can mean for yield?
spk01: Look, I think there's a great opportunity, and you have to do it almost brand by brand. You want to compare a Regent cruise to a stay at a Four Seasons hotel. You want to compare a Norwegian cruise to perhaps a Sheridan or a Hyatt. But I can tell you that all the internal analysis that we do, When you combine the costs, the total cost of a vacation, transportation, accommodations, your meals, your drinks, entertainment in any location, a cruise vacation's value is just off the charts. And while we want to continue offering consumers that great value, which is why our ships are always full, the industry's ships are always full, hotel chains can't say that their hotel rooms are always full, but we can because of the value proposition, the way we market, and therefore that's where the opportunity is. The opportunity is to claw back some of that value that we're giving away and still provide consumers with a very attractive vacation experience.
spk02: And every dollar we can claw back in that gap, the vast majority of that drops directly to the bottom line. So it really becomes this really bottom-line economic driver pretty quickly. So we're very, very focused on that.
spk09: Thanks for all the color.
spk07: And our next question is from Steve Wyszynski of Stifo. Your line is open.
spk04: Yeah, hey, guys. Good morning. So, Frank, I want to ask you another question about load factors and kind of getting that path, the path back to normalized load factors by you talked about the third quarter of next year. I'm just wondering if you could elaborate on that a little bit more. And it seems like, you know, the most debatable vaccine demographic, so to speak, is obviously around kids, meaning that it seems a lot of parents are not going to get their kids vaccinated. So I guess the actual question here is, once this CSO is eventually relaxed in January, do you see yourself starting to potentially relax that vaccine mandate for kids in order to get your load factors back to normal, or that just won't be the case. And if that's not the case, maybe help us bridge that gap.
spk01: Yeah. Steve, I don't – you know, we're going to announce very, very soon that we have indefinitely extended our 100% vaccination requirement. I think that today that continues to be a competitive advantage to our three brands. I think that our three brands emerged from this – COVID crisis in a much better standing in the consumer's eyes because of our strong early stance on health and safety, vaccinations, et cetera. And it's something we want to build on. The children's vaccination for 5 through 11-year-olds was just announced yesterday. My understanding is that likely sometime in Q1, 4, The same vaccination approval will be given for up to four-year-olds. So I do believe that the target market that cruises is more likely than general population to, number one, be vaccinated. We see time and time again where a cruiser, a past cruiser, or one who intends to cruise, is significantly more vaccinated than those who don't intend to cruise. So It's a bit of a self-selection situation. I believe that will translate also into children. But we're not going to sacrifice the health and safety of anyone for the sake of adding a point or two or three or whatever the number is to load. So we will continue mandating 100% vaccination as long as the science dictates that that's what we ought to do.
spk04: Understood. Thanks for that. The second question would be around direct bookings. And it seems to us from the outside that direct bookings are, you know, have moved a good bit higher relative to pre-pandemic levels. And I'm wondering if that's kind of what you guys are seeing as well and maybe what you think is potentially driving that. And is this something that could change, you know, long-term booking patterns, or is it just something else that's causing an uplift right now in direct?
spk01: No, we've seen it as well. We're hoping that the travel agent community comes back in full force. They've also been out of work. And unlike the big public cruise companies that can go to Wall Street and raise billions of dollars, These are mostly smaller businesses and can't. And so I'm praying and hoping that they do come back in full force. But at the end of the day, we have to fill our vessels in any way we can. And we do offer consumers multiple choices of how to engage with us. We prefer the travel agency channel. It is our biggest channel. It is coming back. We've seen improvement sequentially, quarter by quarter, in terms of the percentage of our business that is being booked by travel agents. And I do believe that once our fleet is back in operation, along with that of our peers, that they will come back. But if not, we have adapted. We are prepared. We have the technology. We have the wherewithal to take the bookings.
spk04: Okay, great. Thanks, guys. Appreciate the color.
spk07: And our next question is from James Ainley of Citi. Your line is open.
spk03: Great. Thanks for taking my question. Could I ask you maybe for some color on the brand performances? I guess the data we're tracking suggests that higher-end brands have been garnering much stronger interest. Is that something you're seeing, or are you seeing that demand increase? spreading out down the brand scales?
