Carnival CEO On Strategy For Cuba, Impact Of Crude Prices

The world’s largest cruise operator, Carnival Corporation (NYSE: CCL) posted better-than-expected fourth-quarter results Friday.

Arnold Donald, Carnival CEO, was on CNBC to discuss the company’s results along with its strategy for Cuba.

Strategy For Cuba

On the possible lifted Cuban embargo, Donald said, "We are very excited."

He continued, "There’s a lot of pent-up demand for people to go to Cuba [...] There are 11 ports that can accommodate our ships and the ships from the industry."

Explaining further, "The Havana port itself has a shallow draft, so it takes smaller ships. There is a tunnel there so you cannot [travel] too deep in it, but there are several other ports. It will require some investment; it will require some infrastructure to enhance," Donald said.

Related Link: Stifel Cautious On Carnival Ahead Of Q4 Print

Did Not Hedging Fuel Help?

In response to questions regarding the practice of not hedging, Donald responded, “Yeah, we use collars, we don’t hedge […] but know our gains even without the fuel benefit we got in for a quarter; we would have beaten guidance."

He went on, "So, we have had strong performance across our brands in North America and Europe and we are looking forward to even more powerful 2015 for our shareholders and for our teams.”

Why Diversify Super Bowl Ad Campaign Among 9 Brands?

“Well, the reality is each of our brands caters to different psychographic segments," Donald said. "So, the idea here is to just expose all the great wonderful things that create the great vacation experience that cruising is. It is to address all the myths that people have about cruising aren’t really true."