Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (RCL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. My name is Morgan, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Royal Caribbean Group Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to introduce Mr. Blake Venier, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Vander, the floor is yours.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our third quarter 2016 earnings call. Joining me here in Miami are Jason Liberty, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Naftali Holtz, EVP and Chief Financial Officer; and Michael Bailey, President and CEO of the Royal Caribbean brand. Before we get started, I'd like to note that we will be making forward-looking statements during this call. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. Please refer to our earnings release issued this morning as well as our filings with the SEC for a description of these factors. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statements as circumstances change. Also, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures, which are adjusted as defined, and a reconciliation of all non-GAAP items can be found on our investor website and in our earnings release. Unless we state otherwise, all metrics are on a constant currency adjusted basis. Jason will begin the call by providing a strategic overview and update on the business. Naftali will follow with a recap of our third quarter the current booking environment and our outlook for 2026. We will then open the call for your questions. With that, I'm pleased to turn the call over to Jason.

Thank you, Blake, and good morning, everyone. I'm very happy to share the results of another outstanding quarter that exceeded our expectations and drove an increase to full year guidance as demand for our leading vacation brands continues to accelerate. Before we get into the results and outlook, I want to talk about our recent announced partnership to buy a 50% stake in Sandals and Peaches resorts. Our strategy is to turn the vacation of a lifetime into a lifetime of vacations. Our mid-70s Net Promoter Scores are a testament to our unwavering commitment to delivering the best vacation experiences responsibly. At the same time, we are building a connected vacation platform that brings guests back more frequently across more occasions and capture a greater share of a growing $2 trillion-plus global vacation market. In recent years, we have strengthened our connected vacation ecosystem by investing in technology, loyalty and commercial capabilities. Everything starts and ends with the customer. We're building a portfolio that serves more of their needs across more occasions, a guest might choose Royal Caribbean for a multigenerational vacation, Sandals for a romantic getaway celebrity for a premium coupled Galapagos adventure and Silversea for an Arctic expedition. We have also broadened how gas on vacation with us through Celebrity River Cruises and our growing portfolio of differentiated destinations and experiences. Connecting these opportunities through loyalty, data and technology, all while obsessing about delivering the best vacation experiences gives high-value guests more reasons to remain within our family of brands. This, in turn, enables us to deepen engagement, increase frequency and expand lifetime value. That brings me to Sandals and Beach's resorts. The business has 2 leading and complementary brands in the fast-growing and high potential all-inclusive resorts segment. Sandals is the leading adult-only all-inclusive resort brand and the Caribbean, and beaches leads in serving families and multigenerational all-inclusive resort travelers. It is also a strong strategic fit that builds on the strength and growth potential of our cruise businesses. Today, we capture only 20% to 25% of our guest annual vacation spend. About 30% of our guests have vacations in a Caribbean all-inclusive resort in the last 2 years. By adding on close resorts to our ecosystem, we expand our reach to roughly 50% of the vacation wallet. This investment lets us serve guests that are already spending in all-inclusive resorts while also attracting new guests to our ecosystem and building on our Caribbean footprint and North American sourcing, all while reinforcing our core cruise business. Caribbean inclusive is an