The North America Market - Carnival

Critical issues

1Industry change

The North America market is the largest and more mature than other geography markets. But the growth of the growth worldwide from 2008-2009 was greater than that of the U.S. and Canada market. And the potential industry growth of international market in the next several years are expected to be still greater than that of the North America market. . At the same time, the increasing terrorist activity in Europe and North America will offset the improving economy. The global economic change is the threaten but also an opportunity for Carnival. Focusing more on the fastly growing market will give Carnival more potential future growth

2 Competitors

Carnival are facing heavy competitions from other cruise line companies, such as Royal Caribbean Cruises, Disney Cruise lines, and Norwegian Cruise Lines. At the same time, Carnival is competing with land-base vacation alternatives throughout the world including resorts, hotels, the, parts and vacation ownership properties locate in all around the world. Carnival is also competing with similar or overlapping products offerings across all segments. So even though the target market is growing, tough competitions also give Carnival huge potential threatens. The continued expansion in the industry will become more competitive and additional market share will be difficult to capture.

3 Difficulty in estimation

 The total amount of target market, including contemporary, premium, and luxury customers, are changing fast geographically, along with tough competition. So Carnival has to predict the future precisely. For Carnival cruises are consuming large amount of fuels, so Carnival hedge the fuel oil. Ships must be ordered five or more years in advance. And they also have to order a lot of products from all kinds of suppliers. Fail to predict precisely will cause large financial lost.