Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE:CCL) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call December 21, 2023 10:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Beth Roberts - SVP of IR
Josh Weinstein - CEO
David Bernstein - CFO
Conference Call Participants
Steve Wieczynski - Stifel
Brandt Montour - Barclays
James Hardiman - Citi
Jaime Katz - Morningstar
Patrick Scholes - Truist
Robin Farley - UBS
Dan Politzer - Wells Fargo
Assia Georgieva - Infinity Research
Operator
Beth Roberts
Good morning. This is Beth Roberts, SVP Investor Relations. Welcome to our Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. I'm joined today by our CEO, Josh Weinstein, our Chief Financial Officer, David Bernstein; and our Chair, Micky Arison.
Before we begin, please note that some of our remarks on this call will be forward-looking. Therefore, I will refer you to the cautionary statement in today's press release. All references to ticket prices, net per diem, net yields and adjusted cruise costs without fuel will be in constant currency unless otherwise stated. References to per diems and yields will be on a net basis.
Our comments may also reference cruise costs without fuel, EBITDA, net income, net loss, earnings per share, free cash flow and ROIC, all of which will be on an adjusted basis, unless otherwise stated. All these references are non-GAAP financial measures defined in our earnings press release. A reconciliation to the most directly comparable U.S. GAAP financial measures and other associated disclosures are also contained in our earnings press release and in our investor presentation. Please visit our corporate website where our earnings press release and investor presentation can be found.
With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Josh.
Josh Weinstein
Thank you, Beth.
It's safe to say we ended the year on a high note and closed another quarter with record revenues, record booking levels and record customer deposits. In fact, we consistently set records in all four quarters this past year. We also achieved per diem EBITDA and net income for the fourth quarter that all exceeded the high end of our September guidance range with cruise cost ex fuel in line with expectations.
Fourth quarter yields continued on a positive trajectory, significantly higher than a very strong 2019 and even higher than we had anticipated and enabled us to overcome four years of high cost inflation to deliver per unit EBITDA that eclipsed 2019, holding fuel and currency constant. It was encouraged to see both North American and European brand occupancy levels exceed 101% in the fourth quarter with per diems for our North American brands up double-digits over 2019 and our European brands just shy of a double-digit increase.