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You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio. We got with us a Dondra Ritz and Taller CEO of Asimar A Cruzz. Asimar A Cruzez has a fleet of four mid sized ships that carry about seven hundred guests in oceans rivers, and they are able to docket locations that the bigger ships can't access. Dondre joins us from Colorado. Good to have
you with us this afternoon. You've been in the travel industry for four decades, twenty years in airlines, twenty years and cruises. Give us an idea of the environment that you see right now and remind everyone of the guest profile of the folks at at Azamara Cruzz.
So thank you so much. First of all, to both of you for having me on. And I do not blame you for wanting to share a room. We've got plenty of space. You can all have your own stay room with us. But it was funny hearing that. And yeah, the industry is really beaming and we're excited that we're back in the water and that cruising is really taking off.
In fact, it's rebounding much faster than other vacation experiences, where we're actually up one hundred and seven percent versus nineteen by the end of twenty three, when trips to international destinations are actually down twelve percent. And so we have continued to see that momentum into twenty twenty four
and twenty five is actually looking even stronger. And the audience for really the Asimara brand is that affluent traveler who has both the time and the desire to really get immersed in these beautiful destinations around the world.
So tell us a little bit about Asimara cruises, because I don't know that it's as well known to be fair as some of the big cruise liners that are publicly traded. Tell us little bit about who you guys are long you've been around, where you typically you know sell to, and who is your customer.
Absolutely so, we have actually been around since two thousand and seven, and we are smaller, and in fact, we kind of like that a lot, Carol, that we are smaller. You mentioned it. There's four ships. They each hold about seven hundred guests, and we love that because it's a much more personal and intimate experience, and we go all
over the world. In the summertime, we actually have all four of our ships in Europe because there's so much demand in the europe marketplace, whether you're doing a country intensive in Spain or Italy or Greece, we have those, and then we actually branch out and do things like Africa and South America and you know some of those places. Japan is really hot and we have cruises that go all through that region and so what we yeah, is it currency, is it?
What's going on?
Everybody's going everybody's going to Sebastian just back from Japan. Now, Elizabeth's back from Japan. Like our whole team is going to Japan. Yeah.
Well it's it's funny because it definitely is hot and there's no question and you can see that because y'all are living in as well. I think it was because you know, it was the last to come back after the pandemic and so there's pent up demand and that's why we have so much of our cruising going there because just like y'all are seeing, it's the same and you know, the demographics that want to take in Asimar cruise and really get immersed like when you go to Japan.
You may go to one destination and say for five or six days. What we do is we let you go in for a full day or maybe even two days, because we do a lot of overnights where other cruise lines don't, and then we let you go experience another part of it. And that's what's really special about the Asmar brand. We really get immersed in the destination.
Hey, Dondra, if demand is so high right now, why do you only have four ships?
Well, you know, we are owned by Sycamore, which is a private equity firm out of New York, and we very much have discussions with them ongoing and growing our beautiful company because we would like to get three four more ships so that we can go in even more places and take our guests around the world. But that's where we are today, and we're going to keep being successful in the marketplace and growing the business and using our travel advisors, which really a huge distribution channel to us.
And then as we grow, I suspect that our private equity firm will allow us to grow by getting new builds.
Well, give us an idea. We're you know, we're not in the cruise business, and I don't think many of our listeners and viewers are. So how much does it cost to build one of these ships? And what would be the lead time that you would need from ordering it to when it's actually delivered.
Well, it's usually about an eighteen to twenty month in advance. Like you go in and you secured the shipyard, and then you know, it takes a while because we have to design them, we have to then make sure that they're built safely, and so it really does take a little bit. And you know, as far as how much it costs, I don't know how much it would cost for our ships because I came from my decade in
the business that you mentioned earlier. We had much bigger ships, and so I wouldn't want to give the price for those because it won't cost us much.
We're talking tens of millions or hundreds of millions.
Hundreds of millions.
They're still big. There's still big ships, So go back.
It's a big ticket item.
Listen. I was, you know, playing around on the website and looking at you know, two people for twelve nights in the Caribbean. It looks like it could cost five six seven, Like you can go up the tier. Give us a range of the costs of taking like a twelve night cruise to the Eastern Caribbean.
