Royal Caribbean misses revenue estimates as Omicron, Ukraine crisis hamper demand

div classBodysc17zpet90 cdBBJodivpReuters – Royal Caribbean Group on Thursday missed Wall Street estimates for quarterly revenue, as a resurgence in COVID19 infections in some parts of the world and Russia‘s invasion of Ukraine hampered people’s travel plans.p

pShares of Royal Caribbean Group fell about 1 in premarket trading even as the company said booking volumes in March and April were significantly higher compared to the same period in 2019.pdivdivdiv classBodysc17zpet90 cdBBJodiv

pThe omicron variant of coronavirus that has been a cause of concern globally has forced people to reassess their travel decisions with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC asking people at one point to avoid cruise travel due to reports of COVID19 outbreaks on cruises.p

pHowever, in March CDC removed its COVID19 notice against cruise travel almost two years after introducing a warning scale.p

pIn March, Royal Caribbean Group joied rivals Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd and Carnival Corp in canceling sailings to Russia and said it was removing Russian port city St. Petersburg from its upcoming itineraries.

pThe cruise operator‘s revenue rose to 1.06 billion in the first quarter from 42.01 million a year earlier, but missed analysts’ average estimate of 1.15 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv

Reporting by Ananya Mariam Rajesh in Bengaluru Editing by Shinjini Ganguli

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