Carnival Cruises 2009 Annual Report Download - page 44

determining our non-GAAP financial measures and, accordingly, it is possible that they may not be exactly
comparable to the like-kind information presented by other cruise companies, which is a potential risk associated
with using these measures to compare us to other cruise companies.
Net revenue yields are commonly used in the cruise industry to measure a company’s cruise segment
revenue performance and for revenue management purposes. We use “net cruise revenues” rather than “gross
cruise revenues” to calculate net revenue yields. We believe that net cruise revenues is a more meaningful
measure in determining revenue yield than gross cruise revenues because it reflects the cruise revenues earned
net of our most significant variable costs, which are travel agent commissions, cost of air transportation and
certain other variable direct costs associated with onboard and other revenues. Substantially all of our remaining
cruise costs are largely fixed, except for the impact of changing prices, once our ship capacity levels have been
determined.
Net cruise costs per ALBD is the most significant measure we use to monitor our ability to control our
cruise segment costs rather than gross cruise costs per ALBD. We exclude the same variable costs that are
included in the calculation of net cruise revenues to calculate net cruise costs to avoid duplicating these variable
costs in these two non-GAAP financial measures.
In addition, because a significant portion of our operations utilize the euro or sterling to measure their
results and financial condition, the translation of those operations to our U.S. dollar reporting currency results in
decreases in reported U.S. dollar revenues and expenses if the U.S. dollar strengthens against these foreign
currencies, and increases in reported U.S. dollar revenues and expenses if the U.S. dollar weakens against these
foreign currencies. Accordingly, we also monitor and report our two non-GAAP financial measures assuming the
2009 and 2008 periods’ currency exchange rates have remained constant with the 2008 and 2007 periods’ rates,
respectively, or on a “constant dollar basis,” in order to remove the impact of changes in exchange rates on our
non-U.S. dollar cruise operations. We believe that this is a useful measure since it facilitates a comparative view
of the growth of our business in a fluctuating currency exchange rate environment.
Gross and net revenue yields were computed by dividing the gross or net revenues, without rounding, by
ALBDs as follows:
Years Ended November 30,
2009
2009
Constant
Dollar 2008
2008
Constant
Dollar 2007
(in millions, except ALBDs and yields)
Cruise revenues
Passenger tickets ............... $ 9,985 $ 10,507 $ 11,210 $ 11,064 $ 9,792
Onboard and other .............. 2,885 2,979 3,044 3,016 2,846
Gross cruise revenues ............. 12,870 13,486 14,254 14,080 12,638
Less cruise costs
Commissions, transportation and
other ....................... (1,917) (2,050) (2,232) (2,201) (1,941)
Onboard and other .............. (461) (481) (501) (498) (495)
Net cruise revenues ............... $ 10,492 $ 10,955 $ 11,521 $ 11,381 $ 10,202
ALBDs ........................ 62,105,916 62,105,916 58,942,864 58,942,864 54,132,927
Gross revenue yields .............. $ 207.22 $ 217.14 $ 241.83 $ 238.88 $ 233.47
Net revenue yields ................ $ 168.94 $ 176.38 $ 195.46 $ 193.08 $ 188.48
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