attractive $16 billion market, growing 11% a year and Sandals and Beaches Resorts as a leading owner operator with strong brand awareness and financial profile. Financially, approximately $3 billion investment for a 50% stake at 10x forward EBITDA is expected to be immediately accretive to our earnings, while keeping us within our leverage targets. We are very excited about the value that's going to be brought to our customers, to our shareholders, to our employees, to the communities that we serve with this partnership for Sandals and beaches. I will elaborate more about this opportunity a bit later. But now let me turn to our results. This morning, we reported third quarter results that exceeded our expectations and resulted in an increase to our full year guidance. Third quarter revenue grew 9% year-over-year, while earnings came in 4% above our guidance. In the third quarter, we delivered 2.7 million incredible vacations at industry-leading guest satisfaction scores. Capacity increased 8% year-over-year and net yields were up 0.6%, which was about 60 basis points higher than our guidance. The beat was driven by better-than-expected close-in demand, along with strong onboard revenue, primarily for Europe and Caribbean products. Costs also came in favorably due to timing and as a result, adjusted EPS was $0.26 higher than our guidance. Naftali will elaborate on our results and outlook in a few minutes. Turning to the demand environment. We continue to see accelerated momentum as consumers prioritize our vacations and experiences. Travel remains the #1 leisure category where consumers intend to increase spending. Traveling more is a top priority for 1/3 of Americans and consumers see cruising as a good value due to high-quality onboard amenities, pricing that includes meals, accommodations and entertainment and the ability to visit multiple destinations in 1 trip. That confidence is reflected in our booking activity. Since the last earnings call, booking volumes have increased in the mid-teens year-over-year and bookings for 2027 sailings up in the high teens, demonstrating strong demand as we continue to build a strong base of business for 2027. Our book position for both 2026 and 2027 is ahead of prior year at record rates. We are also seeing our relationship with our guests deepen. This year, close to half of our guests were repeat customers with the balance experiencing our brands for the first time. These new-to-brand guests are becoming loyal repeat cruisers and returning more frequently as the average time between cruises continues to decrease. Our differentiated brands, Net Promoter Scores in the mid-70s, expanding portfolio and growing loyalty and technology capabilities gives us more ways to engage with guests and more opportunities to capture a greater share of their vacation spend. Moving to the outlook for the remainder of the year. Our capacity in the fourth quarter is up 5% year-over-year, and we expect to grow yields 4.2% to 4.7% and which is in line with our prior expectations. As we discussed last quarter, the increase in expected fourth quarter yields reflect a more favorable year-over-year comparison, deployment mix and timing of dry docks. Full year net yields is expected to grow approximately 2.1%. Full year adjusted EPS is now expected to be in the range of $17.85 to $17.95 representing 14% year-over-year growth. Our proven formula of moderate capacity growth, moderate yield growth and strong cost discipline is driving significant earnings growth continued margin expansion and robust cash flow generation. This allows us to invest in high returning and strategic growth opportunities while also returning capital to our shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. 