Cruise-ship company Royal Caribbean announced that it planned to resume Caribbean sailings in June, starting from the Bahamas. Royal Caribbean is planning to include seven-night cruises onboard Adventure of the Seas from its new homeport, Nassau, Bahamas, with visits to its private island CocoCay, Grand Bahama and Cozumel, Mexico. The company said that people can start booking their cruises...

Macquarie upgraded three big cruise stocks to outperform from neutral: Norwegian Cruise Line , Carnival and Royal Caribbean, on easing of the pandemic situation. Macquarie analyst Paul Golding wrote in a commentary, “With Covid cases dropping and vaccine penetration rising, we think most negative catalysts are now in the rear-view mirror” . “While [the] shares have bounced quite a way off...

They have a $180 price target – a Wall Street high.

"ABNB created the short-term rental market and is the clear leader in the space.The strong brand has created a powerful flywheel for its two-sided marketplace (guests and hosts) and enables the company to generate the significant majority of its traffic directly, which is unparalleled in the online travel sector," analyst Shyam Patil wrote. 

A $103 price target represented a 26% downside from the stock's closing price on Friday of $139.25. "An overwhelming majority of investors we’ve spoken with have been unable to justify Airbnb’s valuation premium relative to OTAs and expressed interest in realizing their quick gains," said analyst Robert Mollins." According to Mollins,   Airbnb’s valuation is "more than stretched" compared to other stocks in the online travel category. But Gordon Hasketn analysts think that  said Airbnb's IPO was well timed, allowing investors to get a piece of the company when its gross book volume was low due to the coronavirus pandemic.       

  The initial phases will consist of placing safeguards for crew members, and the CDC will ensure that ship operators have adequate protective equipment for the crews.    This will be followed by a phase where ship operators will have to build the laboratory capacity for testing passengers for covid-19.  In the next phases,  the cruise lines will conduct simulated voyages to test ship operators' ability to mitigate covid-19.Subject to passing the tests, ships will be certified to resume voyages.   

  On Wednesday Morgan Stanley analyst Jamie Rollo resumed coverage of Royal Caribbean underweight ratings.Rollo gave Carnival a underweight rating, and downgraded Norwegian to underweight as well. RCL's 10-day Moving Average broke above its 50-day Moving Average on May 08, 2020 This price move may be construed as a buy signal, indicating that the trend is shifting higher.

However,  future bookings remain solid. The cruiseline company’s adjusted loss came in at -99 cents a share, compared to a loss of -28 cents a share expected by analysts polled by FactSet.  Revenue of $1.25 billion was lower than the year-ago quarter’s $1.4 billion. But the company said that there is demand for  cruise vacations, particularly beginning in the fourth quarter 2020 accelerating through 2021, and that the company’s overall booked position and pricing for 2021 within historical ranges.  

Royal Caribbean Cruises  revealed that it has $2.45 billion in cash and cash equivalents. The cruise company that it had cash of approximately $2.3 billion as of April 30. it also mentioned that on May 4 it boosted its 364-day senior secured credit facility and drew $150 million. "These are unprecedented times for all of us.Travel restrictions and stay-at-home orders are important to slowing the spread of the virus, but they have severely impacted our operations," Royal Caribbean CEO Richard Fain said in the statement. As of March 31, the company had $2.4 billion in customer deposits. The  company projects  monthly cash burn of $250 million to $275 million ,while its cruise ships remain docked amid Covid-19 crisis. Its debt maturities are  $400 million this year and $900 million next year.

On Wednesday, Royal Caribbean  announced  that it was extending its "Cruise with Confidence" cancellation policy through April 2022 in response to uncertainty posed  by the coronavirus pandemic. For new and existing bookings made by Aug. 1, passengers are allowed to cancel their cruises up to 48 hours prior to sailing and will receive a full credit of the cruise fare for a future cruise through April 2022. All cruises with sailing dates on or before April 2022 and across the company's brands: Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara, will also be covered by the policy.

The Saudi sovereign investment fund has 8.2% stake in Carnival Corp. The cruise line now has Saudi Public Investment Fund as its third largest stakeholder. The investment fund's stake in the company is valued at nearly $370 million. The fund did not own any Carnival share as of its fourth-quarter SEC filing. Recently, Carnival increased its dollar-bond offering to $4 billion from $3 billion, while reducing  its interest rate for the bonds to about 12% from 12.5%.This corresponds to the company’s decision to drop a euro-denominated tranche (according to Bloomberg citing sources familiar with the matter).