spk01: Well, the upscale brands, the luxury brands, typically book further out than the contemporary brands because their itineraries are longer, more exotic, and therefore the planning process. And so we do have more visibility, especially into 2023, on the ocean and the region brands than we do in Norwegian brands. But we're seeing steady progress throughout the ecosystem. The Norwegian brand customer coming back and booking as they normally would book, except that for second half of 22 and in all of 23, that booking volume is better than ever. And so we're very pleased with that, that the demand is such that consumers want to cruise, and as I said earlier, everything else being equal, they feel more confident being able to cruise in Q3 of next year than in Q1, for example. because of the ever-present threat of COVID. And as COVID starts to fade into the background, all the experts have said COVID is not going to go away one day. It will pivot from being a pandemic to an epidemic, and we'll all have to learn to live with it. We may have to take COVID booster shots every year like the flu. But I am encouraged to see how in different parts of the world, and I traveled internationally for the first time in the last few weeks, went to Italy, went to the U.K., went to New York for the first time in almost two years, how people have adapted. And like I said earlier, the cruising population, the target cruiser, is a better versed individual than the average population. They can afford to cruise. They're better vaccinated. And so all those points, I'm encouraged that, again, the pandemic is not going to go away or the COVID is never going to disappear because but we will learn to live with it.
spk03: Great, thank you. As a follow-up, could I ask about how you're handling the sort of operating restrictions? I mean, are you able to sail your ships to the majority of places you want to go to? And I suppose the reason I'm asking is, you know, a loyal recent Seven Seas customer might come back for one cruise, but then is looking for something new and something different, and Do you feel that you can offer enough variety given the kind of state of port call restrictions as you see them today?
spk01: The short answer is yes. The longer answer is no. We are staging the return of our vessels not haphazardly, but in a very measured way based on the availability of ports. And so by the time that our entire fleet is operating, which will be very early in Q2 on April 1st, we believe that the seasonal nature of the cruise industry being heavily in Alaska and Europe beginning in Q2 throughout Q3, that the world will be open. By the time we get to Q4 of 22 and you start sailing to exotic places throughout Asia, South America, we believe that by then the closures that we are seeing today will abate. And so, yes, itineraries are a big deal. It's one of the secret sauce ingredients that make our company the highest-yielding company because we go to high-yielding itineraries with wonderful vessels that have a lot of cabins that are with balconies and suites. which, as I've said many times, is the second driver of yields after itineraries, we believe all those pressures that we're seeing today will subside by the time that our operations are back in full.
spk03: Great. Thank you very much.
spk01: You're welcome. Operator, I think we have time for one more question.
spk07: And, yes, our last question is from Robin Farley of UBS. Your line is open.
spk06: Great. Thanks. I wanted to ask a balance sheet question. You mentioned in the slides, you know, before returning to paying dividends that you wanted to focus on the balance sheet. I'm just wondering if there's kind of a targeted leverage range you're thinking. And then kind of related on the balance sheet is I'm curious why the billion-dollar balance facility, you know, Andran, you're so close to positive cash flow and you have no big maturities in the next two years. Just kind of curious behind the, you know, setting that up. Thanks.
spk02: Good morning, Robin. Yeah, first, you know, covering the targeted leverage, you know, pre-pandemic we had said our goal was to get to that two-and-a-half, you know, two-and-three-quarter range. And we haven't lost sight of that. But I think, you know, when we look at the near and mid-term, You know, our first goal is going to be to get, you know, let's get below five, and then we're going to target to get below four. So we're going to continue to take a, you know, chop it down year after year with, you know, accelerating cash flows and get that back down into that, you know, three, four times. It's going to take some time to do that, but we're focused on it. We've done it before. We know how to do it, this management team, so we're confident we can get there. We have the ability and the business. In terms of the billion-dollar commitment, look, I think as we look forward, I stated in my remarks that we're now going into a more offensive approach around our balance sheet management. So what this does is this really is we look at it as a very low-cost but yet effective backstop rather than us having to necessarily go out and commit to permanent debt and and or permanent further dilution. So it is an extremely low-cost measure to have on the books, which will allow us, independently of that, to start taking some balance sheet action and not have to worry about the broader picture. So again, we do not intend to draw on it. Our intention is not to draw on it. We have the facility there. as part of our larger game plan. But in the event we need to draw on it or something in that nature, most likely or more than likely, we would go out to the public markets and go after some paper that is much more cost effective. So again, in balancing all of our needs, we think this provides a backstop without committing us for any long-term additional debt and or dilution. And, look, you know, one additional thought is that we've seen what Delta does, and we want to make sure we're always in a position to be ahead of some of the unknowns. So, again, this is more of us going to an offensive approach in terms of our balance sheet on a go-forward basis.
spk06: Okay. Okay, that makes sense. Thanks. Maybe just one final thing. Are you back to issuing future cruise credits again when you have to cancel a cruise, which I realize there's not?
spk02: No, we stopped that, I believe, either at the end of 2020 or the end of first quarter 2021. Actually, much earlier than that, I'm sorry, mid-2020, I think it was. So we have not issued future cruise credits, I want to say probably since second quarter-ish of 2020. I might be off there slightly, but generally speaking, that was the time frame.
spk06: Okay, great. Thank you.
spk01: Thank you, Robin. And thank you, everyone, for your time and support today. We will be available to answer any of your questions a little later on. So have a great day and stay safe. Thank you, everyone. Bye-bye.
spk07: And this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.
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