2027 is the final year of our perfective program, and the business is performing well ahead of expectations. In fact, at the spot fuel rate when we announced the program, we would exceed our 2027 earnings target by about $1 per share. Despite the significant increase in fuel rates this year, we remain on track to achieve our 20% adjusted earnings per share CAGR target based on the current forward fuel price curve for a $20 handle in 2027. Separately, we have already achieved our ROIC target. As I mentioned on our last call, we have a great partnership with local communities in the government of Mexico, where we deliver close to 1 million vacations a year. While I know there is great interest in our efforts in Manawa. We will share further progress and updates at the appropriate time or as they become available. Stepping back, our goal is straightforward. Keep guest vacation with us again and again, whatever the occasion and whichever brand fits best. We are pursuing that through an integrated vacation ecosystem in which loyalty, technology and data reinforce 1 another to drive repeat travel and grow the long-term value of each guest. Loyalty is the foundation of the platform. Status Match carries guests loyalty status across our brands, while Points Choice and Royal One, let them earn and redeem rewards across the ecosystem. These capabilities are already driving greater cross brand engagement and repeat travel. In fact, this year, 40% of our guests are loyalty customers. Loyalty share has increased across nearly all tiers over the last few years with the strongest growth concentrated among entry-level members. This suggests more guests are engaging with the loyalty ecosystem earlier in their journey, expanding the pipeline of future repeat rates and deepening longer-term customer relationships. That deeper engagement is paying off and spend as well. Since we launched Status Match earlier this year, guests to sale across brands have higher APDs than guests who only sell on 1 brand. Sandals and Beach's resorts is where we are putting some additional capital as a TSR accelerator to our strategy. It extends our platform and to the attractive all-inclusive category with loyalty benefits flowing in both directions. The roughly 30% category overlap gives us a natural way to introduce Sandals and beaches to our guests and to welcome their guests into our brands. Over time, that means more vacation occasions, greater frequency and higher lifetime value for both the Royal Caribbean Group and Sandals and Beach's resorts. Just as important, this is a business with significant room to grow. The portfolio today has 18 high-quality all-inclusive resorts on some of the most attractive beachfront sites in the Caribbean. The Stewart family has invested significantly in modernizing the resorts and elevating the guest experience, which is reflected in the quality of the product, guest loyalty, strong pricing and compelling financial performance. The portfolio also includes more than 1,000 acres of undeveloped Caribbean real estate, much of it adjacent to existing resorts. Together with Sandals on Beach's proven track record, this scarce hard-to-replicate land portfolio provides a strong foundation for growth. Funded by the business' own cash flow generation, the development plan includes 3 new beach resorts and significant room expansions across the existing portfolio with substantial opportunity to further expand the plan over time as we capture more of the attractive and growing inclusive resort market. Beyond room and hotel expansion, the same capabilities that power our platform are what will drive value from this partnership. We bring decades of experience in revenue management, digital engagement distribution, procurement, technology and data. Together, we see tangible opportunities to grow revenue, enhance customer acquisition and leverage our global scale while preserving the identity Caribbean character and differentiated guest experiences of Sandals and beaches. All in, we see several hundred million dollars of synergy opportunities over time in every guest we connect across the 2 businesses strengthens the broader ecosystem. We look forward to sharing more detail once the transaction closes, and we are excited about the value this partnership will create for our shareholders and our customers. In summary, demand remains strong, and we are encouraged by the strength we are seeing for 2027 and beyond. At the same time, we continue to expand the opportunities in front of us. Our investments in new ships and destinations, Celebrity River Cruises, Sandals and Beaches resorts, loyalty, digital and technology and broadening our vacation platform and creating more ways for our guests to interact and vacation with us. We are executing from a position of strength with a growing base of oil gas an expanding portfolio of differentiated vacation experiences and significant opportunities ahead. With that, I will turn the call over to Naftali. Naf?

