Speaking during the company’s 2023 financial results call on Thursday (1 February), president Jason Liberty said travel agents do an “exceptional job” helping guests and are a key component of the company’s sales strategy. 

However, he added: “We’re really channel agnostic. We want to show up wherever guests want to book their cruise. 

“Which means that [the booking journey] could take customers to our travel partners who do an exceptional job helping guests identify the experiences that they want to have. 

“Customers want to have very little friction with their booking experience.” 

Liberty said there was “nothing” being forecasted that “does not point to acceleration” in terms of the firm’s growth.

“Everything points north in the bookings environment,” he said, adding: “There will be no slowdown from Q2 forward. We’re extremely optimistic about Q2 and beyond. The bookings and level of onboard spend activity is exceptionally strong.” 

Royal reported a 2023 net income of $1.7 billion on Thursday. The result compares with a net loss of $2.2 billion in 2022 and a deficit of $5.3 billion in 2021. 

Total passenger revenues rose from $8.8 billion to $13.9 billion year-on-year after passenger numbers of 7.6 million outstripped the 2019 figure of 6.5 million for the first time. 

Liberty said Royal was “obsessed” with narrowing the gap with land-based holidays. “We can see how much cruise has moved into the average person’s consideration for travel,” he noted. “Our repeat passenger rate has doubled. 

“We’re leveraging our house of brands. We think that land-based brands do this really well and we’re focused on doing this really well.” 

Michael Bayley, the Royal Caribbean International president, said the recently launched Icon of the Seas is a  “game-changing hit”. “[Icon] works well with our target market,” Bayley said. “If we have a product that people are impressed with then we’re almost there. [Icon is] epic.

“We’ve got a huge opportunity with Icon. Our direction is very much focused on the future and development of that product.” 

Liberty added Royal Caribbean Group brands – Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea Cruises – were increasingly using artificial intelligence to curate the experiences available to customers.

“We’re getting better and better at that every day,” he said.