One-on-one with Royal Caribbean's CXO Jay Schneider 

Opening Bell

How Royal Caribbean Innovates to Net Cruise Passengers

well, joining me now is jay Schneider chief product Innovation officer C XO at Royal Caribbean, J nice to have you on this morning. Thanks for having me and welcome aboard the oasis of the seas. I mean this boat really, it's one thing to see in pictures I imagine to see even on our tv screen right now, but to experience it in person really is a whole, another thing. You've got to come back and vacation our ship as a guest. Yes. And I said both guys, I'm gonna correct myself, it is shipped because boats are on ships. This is an amazing, more than a billion dollars ship that you guys have invested in. Want to get a sense from you. The reality is that you know, travel especially on cruise liners were suspended for about 18 months and a lot of travelers may be disconnected with what the reality is here on board. I'm curious as people now kind of get more comfortable with traveling, going on a cruise. How are you luring passengers, you know, back to this amazing experience, you know, prior to the pandemic. We talked a lot about how people want experiences. We had two years even know our amazon delivery guy really well, people don't want to do that anymore. They want to get back to traveling, seeing the world experiencing life and we are an experienced business, We're about building memories and we offer a great platform to do that. It's interesting because this has been an amazing experience and I talked about a moment ago, the value proposition that cruising right now offers especially admit like inflationary pressures, but but in terms of what that value proposition actually is, let's talk about the ongoing onboard experiences. What sort of new innovations are offerings? Is Royal Caribbean offering that you're not able to find in any other cruise liner. Listen, we offer more than 60 ships that go to destinations worldwide. It's everything from amazing broadway, theatrical type shows amazing culinary youth and family activity, new technology, entertainment. It's everything that you want to do on a vacation taking you to the best destinations in the world, including our own private destination. Perfect day of coke. Okay. In the wake of the pandemic, a lot of travelers really um were nervous about traveling. I think that nervousness, as I mentioned a moment ago, the hesitancy seems to be easing up a little bit. How is Royal Caribbean? Um, you know, innovating and digitizing its offerings really to ensure that passengers are feeling their safest as they, you know, go back to this new norm. Yeah, it's a great question. You know, we've spent the last 56 years Ironically getting ready for the pandemic and didn't know it. So we spent time making sure it was easy for people to get on board. We talked about getting you from car to bar in less than 10 minutes and that that really made it easy for us to come back as we returned ships into service because lines were gone, congestion was gone. We spent time knowing our customers. So as protocols changed in every ports and around the world, we could get you the right information. We made it easier for you to maximize your vacation. And we've seen a consumer come back wanting to spend more on board to get those experiences and we've made it easy for them to do it and it worked out the timing for us worked out really well. Speaking of the timing, the reality is just last month, Royal Caribbean installed SpaceX's Starlink internet satellite receivers on its freedom Class, kind of a cruise ships, freedom of the seas. How much of that is a game changer when it comes to kind of the connectivity that we can see our passengers can see as they board, you know, some of your ships. Yeah, it's a really great innovation for that. We've been playing with frankly on both freedom as well as in our private island coke. Okay, it's a, it's a step change. It's a game changing step changing connectivity. We know we have a more connected consumer coming out of the pandemic. Those consumers want to stay connected while experiencing great destinations and new satellite connectivity makes it tremendously easier for them. I mean the last two years has been an experience of relying on connectivity and I don't know that even coming out of the pandemic while you know, we may not have enjoyed that fully and wanted to have in person experience, You're gonna lose that connectivity and now you guys are seemingly branching that we hear from people often that say, don't I just want to go on vacation and leave my phone in the car. Well the reality is we have a lot of consumers who want to stay connected, who want to work when traveling, who want to take pictures, stream, post things on instagram and we won't make it easy for them to do that. I mean the reality is the past few years we've we've not only had that sense of connectivity, but you look at VR and the metaverse that as a concept has pushed the digitization kind of effort in almost every industry. What sort of virtual interactive experiences if any is war Caribbean offering passengers onboard, odyssey of the seas. We opened a new VR zone so you can go through a mixed reality, you put on a backpack, you go through a mixed reality experience where you fight the Kraken again, ways to leverage technology to really have fun with kids and frankly adults because it's an awesome experience. So we continue to look at all types of technology including VR really to unlock new experiences for people and it's just fascinating when you look at all the offerings, like just behind us, we've got water slides, we've got so many activities on board now, taking it to the next level with these VR offerings that again, blend the world that we have known for the last two years with the world that we want to experience again. Yeah, that's right and it's all about the diversity of the experience that you can get on a ship like this. We're sitting over Central Park, there's an amazing lime and coconut. This is the first ship where we offered barbecue right before the pandemic. And so these new concepts are really what resonate with our guests certainly seems to be the case. There are guests waiting to get on board here in just a few hours right now. They really are already on board. Some of them are already on here. They really appreciate your time and your insight. J. Schneider, chief product innovation officer and C. XO of Royal Caribbean Group.