Well, you know, it's funny. The Caribbean is definitely a place that we go, but those are actually the less expensive cruising because there's so much capacity that goes into the Caribbean market and we do it very differently than
any of the competitors in that marketplace. But you could go anywhere from you know, we have different cabin categories, our suites, which are the ones that sell the you know first, actually are you know anywhere from ten thousand and then we have a few of the of the balcony cabins that you talked about earlier, Carol, that you could get for five six thousand per person. So there's
really something for everybody. But our guests have a tendency to want to buy the suite and then that sells out first, and then we sail down from there, and.
Are you sold out? Like, give us an idea, Just remind us again, Like Carnival talked about record bookings and the outlook and talked about pricing power, so go there again, Like, in terms of your bookings, what are you seeing for twenty twenty four. What are you seeing in terms of pricing?
We are definitely in a rising price environment, and in our environment, when you start to hit your targets both from a booking and the yields that you're seeing, then you start to raise your prices, right, and so we are definitely right on target for twenty four and honestly, twenty five is actually showing some tremendous growth. We're you know, thirty three percent ahead of where we were the same
time last year, which is you know, this year. Because we have a tendency in the cruise business and particularly at Asmar Cruises, we pooked pretty far in advance, and so we're really in the prime booking window for twenty twenty five right now.
Interesting. Okay, hey, give us an idea of You talked a little bit about your customer, but I'm wondering about the demographic profile of them. Some cruise companies like to appeal to families and bringing sort of multi generations on longer, longer cruises tend to attract those who are retired because they don't need to worry about taking so much vacation. Where are you?
So you know, it's funny because it's two things from an age perspect you know, right in that fifty to fifty five is the sweet spot for us. But it's not just people that are retired. In fact, there's a lot of guests that actually really want to go on and Asimar Cruise because they've tried other cruise lines and they know they like cruising, but they really want to
get into this global destination immersion and what does that mean. Right, So we will get to a beautiful place like Sicily, and we will get in at eight o'clock in the morning, we won't leave until the next day at five, right, not the same day at five. So what happens is we have a tendency to get the cruisers who want something that's more immersive, and not just those are retired. But our sweet spot is definitely in that age demographics.
And while we certainly accommodate families, that's not our target.
All right, Dondra, really appreciate getting some time with you. Dondra Ritzenaler, she is the CEO of Asamara Cruz is joining us on this Friday.
Well, our next guest writes about a worrisome trend in the C suite women lost about a sixty season sweet roles at SMP Global Total Market Index Companies in twenty twenty three. Carol, it's the first time the number of female execs at the very highest level of business dropped during the almost twenty year period tracked by SMP Global Market Intelligence.
No I thought we were making progress. So what exactly is going on? Bethcoh It is a Bloomberg Opinion senior columnist and in the new issue Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine, the new monthly issue, she writes about the declining numbers of female executives at a time when the political right is blasting d EI efforts. She joins us from New York City. As we mentioned, featured this story in the new issue Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine that's on newsstands, online and on the Bloomberg Term.
So, Beth, what's going on here? Because you open talking about Rosbrewer over at all Walgreens Boots Alliance, and she was out after twenty twenty, just a couple of years after starting. We all saw what happened yesterday the company stock, but it was sort of a long time coming. You use that as sort of like the lead in to explain what's happening at these companies.
Absolutely, you know, it's really interesting you mentioned, you know, I picked up on just sort of an alarming set of stats. Progress really seems to be backtracking. And ros Brewer at Walgreens was a great example of that. When she became CEO of the company, she was a record number of Fortune five hundred CEOs she was when she was named CEO, she was the only black female running of Fortune five hundred company at the time, So, you know,
it really felt like progress. It was celebrated by Corporate America, and then less than two and a half years later she was out. And you know, I think that this is, as you said, one of sixty C suite women who had lost a job. So I do think it really feels like a decline in a very painful way.
All right, Beth, So tell us about this stall gender revolution. What's going on? Because it does feel like for years, right, we've talked about diversity, equity, inclusion, and you know, SPECIF focused on a lot of aspects of that, but in particular the gaps that were between men and women, and it looked like companies were sensitive about it. They were publishing data. Why are we now an installed gender revolution.
