Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE:CCL) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Josh Weinstein : Well, I don’t know if I’m talking to you anymore, Steve. Putting that aside, nice to hear from you. We – basically, we’d expect to be getting back to the norm, which is low-single-digit cost increases. So, we expect a nice differential between what we’d be expecting on the yield side and what we’d be expecting on the cost side. There is, as we think about the ins and outs, there’s good news with the occupancy, but it does come with a little bit of bad news, which is that type of step-up in occupancy will have a bit of a cost drag, which we’re very happy to take. We’re still going to be thinking through our advertising planning as it gets to 2024 and beyond. And as you’ve heard us talk about before, that’s been very successful.

And so, we’ll come to more concrete plans as we get into the fall for the following year. And so, there are some particular things as we think about our trajectory. But overall, you can expect that I would expect a difference between those growth rates.

Steve Wieczynski: Okay. And then, since you already don’t like me, I’m going to stay on costs a little bit, but you guys have now – you’ve raised your cost guidance two quarters in a row. And look, I understand the stock comp stuff, I understand the inflationary pressures, but first of all, I just want to make sure I hope that you guys now have a pretty good handle on costs for the remainder of the year, and more so around the advertising investments that you mentioned in your prepared remarks and how you expect those to pay-off over time? I guess I’m just a little bit confused about what we’re seeing today from a demand perspective versus the fact that you guys need to market more aggressively? So, any color there would be helpful.

Josh Weinstein: Sure. So, with respect to the comments about looking at the fourth quarter advertising spend and maybe taking it up for 2024, there’s two things. There’s getting the occupancy and getting it at a price that we want to get it at. And we do think that the advertising spend and the way we’ve been doing it has been effective not just on getting the volume, but getting it to a place where we can take the price up to where we want to get it to. And so, we will continue to look at that to see where we can get to, to be honest with you. So, I wouldn’t look at advertising as a one and done. We’ve somehow gotten back to something. We want to maximize. We want to optimize. And so, we’re going to keep doing – sorry, there’s some sirens in the background here. So, we’ll keep thinking that through and ratcheting up or ratcheting back depending on its effectiveness.

Steve Wieczynski: Okay, got you. Thanks guys. Thanks, Josh. Appreciate it.

Josh Weinstein : All right.

Operator: Our next question comes from James Hardiman with Citi. Please proceed.

James Hardiman: Hey, good morning. Hopefully everything is going okay over there.

Josh Weinstein: I’m in New York. That’s all you need to know, right?

James Hardiman: That’s all you need to know, exactly. Just a clarification on the three-year target math, I guess to about $6.7 billion in adjusted EBITDA for 2026, and then, is that the right math? And then also as we think about getting back to investment grade, 3.5x leverage seems to be the number that would presumably get you there. Are those two generally in-line with how you’re thinking about EBITDA and leverage metrics for 2026?

Josh Weinstein: Yes, you got it, right on the head.