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Carnival cuts prices as bookings falter
Carnival, the world's largest cruise company, has cut prices in an attempt to counteract the uncertainty of war with Iraq, reports the Financial Times.
The US group, which is buying its UK rival P&O Princess, said 2003 bookings were at last year's levels, but volumes had not risen in line with increases in passenger capacity.
Carnival, which will form a company listed in New York and London from its £2.7bn P&O deal, said it was 'too early to give net revenue guidance for he remainder of 2003.' It added: 'Carnival is not able to give specific guidance for second quarter net revenue yields, other than it expects them to be less than last year.'
Howard Frank, Carnival's chief operating officer, said: 'People don't want to be away from home for very long, so in order to get them to go on cruises we have to stimulate the market a little bit. We're hopeful that once the war is over the market will come back.'
P&O Princess - which last month said that the prospect of war with Iraq was deterring US tourists from taking cruises in European waters, said bookings continued to be low. The company is redeploying one of its cruise vessels from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean area because of the current reluctance of American tourists to cross the Atlantic.
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