Yeah, so, as you mentioned, you know in the piece, I say, I think that we've always seen progress and stalls and backlashes, and right now we are definitely in a stall. And I think a big part of that is the climate. Right now. We were in a period where people really did care about trying to increase diversity within their organizations, and now, for a number of reasons, they're afraid to do that, they're afraid to talk about it,
and I think that has changed the environment. So we would recognize we used to recognize the just the last couple of years, we started to recognize these hurdles that women faced in the workplace, and now I think that it's I had a professor tell me it's okay to discriminate against women again, and I think that's that's a huge part of it.
Yeah, you're quoting Aaron Read, a professor at McMaster University's Business School who studies gender in the workplace. You you reference bet the idea that potentially and you write about it in the piece that Elon Musk and Bill Ackman. You write that they've ratcheted up the rhetoric with post on social media, claiming DEI is racist and illegal. We've done a lot of reporting around sort of the corporate
backlash to DEI. But one name in here that you do call out as not sort of being in that on that same page as Jamie Diamond over at JP Morgan Chase. What is he doing?
Yeah, I mean he puts out an annual letter every year, and in it he dedicated this year quite a bit of space. The letter itself was quite long, and in it he dedicates a good amount of space to talking about why DEI is important to the company, to business. And I don't think it's a coincidence that we have seen now two of his potentials sessors are women in an industry that is predominantly white, is predominantly male. You know, I think if you create an environment where women want
to work, they'll come work for you. And I do think that elsewhere we've seen women leave roles at companies that have been less supportive. So I think that this is a great example of what can happen when companies walk the.
Walk, when they do right, when they actually walk.
In when they do yeah, when they do have absolutely.
Having said that, going back to Rosalind Brewer at Walgreens Boots Alliance and her short tenure there. You know, I am curious in reporting this out that she inherited a company with issues and problems and it doesn't seem like necessarily.
There's a term for that, right, What do you keep forgetting what that is? It was the glass cliff, Yes, the glass cliff, okay, And we spoke about it with one of our guests a few weeks ago and she said that often women are brought in in these cases.
Like in a bad situation. Yeah, yeah, no, no go there, Like it's just an interesting the comparison between men being brought in to deal with a difficult situation how much time they're given to fix it versus a woman. Are we seeing really a gap in that?
Yeah? I mean I think there's two things. One is that women in general tend to get the top job in these glass clip situations where they were brought into a struggling company and expected to turn things around. And we've also seen in the numbers that they're not given as much time. The length of tenure is significantly shorter for female CEOs than it is for male CEOs. And you know, in ros Browse case, she was not really given the time or the authority, right, she had her
the previous CEO was still very present, largest shareholder. You know. When she took the job, they said they really liked her retail and digital experience, and when she left, they said, oh, they really actually wanted someone with more healthcare experience. They
knew that going in that that was her expertise. I don't that's not her fault, and so I just think in general, it's pretty it's typical that when women do get these big jobs, it is often at these companies that are really hard turnaround situations.
Yeah, I'm thinking of Mary Dylan over at foot Locker. She's somebody who was brought into turnaround foot Locker and she's only been there for a short time. But yeah, go ahead, Carl.
So no, no, no, hey, Beth, we only have about forty five seconds left here. So now what? So what's next? Is there?
Now? What? Right?
That's the question? I mean one I'll leave you with sort of an optimistic note, and that is I think that the last couple of years have shown women what is possible when their companies do recognize these hurdles that they face. And I think now women are not willing to go back, and they're going to leave companies that don't support them. They've just seen the other side of it, and you know, I think that that is maybe one little ray of hope that we can take for this.
I like that. Yeah, I was thinking of Sorry, I was actually quoting what's the network movie quote like a I'm I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore. Thank you, Paul Brennan. But that's what I was thinking for Beth, right, Like, that's how we finish, right, I'm mad as hell, I'm not gonna take it anymore, and I'm not gonna like just settle for not getting to the top, Beth. Great story, Beth Cohen, Senior Columns
at Bloomberg Opinion. That is in the new monthly edition of Bloomberg Business Week, which is out on newsstands now, on the Bloomberg and at Bloomberg dot com. And a great preview in our weekend show coming your way tomorrow.
You're not gonna forget that time for a while.
Yeah, I'm mad as hell. It's a great quote. This is Blueberg