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Carnival Corporation & Costa Group Reaffirm Commitment to Italy: 4,500 Italian Crew Members to be Hired in Next Five Years
Costa Group –part of Carnival Corporation & plc, the world's largest cruise company –also announces its fleet carried nearly 3 million guests in 2016, a 13 percentincrease over 2015
For 2017, furthergrowth is expected with official launch in June of AIDAperla, the new AIDACruises flagship, which made its first call today at Genoa.
Genoa,30 May 2017– The Costa Group and its parentorganization Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE: CUK), theworld's largest cruise company, today reaffirmed their joint commitment toItaly and Europe overall, announcing they will hire approximately 4,500 Italiancrew members by 2022 to provide support for existing and primarily new shipscurrently on order. With over 5,000 Italian crew members currently employed onCarnival Corporation ships, the number of employment opportunities will almostdouble in number.
TheCosta Group today also confirmed its leadership in Europe, announcing its fleetcarried about 3 million guests in 2016, an increase of 13 percent from 2015.In addition, it expects a further increase in 2017, with the launch of AIDAperla, the new flagship of AIDACruises, which arrived in Genoa today for the first time. AIDAperla will bedeployed in the Mediterranean, calling at Civitavecchia/Rome and Livorno everyweek, with a total of 60 stopovers in Italy during 2017.
TheCosta Group -- which includes the Italian brand Costa Cruises, the German brandAIDA Cruises and Costa Asia -- has 76,000 berths on its 27 vessels, the largest fleet of cruise ships flying the Italianflag. With Genoa serving as Costa's headquarters, Italy is the country thatbenefits most from Costa Group's business.
"CarnivalCorporation is one of the biggest foreign investors in Italy, which is astrategic country for our growth," said Arnold Donald, CEO of CarnivalCorporation, which includes 10 global cruise line brands that carry nearly 12million guests a year. "Since 1990 we have built 68 ships in Italianshipyards for various brands in our group of 10 world-leading cruise lines, andanother 10 vessels are currently on order or under construction, for a totalinvestment of about 32 billion euros."
The impactgenerated from Carnival Corporation's global fleet is widely positive on manyfronts, first and foremost with thedirect hiring of new crew members. CostaGroup and Carnival Corporation are one of the main employers of Italiansailors and make a significant contribution to the Italian economy throughpartnerships with local suppliers. In2016 the total spend coming from Carnival Corporation in Italy was about 2 billion euros.
Given the great demand for Italiancrew members that the new ships will create, Costa Group and CarnivalCorporation are looking into working with one or more of Italy's nauticalinstitutes. This is a formula that has already been a success with the ItalianMerchant Marine Academy, both for deck and engine staff and the hotel side,with the recent opening of the Academy for Italian Cruise Hospitality inArenzano.
Costa Group's business has otherpositive effects on Italy's economy. In 2016 the Costa Group's ships made 1,000 calls in Italian ports,equivalent to passenger traffic of approximately 2.6 million passengers, representing more than half of the nearly 4million passengers carried by Carnival Corporation ships in Italy. Added to this figure is the contribution theCosta Group makes to the Italian airport system, moving approximately 250,000passengers through Italian airports with the "fly + cruise" package.
Media Contacts:
Costa Cruises
Press Office -Tel. +39 010 5483523 / 010 5483068 -costapressoffice@costa.it
Gabriele Baroni – Communication Director –mob. +39 3497668013 - baroni@costa.it
Davide Barbano - Media Relations Manager - +39 010.5483523 - +39 334.6525216 – barbano@costa.it
Press releases and photos are available atwww.costapresscenter.com
Carnival Corporation & plc
Roger Frizzell, Carnival Corporation, RFrizzell@Carnival.com, (305) 406-7862
Mike Flanagan, LDWWgroup, Mike@ldwwgroup.com, (727) 452-4538
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