Carnival Cruise Line continues to achieve record breaking levels, this time becoming the first-ever cruise line to sail over 100 million guests. A major reason for the brand’s success is Adolfo Perez, Carnival’s Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Trade Marketing. A respected industry leader, he has been with the company for over 38 years, starting as a 16 year old Junior in high school when the company had 3 ships to now becoming Senior VP in a multi-billion dollar company with over 90 cruise ships and more than 90,000 employees. In an all encompassing conversation Perez shares the keys to the company’s growth, his personal philosophy on success, and the plans for Carnival to keep evolving and reaching new heights.

‘Your Winning Plan’ business success series for travel advisors culminated with a grand finale event in Houston

This past September, Carnival held its annual competition series ‘Your Winning Plan’. The event brings experts to help travel advisors build winning businesses. Travel entrepreneurs have submitted their business plans in the competition to be crowned the ‘Your Winning Plan’s champion. Perez hosted the grand finale event held in Houston, and Daymond John, entrepreneur, and star of ABC’s Emmy Award-winning series “Shark Tank” shared his expertise and presented the grand prize to the competition winner.

Adolfo Perez, Carnival’s Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Trade Marketing

Perez is a highly respected Latino travel leader and has helped grow the travel advisor industry to what it is today. He earned his latest title in January 2018. In this capacity, he is responsible for Carnival’s domestic and international business development teams who manage and support travel agent partners, as well as all trade marketing, training and public relations.

He joined Carnival in 1982 as an embarkation agent and has held multiple managerial positions within the company’s reservations and sales departments over the past three decades. These roles have included vice president of reservations sales, overseeing the line’s reservations contact centers where he developed many relationships within the travel agent community. Most recently, he served as the company’s vice president of new markets and new product marketing.

HOMBRE: Besides ‘Your Winning Plan,’ what are some of the other innovations Carnival Cruise Line is implementing?
Adolfo Perez: On the trade side we’ve done several things over the years. A few years ago, in 2019, pre-pandemic, we started a campaign to talk about the value of using a travel advisor. We called it ‘Why Use A Travel Advisor?’ WUATA for short. And we had WUATA events in four cities around the country. We talked about why it’s important for people to use a Travel Advisor for their travel needs, whether it’s cruising or corporate travel, or any kind of vacation. That was the first time that ever happened.We have events every year called Carnival Conversations where we go to different cities, invite people in person, and do product information, depending on what’s going on at the time.
We also did one that was really fun, sort of a celebration of travel advisors, called Agentpalooza. We literally drove around in a bus wrapped as though it was a rock concert we went to different cities and had these big celebratory events to travel advisors for working so hard. We’re always looking for something different that will add value to our relationship with travel advisors.

H: What should one do when selecting a cruise?
AP: The first thing to do is call a travel advisor. Travel advisors have so much experience and knowledge about putting the right customer on the right cruise line, on the right ship, with the right itinerary, and in the right room type. Travel advisors have the opportunity to sail on many different brands and they have a wealth of information.
The consumer can do preliminary research. We have a website where they can decide where to go, how much time they want to spend, where they want to leave from. We have 14 home ports around the U.S., we also sail Europe, Australia, Alaska. So it really depends on what the consumer wants as far as vacation time and the kind of experience they’d like.

H: How is the cruise industry bouncing back from the pandemic?
AP: We’re doing very well. We were the first major cruise line to have all our ships operating at once. In the beginning we had the Covid protocols and when the protocols dropped in August of last year we were already doing well. But when that happened and vaccine requirements were removed the demand took off. We had our strongest booking weeks, our ships are nearly full for this year already, we’re doing very well for 2024. We’re very pleased with the restart.

Carnival Celebration

H:  What would you say sets Carnival apart from other cruise brands?
AP: There are a lot of great cruise lines out there so I don’t want to speak badly about anyone else, but from our standpoint we offer an environment that is very welcoming. You can come in jeans and a t-shirt, or  you can wear a suit, or whatever it is you want and you’ll feel at home on a Carnival ship.

Rollercoaster on board Carnival Mardi Gras

We’ve introduced some new ships that are really spectacular, what we call the Excel class. The first ship was the Mardi Gras, then the Carnival Celebration and then we’ll be launching the Carnival Jubilee from Galveston, TX in December. These ships are extraordinary. We not only have the hardware, a lot of great beautiful ships that have a lot of great things on board including the first ever roller coaster, ziplines, of course pools, bars, and restaurants. We include a lot in the cruise price. There are some options if you want to pay for a specialty or premium dining experience, but even if you don’t we have great options for all the included meals on board with the different restaurants. I would say the Carnival secret sauce is what we call our software, our people on board. Our Carnival team members on the ships really go out of their way to make people feel welcome and comfortable and really make sure they enjoy their cruise vacation.

H: What is the best part of your position?
AP:  I’ve been at Carnival since I was 16, that’s 42 years. I’ve had a lot of different jobs and this has definitely been my favorite. I handle global sales so I have an office in London, and an office in Australia which is exciting and interesting to manage not only the U.S. sales but international sales. I never saw myself in this role before I got it, but I do enjoy meeting travel advisors. I feed off their energy, they give me a lot of satisfaction because they are so engaged and kind and welcoming of me ever since I took this role. I would say interacting with them either online, in person, at events, or on our ships.