Thank you, Jason, and good morning, everyone. I will start by reviewing third quarter results. Adjusted earnings per share were $6.57, $0.26 higher than the midpoint of our guidance. Growth in both yields and capacity drove a 9% increase in total revenue for the quarter. Yields for the quarter were 60 basis points above our guidance driven by stronger close-in demand compared to our expectations in July, particularly in Europe and the Caribbean. . Net cruise costs per APCD, excluding fuel, decreased 1.8% year-over-year, approximately 40 basis points better than expected or $0.05 due to timing of costs shifting into the fourth quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was $2.5 billion, margin was 45% and operating cash flow was $1.6 billion. As Jason noted, booking activity accelerated during the quarter, and our booked position for '26 and '27 is ahead of prior years at record rates. As I discussed last quarter, a more favorable year-over-year comparison, deployment mix and the timing of dry docks provide an approximately 200 basis point benefit to fourth quarter yields in 2026 following a similar headwind in the third quarter. Capacity is expected to grow 6.6% this year. The Caribbean represents 57% of our capacity and 44% in the fourth quarter. We remain well-positioned in the Caribbean, where our ships, destinations and onboard experiences set us apart driving positive net yield this year even with the elevated capacity in the region. Europe will account for 15% of capacity for the year and 10% of capacity in the fourth quarter. Our Europe season has been very successful even with the geopolitical events this year. Lastly, Alaska is expected to account for 5% of total capacity for the year and immaterial for the fourth quarter. Now let me talk about our updated guidance for 2026. For the full year, net yields are expected to grow approximately 2.1% in constant currency. The increase in yield guidance is driven by out-performance in the third quarter and expectations for fourth quarter yields that are in line with our July guidance. Together with capacity growth of 6.6%, Total revenue is expected to grow 9%. Net cruise costs, excluding fuel, are expected to be approximately flat in constant currency, consistent with our prior guidance. This reflects ongoing efficiency improvements while continuing to invest in the guest experience. We now expect full year fuel expense of approximately $1.35 billion, fourth quarter consumption is 58% hedged and we have continued to opportunistically add hedges for future years. Based on current fuel prices, currency exchange rates and interest expense, we expect full year adjusted earnings per share to be $17.85 to $17.95. This brings us in line with our initial earnings expectations in January reflecting the strength of the underlying business despite the significant fuel and exchange rate headwinds and the impact we experienced during the year from geopolitical events. Our higher earnings outlook also reflects stronger-than-expected third quarter results, partially offset by higher projected fuel costs and unfavorable currency movements. We expect continued cash flow to grow to support margin expansion, investment in our strategic initiatives, solid investment-grade balance sheet metrics and continued capital returns to shareholders. Now let me discuss our fourth quarter guidance. In the fourth quarter, capacity is expected to increase 5% year-over-year, and net yields are expected to grow between 4.2% and 4.7% in constant currency in line with our July expectations. As we discussed last quarter, yield growth in the fourth quarter reflects strong demand, a more favorable year-over-year comparison, deployment mix and the timing of dry docks. Net cruise costs, excluding fuel, are expected to decrease between 0.9% and 1.4% in constant currency. We expect fourth quarter fuel expense of approximately $379 million based on current at the pump prices, net of hedging and forecasted consumption of approximately 463,000 metric tons. Taking all of this into account, we expect adjusted earnings per share for the fourth quarter to be between $3.48 and $3.58. Looking ahead to 2027, we expect capacity growth of 4.5%, driven by new hardware and fewer dry dock capacity days. 2027 deployment mix will be similar to 2026 with 56% in the Caribbean, 16% in Europe, 11% in Asia Pacific and 5% in Alaska. We are also very excited to welcome Hero of the Seas to the fleet in 2027 and as well as beginning operating celebrity River. With Hero of the Seas launching on the 7-night Miami program, icon of the Seas will move to Galveston, our first icon class ship in this home port. We expect yield growth to be weighted towards the second half of the year as the first quarter faces approximately 200 basis points of structural headwinds, including timing of dry docks. Turning to our balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $7.4 billion in liquidity and leverage below 3x, consistent with our goal of solid investment-grade metrics. During the quarter, we issued $1.25 billion of approximately 5.5% senior unsecured notes due 2034 with the proceeds used to repay a portion of our floating rate term loans and debt maturing in 2027. In October, we also entered into a $400 million delayed draw term loan with Export Development Canada, a new service of capital for us and increased our revolving credit facility by $50 million to $6.65 billion. We continue to maintain strong access to diverse sources of capital that support our liquidity, strategic growth initiatives and shareholder returns. I want to provide a few additional details on our investment in Sandals and Beaches Resorts. We expect to account for the investment as an unconsolidated equity method investment where results reported on a 1 quarter lag. We expect the transaction to close in early 2027 and for the investment to be immediately accretive to our financial metrics and grow over time. The contribution to 2027 earnings will be immaterial and depend on when the transaction closes. As Jason mentioned, the business has significant growth ahead of it, including room expansion, new resorts and potential acquisitions. With strong cash flow generation and leverage below 1x, the company can self-fund the ambitious development plan while leaving room for distributions. At this point, we do not expect to make any more contributions into the joint venture beyond the initial purchase price. The equity income will be included in our financial guidance following the close of the transaction, and we expect to provide more detail then. In closing, we remain committed and focused on our mission to deliver the best vacation experiences responsibly as we work to deliver another year of strong results. With that, I will ask our operator to open the call for a question-and-answer session.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Matthew Boss with JPMorgan.