Royal Caribbean Cruises has expanded its revolving-credit facility. As Coronavirus crisis dampens near-term prospects of the travel industry (among other sectors of the economy), Royal Caribbean’s  $550 million increase of credit capacity potentially allows it to have more liquidity buffer against challenging times. The cruise line company is also hoping to boost liquidity by at least an additional $1.7 billion in 2020, by  lowering expenses. Royal Caribbean also said it was planning to reduce its 2021 capital expenditures and operating expenses. Chairman and CEO Richard D. Fain said that the company is trying to manage the situation “prudently and conservatively”.

Carnival shares declined on Thursday, after analysts at SunTrust abandoned their bullish outlook on the cruiseline company’s shares. According to SunTrust  analysts, the company "lacks near-term catalysts". In a research note to clients, SunTrust analyst C. Patrick Scholes wrote that he is giving up the buy rating on Carnival, following a survey of travel agencies that implied reduced demand for Carnival vacations relative to its peers.Carnival is generating lower sales compared to its competitors, in particular Norwegian Cruise and Royal Caribbean.  Scholes also slashed his one-year price target on Carnival shares to $47 from $58.  

On Thursday, Expedia reported quarterly earnings that lagged analysts' expectations. The online travel company’s earnings came in at $3.38 a share for the third quarter, falling short of $3.82 estimate of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research, and below $3.79-a-share estimate of analysts polled by FactSet.But the figure is higher than the $3.28 billion the company reported during the same quarter in 2018. Expedia’s operating income declined -9% year-over-year to $609 million. Hotel bookings grew at  +11% in the quarter, which is a slower rate compared to +13% a year before, as indicated by the company.

Carnival Corp. shares are declining Thursday, following a lowering of its fiscal 2019 profit outlook. Carnival has predicted that full fiscal year’s  adjusted earnings would now range between $4.23 and $4.27 a share, versus its prior guidance of $4.25 to $4.35.Its revenue for that quarter came in at $6.5 billion, compared to analysts’ estimate of $6.16 billion.     

Over the last three and a half months, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NYSE: NCLH) has been struggling a bit, or at least its stock has.This could provide a dual layer of resistance that the stock has to break through in order to move higher. The daily stochastic readings are in overbought territory at this time and they performed a bearish crossover on August 14.

Bookings Holdings shares declined close to -10% Thursday morning. The company, which operates several travel fares aggregators and travel search engines, reported earnings of $22.49 per share (on a GAAP basis), beating analysts’ estimates of $19.39 per share.Piper Jaffray's Michael Olson downgraded the firm’s stock to neutral from overweight, while lowering his price target to $1,800 a share from $2,100.

Revenue of $2.6 billion exceeded Wall Street estimate of $2.5 billion, and were also +10% higher compared to the year-ago quarter. The online travel platform had total gross bookings (by customers on rooms, flights and other travel across Expedia’s brands) of $21.96 billion - which indicates a year-over-year growth of +11%.Annual revenue of $11.2 billion was +12% higher, compared to 2017. The company projects that its adjusted earnings (before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) will increase in the range of +10% to +15% in 2019.

Yatra Online, a NASDAQ-listed online travel service provider which operates Yatra.com, declared on Wednesday the acquisition of the Chennai, India-based corporate travel services provider PL Worldways Limited (PLW). Although the financial details of this transaction are yet to be disclosed, Yatra is optimistic that this acquisition will help them buttress its foothold in South India and will add over 100 corporate clients to Yatra’s existing portfolio of over 700 companies. Dhruv Shringi, co-founder and CEO Yatra Online, said that this acquisition will add to the existing reputation of PL Worldways in South India that already has a strong customer focus and consumer service.This new development will further enhance Yatra’s position in the corporate travel sector and a strong presence in South India has long been in its priority list. The acquisition will also offer an opportunity to cross sell Yatra’s vast hotels network to PLW’s large client portfolio.

Carnival Corp. reported solidly positive growth in its earnings, but hinted at the possibility of higher fuel costs pulling down profits throughout the year. The cruise line operator’s fiscal third-quarter profit increased 28% to $1.71 billion,.Per share earnings of $2.41 beat Wall Street expectations of $2.31 per share. Revenue jumped 5.8 % to $5.84 billion – topping consensus estimate of $5.82 billion. But as the firm is wary of fuel costs eating into profits, it projected its per-share earnings to range from 65 cents to 69 cents for the current quarter ending in November – which is a lower range compared to Wall Street estimates for 73 cents per share.