Giles Hawke told TTG that “early indications” from wave season were “positive” after finishing last year on a “massive high”.
While he added every touchpoint on Celebrity’s ships would be “elevated” this year, he insisted current prices would remain the same going forward.
“We’re using data to affect everything that we do onboard,” he said, adding: “Through 2024 our big internal word is ‘elevate’. Every touchpoint is going to be elevated.”
He continued: “We aim to deliberately not compete with our competitors. We don’t think we need to drop to silly prices.
"We’re maintaining good average per-diems and good average selling prices because we know that customers are willing to pay for the product.
“We’re holding our price pretty firmly. It’s a been a solid tactic for a long time. Right now, with demand where it is, we don’t need to drop to prices that maybe some other people in the market are at.”
UK-based Celebrity Apex, Hawke said, is in “a really good position” in terms of how well sold it is. “[Apex] is better sold than our average for the year,” he said.
“She is performing better than our European ships, that is a combination of UK demand and international demand.
“We’re cautiously optimistic [about the future]. We’re happy with where we are.”
Hawke added that his EMEA team’s “big focus” was the Med. “Demand is strong,” he said. “This week, we’re ahead of where we expected to be. And our big swathe of activity with consumers and trade only starts now.”
He also admitted that the four Edge-series ships were driving the brand currently.
Claire Stirrup, UK and Ireland sales director, insisted that Celebrity was “different” from other lines.
“Celebrity is about value,” she said. “We’ve got a really strong frontline seller campaign.
“We’ve been doing a lot with trade pre-Christmas and last week because we want to make sure that they’ve got what they want.”
Hawke also revealed that Celebrity had increased its air capacity for fly-cruise customers for 2024 and confirmed that Celebrity was in discussions with mainstream airlines about chartering flights for 2025.
"We’ve got good allocation for 2024," he said. "We’ve got flights leading in from £49 for a range of sailings from Dublin, Manchester and Gatwick.
"We’ve added around 25% to our allocation [year on year]. Agents will be able to find air [options]," he said.
