It's an incredible honor for us to welcome two true titans of the vacation industry to the stage today. For more than three decades, Richard Fain led the Royal Caribbean Group with a vision that redefined what cruising could be. From creating neighborhoods at sea to launching the world's largest and most innovative ships. But perhaps more than any single innovation, it's his belief in people – our crew, our shoreside teams, our guests, our travel partners – that will always stay with me. And joining Richard today is the CEO of Royal Caribbean Group, Jason Liberty. So please give a nice round of applause for that as well. Two legendary people are about to come up onto the stage, so they deserve a legendary round of applause. Will you please help me welcome Mr. Richard Fain and Mr. Jason Liberty?
Well, good afternoon everybody.
Oh my god, the energy level has to get higher. Come on.
I love that introduction. We should hire that guy. I like to require two of them.
Um, so I got a few questions here. It was about 20 years ago almost to the day that Richard hired me. So how am I doing?
You're asking that about four years too late.
Well, I think there's been some indication of how you're doing. If you look at the share price, you look at our employment, our employee satisfaction scores, and the popularity and ratings on our cruises. So yes, apparently you're doing a good job. Okay.
I the thing I first want to start and say is that I've been with the company 20 years. What defines us is our culture.
I'm a newbie. I know I'm a newbie. I now have to have reading glasses, but we'll see how that goes. But it's been the culture of this company that has differentiated us. And that culture is really rooted in the culture that Richard built. And I tell him this quite often, that when I'm standing in his shoes, the amount of pride to see his flowers bloom must be exceptional. This ship is just one of many examples of the incredible culture he built. So we are always appreciative and thankful for this incredible company that he built. And I think the best way to start this is first to clap for it. So you're in the seat for 33 years. And then he was also on the board of Royal Caribbean before it went public. So you came here in 1988, which is a while ago, if you haven't seen Back to the Future.
It does seem like a little while ago. It's actually more or less around the time that Back to the Future came out. So it's very apropos to be here for that. But you think back at that time, what this industry could be, what this company could be. When you reflect, did you think it could ever be anything at this scale? How did you see it in those early days?
I don't think I ever imagined anything like this. It's hard for me to imagine it today. It's so different than what we expected. But the one thing that hasn't changed was from the very beginning, going back long before me to the formation of Royal Caribbean, was to be a cut above and to be more than just a cruise line, but to be part of the vacation market. And that has developed in an amazing way. Well, when I joined in 2005, you could see what was about to really come to be for the Royal Caribbean brand and Celebrity. The Oasis class and other things were being designed, and of course that launched so many great things like Icon. But when you think about transformation, companies are always transforming, industries are transforming. When you look at key lessons through transformation, whether good times or bad, what are some of your key lessons learned in those good and bad moments?
Um, well obviously that is something you know as well as anybody else because you've been through um
for everybody. I think the two things I would mention is the one that's always there, the greatest source of inspiration and pride, and that's the people. Royal Caribbean has always attracted, promoted, and dealt with the best, and that has never left. That is still the dominant importance in our success. The other thing is we've always been clear about who we are and where we're going. In business today, there's too much focus on next week, next month, next year. Almost anything we do, particularly in this business, nothing we do today will make a difference today, probably not much impact even next year, but five years from now. To do that, you have to constantly think of that rather than short-term positives. I would focus on those two items.
That's great. And when you think about further out, you can take a ship like this, which is our latest and greatest. You see incredible innovations: Central Park, the Aqua Theater, the ship running on LNG, a fuel bill similar to a ship built 20 years ago in absolute dollars. When you think about innovation, what would you say was the toughest breakthrough to get across or to accomplish?
These were supposed to be easier questions. You know, this is the trouble. You retire and these new people come and they just do things totally differently. So, um, I really...
I can ask you where you bought the shirt. I mean,
I could ask you where you bought that shirt, but all right.
I think the thing that, as I read and I know we have the press in here as well, so I'm going to make this comment. I think sometimes people focus too much on the short term, and also too much on the sexy stuff. The great innovations like the Aqua Theater and Central Park are individually inspiring, but if I really look at it, the success hasn't been that there was a rock climbing wall. It was that it all fit together as a cohesive whole. The thing that reflects the success more than anything else is that it all works together. It's easy to get around, it's logical, it feels natural. It takes the hardest work in the world to look like you're not working.
That's great. Having been in this seat now for a little while, and I was Richard's right hand for decades, one thing you appreciate is that it's not a one-person show. We're surrounded by some of the greatest talent on the planet, and they're super passionate. So I wanted to ask you, obviously lots of ideas get thrown at you in this job. My first question is just for fun: what's the craziest idea somebody has thrown at you? And I'll follow up with the second one.
Well, the craziest idea was promoting Jason to CEO. But eventually I accepted it reluctantly. But okay. Um, you know, the craziest idea I'm...
I'm going to have an answer to this, by the way. But
you're going to have one.
I'm going to have an answer to the craziest idea, but I'll
Okay. So I actually think that so many of the ideas that came up seemed crazy at first. I remember when we first started talking about an ice skating rink at sea. The one that I absolutely hated and rejected, I vetoed, was the idea of the rock climbing wall. And of course they cancelled that right away. But some of the ideas which I now jokingly say are my best ideas are the ones I thought were the dumbest to begin with. I often expressed distaste for ideas that I actually liked. There was some type of perversion: if I liked it I said I didn't, and if I didn't like it I said I did. The people worked harder on the ideas that were already good and made them better. The wonderful thing is that those ideas kept flowing. Innovation isn't just moments of inspiration; most successful ideas started good but were made spectacular.
Why don't you tell them about the blimp?
And I'm not talking about the perfect day blimp.
No, but the perfect day blimp came from it.
On Oasis of the Seas, I thought we weren't supposed to do this. Has our legal department approved this?
Actually, I get free rein now. So okay, if he approves, I can say it. So yes, the blimp was when we were building Oasis of the Seas. We were looking at all the various ideas – ice skating rinks, Central Park, Royal Promenade – and the idea came of having a blimp that would rise 500 feet off the ship and be tethered to the vessel, so you could go and get a beautiful view.
What could possibly go wrong? So we actually tried it. We were very careful. We did computer simulations, dry runs on land, high-speed chases. We took over a closed airport to drag it behind a truck. Then we did the sea trial. I was so excited about that idea. This was one of my better ideas, by the way. I was so excited.
Just hold that thought. It's coming.
I was so excited about the idea. We took it on sea trial and I actually went up with it. That shows commitment because I am afraid of heights. There is a reason I'm ten feet from the edge of this platform. I went up in this thing and it was spectacular. We were off the coast of Sweden. Amazing view of the ship and the shore. It held about 18 people in the gondola underneath. We were set to go. We went to bed. Unfortunately, it was still a trial, so we didn't have a place to properly anchor it, but they tied it down. Apparently, they didn't tie it down very well. Again, what could possibly go wrong? Actually, nobody noticed it until the captain got a call from the Swedish Air Force. You can't make this stuff up. The Swedish Air Force said, 'We have a report of a blimp with a crown and anchor on it. We thought you might know something. It came free during the storm and it's right now in the air traffic lanes. Would you mind if we shot it down?'
Sounds like a great idea. That was a great idea.
What could possibly go wrong? So it came down on its own fortunately and was recovered by some fishermen. But by that point we were so excited about the rest of the ship that we decided it didn't need it. But it did evolve into the Perfect Day blimp.
It was a different kind of blend.
Thank you for reminding me of that.
Yeah, I remember it. I don't really remember the anchoring piece. I remember it being another test and then it fell away. But anyway, great idea.
