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Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd announced last
week that it had entered into an agreement to sell Celebrity Cruises’
1,814-berth cruise ship Century to Exquisite Marine Ltd.
The selling price has been estimated as $157 million and the sale
will result in a non-cash loss of approximately $20 million dollars to Royal
Caribbean, which will be excluded from adjusted net income in the company’s
third quarter results. Celebrity will continue to operate the Century until
April 2015.
Exquisite is a wholly owned subsidiary of Skyseas Holding International, a
company co-founded by Ctrip and other investors to target Chinese customers with
world-class and tailor-made cruise products. Ctrip is a major Chinese
online travel agency that says it now sells 10% of all cruise tickets sold in
the Chinese market.
Ctrip also said it had entered into a memorandum of understanding with Royal
Caribbean to form a joint venture to manage the operation of the acquired cruise
ship and potentially to broaden the relationship.
Liang Jianzhang, Ctrip ceo, is on record as having said that it planned to enter
the cruise sector and sees this as an important future strategy for the company.
It recently expanded into Korea, establishing a branch there just last month.
According to Ctrip vice-chair Min Fan, the company has sent over 120,000 guests
on cruises to date and has a 10% share of the Chinese cruise market. That would
be enough to fill the Century for about fifteen months.
Century was built by Meyer Werft in Papenburg, Germany, and joined Celebrity
Cruises in December 1995. Until now, it had been intended that she would be
transferred to Pullmantur’s Croisières de France operation in April.
In recent weeks, other rumours originating in China have seen Ctrip saying they
“were in talks” to acquire the 1,900-berth Mein Schiff I and Mein Schiff 2 from
TUI Cruises, a joint venture of Royal Caribbean and German travel company TUI.
These two ships were built as the Galaxy and Mercury, the second and third of
the Century class that were built to a slightly longer length overall.
TUI Cruises took delivery of Mein Schiff 3, the first of four 2,500-berth
newbuildings, this year, with others to follow in each of 2015, 2016 and 2017.
Royal Caribbean has made little comment on the extent of any joint venture with
Ctrip, while any word on the potential sale of the two TUI ships to Ctrip
remains “Chinese rumours.” Nevertheless, one is never to know just when
one or both of the former Celebrity ships might become surplus to requirement at
TUI.
Meanwhile, as well as having based its 3,114-berth Explorer of the Seas and
Voyager of the Seas in China on a seasonal basis, Royal Caribbean has allocated
the new 4,180-berth Quantum of the Seas to be based in Shanghai year-round
starting in 2015. |
