Press Release

Cruise Lines

3655 NW 87^th Avenue

Miami, FL 33178

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

Contact:

Public Relations Department, (305) 406-8630, media@carnival.com

CARNIVAL CRUISE LINES PASSANGERS ROBBED ON A MEXICAN EXCURSION

 

PUERTO VALLARTA (February 23, 2012) –  Today, Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012, passengers on board the Carnival Cruise Lines were held at gunpoint and robbed on a trail excursion they scheduled.  The passengers were on board the Carnival Splendor on a 7-day cruise of the Mexican Riviera that departed from Miami port on Sunday, Feb. 19, 2012.

“Carnival sincerely apologizes to its guests for this very unfortunate and disturbing event and its providing its full support and assistance,” a statement from Carnival Cruise Lines.

There were 22 passengers involved with the robbery in which Carnival passengers where held at gunpoint.  The robbers stole passports, money and other valuable items.  The tour guide was able to translate the robber’s demands and telling the passengers how to cooperate. All passengers returned safely back to the ship uninjured.

The guided nature trail excursion is one of 35 trips passengers can sign up to participate in when docked at Puerto Vallarta.  This excursion has now been suspended from the cruise line.

Carnival is now in the process of reimbursing all passengers involved for their stolen items along with reimbursement for the excursion and providing any additional assistance required.  Carnival is dedicated to making all passengers feel safe and secure.

_______

Carnival is “The World’s Most Popular Cruise Line®”, with 23 ships operating three to 18 day voyages.  We offer a wide array of quality cruises, and pride ourselves on delivering memorable vacations to our guests. A Carnival cruise offers not only outstanding value for the money, but most importantly, fun! For more information or to book your next cruise, visit www.carnival.com

Situation Analysis

Carnival Corporation and PLC are handling the recent situation that occurred during a Carnival cruise in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.  The situation that we are currently working through is the robbery of 22 Carnival passengers during a daytime excursion. At this time we know that the passengers were on their way back from a nature walk excursion through the Mexican jungle. The passengers were on the bus when the robbers attacked them.  These men were wearing hoods that covered their faces and held the passengers at gunpoint.  The men stopped the bus around 5:00 pm and took cameras, money, watches, passports and other valuable items before fleeing.   Thankfully no one was injured and the passengers were able to return safely to the ship.  This excursion is one of 35 options for Carnival passengers to take part in while they are docked in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.  Carnival has since suspended the nature trail tour, where the guests were robbed.  At this time we are making it our priority to assist the passengers with all their needs.  We have reimbursed each one for their payment of the excursion and reimbursing them the value of their stolen items.  Carnival Corporation is also assisting all passengers whose passports were stolen by aiding their reprint.   Our goal is to make the process and easy and smooth for everyone involved and to help our customers feel safe, secure and well taken care of.  We have generated this online newsroom to address what went wrong, how we as a company can do everything possible to prevent a situation like this from happening again, and how we will ensure the safety and security of our current and future passengers.

SWOT Analysis

Carnival Cruise Lines primarily operates in North America, UK, Germany, New Zealand, Spain, Brazil and Australia. It is headquartered in Miami, Florida, with another headquarters in London, UK. The company operated 93 cruise ships and was set up as a subsidiary of the American International Travel Service by Ted Arison in 1972.

Strengths:
• Carnival has a 47% market share in the UK, 68% in Italy, 51% in Germany and 45% in France.
• Global Presence.
• Strong Consumer Demand in Europe.
• Diverse Staff.
• Tons of entertainment on aboard all fun ships.
• They are such a large company that they have significant cost advantages over most of their competitors.

Weaknesses:
• Hurricanes and Other Bad Weathers.
• Rising Cost of Fuel.
• Another weakness is that Carnival reports their financial statements in dollars.
• If the dollar strengthens it would record lower revenue than is actually earned.
• Carnival derives a majority of its revenue (nearly 52%) from US customers.

Opportunities:
• Expand the Luxury Liners.
• They are planning to increase berth capacity for the European market 37%.
• Off more destinations.
• They are also planning to introduce the larger cruise liner Costa Romantica.
• Carnival announced the union of Costa Europa with Thomson Cruises, a British Travel Company.

Threats:
• Competition:
Royal Caribbean Cruise Line
Star Cruise Line
• Carnival has been taking advantage of special tax loopholes to avoid paying US corporation taxes.
• In 2009, Carnival experienced bad press when three passengers fell off ships in a three week period.

Analysis of Target Audience

The target audience for Carnival Cruise Line is directed toward the female audience whose ages range from 35-54 years old. Research based off of Quantcast.com shows these females do not have kids, according to the statistics.  This demographic is who we find visits the Carnival website more frequently.  According to Alexa.com, we at Carnival want to start reaching out to other demographics.  This demographic includes and doesn’t exclude those audiences who obtain a college background and are from the United States. Through these online research websites, we at Carnival Cruise Lines utilizes these tools to show our strengths and weaknesses in our target audience.  These programs help us by providing a strong background and foundation to what our marketing and advertising team needs to concentration on.  After the crisis of the robbery during a Carnival excursion, we want to reach out not only tour frequent online visitors of the female demographic but include other potential audiences.  These consumers for example are couples, single men and families.  Even though women appear to be the most active on our websites, we know that all demographics are looking and could be interested given the right enticement.  With the recent crisis that Carnival has been dealing with, we also want to reach out not only to our loyal passengers but future potential passengers that we are cruise line that takes great care and concern in everyone’s well being.  Our consumers need to know that they can trust us and that our determination to provide amazing experiences and safety go hand-in-hand.  We want to assure all customers, past, present and future, that we are dedicated to operating in ways that benefit them all.

Hello from Carnival!

Today we are here to discuss with all of you the recent robbery that occurred during a nature tail walk excursion from one of our ships.  As you all may have heard through the news as to what occurred on that day, the events are very real and the passengers, thankfully were unharmed.

 

We understand that at this point most of you may doubt our company, especially after the incident that took place off the coast of Italy prior to this robbery incident.  With these events happening back-to-back from one another we can only assume that you may not trust nor feel safe with us.  We are here to change all of that.

 

This blog spot has been created to initiate communication not only for the media’s purposes but mainly for the purpose of our valued and loyal customers.  At Carnival, we what to hear from those travelers who have considered us as a vacation option, but has yet to take part.

 

Carnival Cruise Lines is all about open communication.  We want to hear from you, answer any and all question or concerns you have about our products, what are plans are for the future, and how we want to maintain high safety and security for all passengers and workers on board.

 

Please write to use here, comments or ask questions, we want to hear it all!