MIAMI, May 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Although the popular blog of Carnival Cruise Lines' Senior Cruise Director John Heald has been featured on the Web site of parent company Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE: CUK) since last August, in the past few months he has broadened the scope of his postings to showcase other Carnival-affiliated brands.
"While our corporate Web site is primarily aimed at investors, the feedback we're receiving indicates that visitors really enjoy John's unique brand of humor and insight into different facets of the cruise industry," said Beth Roberts, Carnival Corporation & plc's vice president of investor relations. The site has had some 300,000 visitors since the blog was prominently displayed on its splash page.
Heald's blog is one of the most popular Internet sites in the cruise industry, generating more than 2.2 million hits since being introduced in March 2007. Typically, Heald posts near-daily blogs while he serves in his role as senior cruise director. However, being on vacation in his native England for the past three months has provided him the opportunity to broaden his focus with features on other Carnival-affiliated brands.
"When you are not actually working aboard you have less material to write about, so I've really enjoyed visiting and blogging about the ships and personnel of our sister companies," Heald said.
Earlier this year, he created blog posts based on the inaugural festivities of Cunard Line's Queen Victoria and P&O Cruises' Ventura, as well as a Caribbean cruise aboard Princess Cruises' Emerald Princess.
Heald's features on Carnival Corporation & plc's cruise brands - which encompass both ship reviews and interviews with brand executives - are among the most popular on his blog. For example, the entry entitled "An Afternoon with the Queen," based on a shipyard tour of Queen Victoria while the vessel was under construction in Italy, generated more than 23,000 hits alone.
In just the past week, Heald has interviewed the hotel director of Cunard Line's Queen Victoria, restaurant entrepreneur Todd English whose namesake restaurants are featured on both the Queen Mary 2 and Queen Victoria, and noted cruise ship designer Joe Farcus, and he also traveled to Naples, Italy, to board the AIDADiva for a review.
He now heads to Genoa to take up residence on Carnival Cruise Lines' Carnival Splendor as part of the inaugural team that will launch the vessel in early July. Heald will serve as senior cruise director and will continue blogging during the start-up activities of the vessel, which is in the final stages of construction at Fincantieri's shipyard in Sestri, Italy.
"John offers real insight into the behind-the-scenes action aboard ship -- something that is of keen interest to readers," Roberts said. "Literally thousands of people are involved in the successful launch of a ship before the first passengers step on board. John will chronicle those stories, all in a highly entertaining and engaging way and I think investors will find it to be a fascinating look at a ship's launch," she added.
In addition to the corporate websites, http://www.carnivalcorp.com/ and http://www.carnivalplc.com/, Heald's blog can be viewed at johnhealdsblog.wordpress.com and http://www.carnival.com/.
Carnival Corporation & plc is the largest cruise vacation group in the world, with a portfolio of cruise brands in North America, Europe and Australia, comprised of Carnival Cruise Lines, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises, The Yachts of Seabourn, AIDA Cruises, Costa Cruises, Cunard Line, Ibero Cruises, Ocean Village, P&O Cruises and P&O Cruises Australia.
Together, these brands operate 86 ships totaling more than 162,000 lower berths with 20 new ships scheduled to enter service between July 2008 and June 2012. Carnival Corporation & plc also operates Holland America Tours and Princess Tours, the leading tour companies in Alaska and the Canadian Yukon. Traded on both the New York and London Stock Exchanges, Carnival Corporation & plc is the only group in the world to be included in both the S&P 500 and the FTSE 100 indices.