H: And what is the most challenging part?
AP. I would say the most challenging times were during the pandemic for sure. I would also say we have limited resources that we can spend and use and sometimes our appetite is bigger than our wallet. We want to do things we can’t do, so having to manage the budget, making the money go as far as possible and having the greatest impact with the things we are able to accomplish.

Carnival Venezia, now sailing year-round from New York City

H: Talk to us about the international portion of the business.
AP: Carnival is part of Carnival Corp. which has 9 different brands. I work only on Carnival Cruise Line. We have a brand in the UK, we have a brand in Germany, Italy, a brand in Australia, and we have offices here in North America, and all the brands have their own unique encanto.  We are all different and we work well together and are well positioned throughout the world.

H: What is the key to your personal success?
AP: When I started as a 16 year old Junior in high school working at the port on weekends I never thought of where I would be 42 years later. When I started Carnival was a private company with 3 ships, Carnival, Mardi Gras and Festival. We had just gotten a fourth ship and that’s why they hired me because they needed more people at the port doing the check in. It always felt like a family because it was a family owned business. The Arisons, Ted Arison, and Micky Arison, it was their company up until we went public in ’87, and even though we’ve become this multibillion dollar travel company it still feels like family. I can talk to anybody in the company and everyone treats you well. I work hard, I make sure people know I want to do other things and prove to them that I could, and took advantage of those opportunities when they came up.

H: What advice can you offer someone for climbing the corporate ladder?
AP: What you can do is show up to work, be present, work hard, make sure your supervisors and your managers know that you’re serious and what your plans are. I always knew the next position I wanted. When I was an embarkation agent, I knew I wanted to be an embarkation supervisor; when I worked reservations, I wanted to be a reservation supervisor and then I wanted to be the manager. I always had the next position in my mind, never taking side positions. I always acted as if I had that role even if I didn’t, without ruffling any feathers obviously. I always made it clear to my bosses if I wanted something else. If I wanted to grow I asked for advice, I was always very vocal about it so they knew where I stood.

Carnival Corp.’s Micky Arison and Ted Arison

H: What is the key to the company’s growth?
AP:  We have visionary leaders at Carnival with Mick Arison and Ted Arison. First going public, then buying Holland America, we also have Seabourn which is an ultra luxury cruise brand, then buying Princess and then just having the vision to diversify the products that Carnival Corp. had in its portfolio and picking companies that they were able to buy that were strong in their areas like Alaska, Holland America, and Princess, and the national brands like AIDA in Germany, that do very well. Same as Costa in Italy. They found iconic brands that they were able to purchase with a lot of hard work and vision from the leaders that we’ve become this huge corporation over the last several decades.

H: What can you tell us about the new ships coming to market?
AP: The Mardi Gras and The Celebration already launched. We have 3 ships from our sister brand Costa, the Luminoso was converted to a Carnival ship that launched last year. We also got the Venezia which is basically a brand new ship and it started sailing out of New York.
We also have the Firenze which is going to be joining the fleet in May and it will be based in Long Beach, California.
And Jubilee is coming later this year. That’s a lot of ships.

Carnival Jubilee

H: What are some of the innovations Carnival offers consumers?
AP: The way the cruise industry has changed over the last decade is that the ships have gotten bigger with more venues, it’s about giving the customer as many choices as possible. There are so many dining options on the ships, there are so many different activities, putting things on ships that people really enjoy like the rollercoaster on the Excel class ships, the rope course on the Vista class, as well as the Venezia class. Now we offer more types of staterooms than we did before.

We give people the option if they want to go on an Excel which is incredible with a huge space and a wraparound balcony, and a jacuzzi outside. Them there’s Family Harbor which is an area specifically designed for families. We carry more families than any other cruise line. This area is perfect for them.

We also have the spa section of the ship where you can get a spa cabin and have easy access to some of the special services you get in the spa included in the fare.
The big innovation has been providing lots of different choices for our customers because there has to be something for everyone.

Carnival Havana Cabanas

H; Do you anything specifically for Latinos?
AP: We have the Havana Cabanas which are on the Vista class ships as well as the Excel class ships and those are Latin themed rooms where you have exclusive access to a pool. In those Havana areas there’s Latin music they play, as well as specialty drinks, Latin snacks and other details. It’s a fun place to be on the ship because the music is great. They even do a Latin themed show in the main lounge.

Adolfo Perez onboard Carnival Tropicale in 1984

H: What is the best advice your parents gave you?
AP: They did a lot for me. They made me who I am for sure. From my father’s side he had an extremely high work ethic. He never missed work, worked hard, never complained about work, I wasn’t allowed to miss school unless I was dying.
And on the other side my mom was always  making me feel like I was the best at everything I did, even though I wasn’t. She always worked on my self esteem, and even though I didn’t believe her half the time she always said, ‘tu eres el bravo,’ like in soccer and I sucked at it. The combination of the two helped me become the person that I am, and helped in my success in life, at work, and in my personal life.

For more information on Carnival Cruise Line visit  www.carnival.com