New CEO of Royal Caribbean Group Jason Liberty spoke for the first time during a webinar in his new role on a variety of topics, such as becoming CEO and the short-term impact of the Omicron variant on business .
Mr. Liberty succeeded Richard Fain as CEO of Royal Caribbean Group on January 3, and he was invited to speak to travel agents during a Royal Caribbean International webinar.
Here are some of the intriguing topics covered during his speech.
100 day goal
Mr Liberty was asked what he wants to do in his first 100 days as CEO, and he’s starting to listen more
“Most of my time is going to be spent learning and listening to others,” he explained. “Spending time with our travel partners, I spend time with our customers and with our employees, and I spend time with many of our partners… what everyone is looking for.”
He also said that the continued return to service of the company is a priority, “we have about 80% of our fleet operational, ensuring that we continue to run it successfully is definitely a priority”.
When will Omicron rebound
Mr Liberty also asked about Omicron’s effects on the business and his take on the rebound.
He said the good news is people want to navigate, but consistency is the key, “[it’s] really, really clear that there is a very high demand for cruises and I think people are just looking for consistency. “
Mr Liberty leaned toward the second trimester to make things feel better overall, “I think for you, as we move into the second trimester and beyond we’re going to see a state of affairs. much more global based on where the experts I think the disease will be, as far as Covid is concerned, and that we will restart our fleet. ”
He later said that he thought the second trimester should look more like the first trimester was supposed to be before Omicron, “as far as our expectations go, when we look at the second trimester and beyond, that is very much in line with what than we expected in the first quarter, due to the impact of some of the canceled departures. “
No compromise on customer experience
Despite Covid’s challenges, Mr Liberty was adamant that he would not allow him to compromise what passengers can expect on his ships.
“I think it’s very important to note that even throughout this journey we have not compromised and will not compromise our customer experience.”
“We have a strong, long-term business. It is an exceptional company that is doing very well financially.”
“It’s a meteor that hit our industry”
Mr Liberty has used a few different metaphors to describe the success of cruise lines over the past two years due to Covid-19.
“It’s a meteor that hit our industry and we survived it,” he said later in the interview. The silver lining, as he describes it, is that it shows that they can adapt and overcome challenges by working together.
“I think it stems from the mentality of innovation and continuous improvement that we have.”
“These are good companies that just faced a black swan event.”
Is he a “bean counter”?
Since he was named successor to Richard Fain, some have pointed to the fact that Mr. Liberty comes from a financial background as a barrier to choosing him to run the company.
In response to such questions, Mr. Liberty explained that he was not what you might think, “I know sometimes there are things that come with, ‘Hey, that was a finance guy. , he’s a CFO guy, “but you should really understand and I appreciate … it’s actually the opposite of who I am.”
He pointed out that he was one of the main supporters of the company providing commissions and loans to travel agents during the pandemic, as an example of the collective industry’s place before company results. .
