Seven heads of leading cruise lines are set to talk about the industry’s current trends and future direction on the State of the Industry session slated for Tuesday, March 12, on the 29th annual Cruise Shipping Miami conference. The session also features Christine Duffy, president and CEO of Cruise Lines International Association, who will lead off with the State of the Industry address, and David Scowsill, president and CEO of the realm Travel and Tourism Council, who will provide the keynote speech.
Panelists on the 9:30 a.m. session include Adam Goldstein, president and CEO of Royal Caribbean International; Kevin Sheehan, chief executive officer of Norwegian Cruise Line; Michael Bayley, president and CEO of Celebrity Cruises; Gerry Cahill, president and CEO of Carnival Cruise Lines; Stein Kruse, president and CEO of Holland America Line; Pierfrancesco Vago, chief executive officer of MSC Cruises, and Manfredi Lefebvre d’Ovidio, chairman of Silversea Cruises.
“We are bringing together key cruise line executives to deal with the trends and issues shaping the industry, including the on-board experience and attractions, newbuilds, ship revitalizations, globalization of the industry, technology and port and infrastructure development,” said Daniel Read, director of UBM’s Cruise Shipping Portfolio. “We sit up for a full of life and informative panel discussion from these engaging industry leaders.”
The State of the Industry assembly has long been a mainstay of the conference program of the premier annual cruise industry conference. It’s the only plenary session of the four-day conference, and usually sets the stage for the 3 days of conference sessions to follow.
The 2013 conference program have been revamped with a sequence of more concurrent 90-minute sessions and a bunch of first-time panelists.
Developed by UBM Live to be more in-depth and content-rich, the conference lineup is the results of solid research and feedback from Cruise Shipping Miami attendees, cruise lines and industry organizations. Conference sessions are organized into four “streams” a good way to thematically link sessions daily Tuesday through Thursday. The streams are Shipbuilding, Operations and Technology; Destinations and Ports; Market Segments, and Product Development.