So Jason, as you approach the end of your Perfecta plan, underlying earnings growth as you cited, is pacing to exceed the 20% earnings growth CAGR if you exclude the impact from the additional fuel. So as we think multiyear, do you see any moderation in the way you're thinking about multiyear prospects for cruise? And any change in confidence around larger picture market share opportunities in that $2 trillion plus total vacation market?

Well, thanks for the question. I'll start off with the short answer, which is, no, I do not. What we see is, obviously, whether it's our business, whether in the general cruise space, we are a sliver of this growing $2 trillion plus travel space. And quite frankly, that space is predicted to expand at a faster rate then we're going to grow and the cruise industry is going to grow. So I see really strong high-quality demand for the vacation experiences that our different brands are delivering. They are the leaders in their segments. They're doing that through this incredible innovation on the ships that we build. The vacation experience is that we're delivering all those ships by our incredible crew and of course, the destinations, which we continue to bring on online here, which is elevating guest satisfaction. Collectively, those things drive NPS score in the low to mid-70s. So trust is high, expectations are that we're going to deliver the best vacation experience and doing that in a responsible way. And that's resulting in us getting more reps. You combine that with adding river and you're adding all-inclusive resorts further deepens our relationship with our customers, and we're getting more and more reps either on which we're clearly showing in the numbers. So we're very excited, obviously, about the performance this year. We're very encouraged by all the signals we're getting for next year and beyond. And Matt, that's a long way of me saying, we feel really confident in the future. And we -- with the trust that we've built as well as the technology platforms, whether it's with AI or digital and the connectivity we're bringing across our brands, we feel very confident that we're going to get a greater share of our guests and our customers' vacation wallet. And that vacation wallet is -- we take that very seriously to make sure we're delivering high-quality vacations and they're getting high value for that. But also that share is typically coming because we're able to curate and identify these high-value customers. It's resulting in higher margin and higher lifetime value for that customer.

Your next question comes from Steve Wissink with Stifel.

Congratulations on the strong results here. So Jason, I want to ask another question about 2027. As we think about getting to your $20 handle next year, I would assume look, you're not ready to give exact yield and cost guidance for next -- for 2027, but I would assume it's going to fall under your company tagline of moderate capacity and yield growth and disciplined cost control. Having said that, I would assume getting to that $20 plus in earnings next year does not include any type of help from things like Sandals, buybacks, debt refis, and I would also assume that oil prices stay status quo, that's probably embedded in there as well. Just want to make sure that as we think about next year, some of the potential upside to that $20 number. And then if I can ask a second question as well, Jason. As we think about the 1,000 acres of undeveloped land that Sandals has -- can you just help us think about maybe what some of the potential development opportunities could be there over time as well?

Sure. So I think, first, your first point, Steve. One, we don't know exactly when the Sandals transaction is going to close. Our expectations will be into this year, early next year, but we don't know exactly when it's going to close. And it's also going to be on a quarter lag. . So to answer your first question, whether it is Sandals, whether it is share buybacks, debt refinancings, et cetera, that is stuff that is not in consideration to our statement around next year. And as Naf said in his comments, as we close at that point in time, we'll know -- the timing of that, we'll know what the forecast is based off of the lag. And at that point, we will update guidance. But regardless, we expect the impact for next year to be material to our business. So you have another...

Steve, just on the second question on the land. So the purchase price that we paid and we've agreed to include that 1,000 acres. This is beachfront key locations. We're very excited about continuing to have the company develop that. They have a very, very strong track record of development and enhancements and growing their existing footprint. Lots of these lands are actually adjacent to existing properties. So these are just building on the current infrastructure they have and they'll just the room expansions in existing locations, and they have -- and there's also a couple of opportunities to do greenfield development in really attractive locations and markets. Today, they have 18 resorts and 3 of them are being built. So lots of room to grow, expand the keys -- and we, of course, as you know, are very focused on making sure that consistent with our core business, those are developed, of course, to guest satisfaction scores, but also accretive financial results.

Yes. And I just -- I think it's important to be clear because I know there's been lots of questions that we've gotten about are we going to show up at Sandals, St. Vincent with a cruise ship and tender people into that beautiful resort. The answer to that is no. Sandals needs to be Sandals, beaches needs to be beaches. And there is this massive land bank. And of course, we will collectively be reevaluating on how -- we evaluating how we grow this business and also where there might be adjacencies or opportunities, pre-post, et cetera, with our other cruise brands. But we're trying -- these are additional vacations our guests are taking and we want to make sure they're taking that additional vacation with us. And I think we are very keen. And ultimately, as I made in my comment, we think that -- and not just we think this, but also our partner in this feels very confident that what we have been able to build with technology with AI the connected loyalty, obviously, our huge supply chain footprint, et cetera, that there's an opportunity for us to just bring greater scale and synergy to the business, which will not only help elevate the current performance, but it's also going to provide a lot of tailwinds to grow this business. And as Naf said, the growth of this business is self-contained because this business generates a tremendous amount of cash flow, including the opportunities for dividends. And so we're very excited about this. And as last I'll say this land when you see it, it's -- I mean, yes, it's adjacent. There are other greenfield opportunities on other parcels of land that are inside this land bank. But it's -- this is not stuff that you can just go buy off the shelf. This has been curated, I mean, brilliantly by the Stewart family.

Your next question comes from Trey Bowers with Wells Fargo.

I was just going to ask about the '27 commentary where you guys mentioned being up high teens for next year. It's a little bit different language than you guys sometimes use when discussing the book position. I mean it's obviously a really impressive number. I just want to make sure I understand what that represents in terms of is it year-over-year? Or is it quarter-over-quarter? And in terms of the pricing dynamics underlying that are those up again next year?

Yes. I would read that we're just trying to give you a measurement on how we've seen demand elevate for future periods. And of course, we're booked. Our book position is at a higher place and at higher rates. . And I think in the course, we're always and you've heard me say this before in the past, we're looking to optimize always our revenue performance. Rate should be at any given point, which I think is why we're seeing the level of performance that we've now seen for several years out of this. But I would take the commentary as customers are willing to pay us more in the future and today than they did yesterday. And I think that is -- and of course, we're also getting more reps out of our existing customers because our brands, our crew are delivering the very best vacation experiences, which are clearly seen in Net Promoter Scores, which create huge advocacy for us that are in the low to mid-70s.

Your next question comes from Ben Jagan with Mizuho.

There was an interesting comment in the release this morning Jason, it says 30% of real Caribbean guests take all inclusive vacations and a similar percentage of Sandals beaches, guests also cruise maybe in broad strokes, what is the penetration of that today, being 30% take all inclusive, but how many or what percentage or Sandals versus elsewhere, and then vice versa for the percentage of Sandals that are showing up at Royal in broad strokes.

It's Naf. It's a good portion, but there's definitely room to grow, and we see that in the results. And when we say they take Sandals [indiscernible], there definitely crews on some of our competitors. And as Jason said before, right, we are very much focused on loyalty. We see our loyalty continuing to grow. We see repeat rates are growing. And so we definitely feel that there is a significant opportunity to capture that and keep them in our ecosystem. That's really our strategy. That's our goal.

Yes. And Ben, I always like to put things in a simple format, which is like today, if a royal Caribbean customer goes on a competitive cruise brand, I think that's a fail. We offer I think the very vestification experiences in the key segments, and we go to well over 1,000 different destinations. And so having connected loyalty and delivering these incredible experiences should keep our customer inside of our ecosystem. Today, that customer might exit our ecosystem to go into river. But into the future, right, as we get into next year, if a customer is not traveling on Celebrity River across our ecosystem, that's a fail. And then you take that 1 step further with all-inclusive, People go to a lot of different all-inclusive resorts for many different reasons. But we feel very confident in the level of experience that Sandals and Beach is producing that when our customers go into all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean. They should be going to Sandals and beaches. And collective, we want to keep that customer in our ecosystem, as I said, because we get better margin -- and we ensure that customer gets the vacation experience that they really desire to go and then we get the repeat rate out of that as well.

Yes. Just 1 other thing to note. Similar to what we've seen in River, where the occasion was an incremental not a substitution. The same trend we saw -- we see here as well with all inclusive -- and so the occasion is different, maybe the way you travel or the guest is traveling or the occasion itself. And so that incrementality is really encouraging to us, and we're very excited about making sure that, that comes to us. .

Your next question comes from Meredith Jensen with HSBC.