Royal Caribbean, eastward ho!

President of world's second-largest cruise line operator optimistic about opportunities in China

Unlike many Harvard law degree holders who spend most of their time in the courts, Adam Goldstein chose to lead a maritime life 27 years ago. Now, he is navigating Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd into the promising China market.

After working for two years as a lawyer in New York, Goldstein met the turning point in his career - an opportunity to work at a shipping company in London. He then got an MBA in France before joining the cruise industry and working side by side with Richard Fain, chairman and CEO of Miami-based Royal Caribbean. Goldstein is now president and chief operating officer of the company, the world's second-largest cruise line operator.

The quick development of Royal Caribbean International, which accounts for two-thirds of Royal Caribbean Cruises' revenue, coincided with Goldstein's appointment as CEO of the international arm of the company in 2004.

The company has made plans to move some of its largest cruise ships to markets with huge potential. This summer, Royal Caribbean plans to have five ships based at ports in four Chinese cities - Shanghai, Tianjin, Hong Kong and Xiamen - including two 168,000-metric-ton Quantum-class vessels, each costing about $1 billion.

Goldstein spoke to China Daily during his latest trip to the country. The following are edited excerpts from the interview.

What's your mission on this trip?

When I come to China, I usually have three missions. One is to interact with our constantly growing team and people.

Second, to understand how we are doing in building demand in the market for our products and services. We have five ships here this summer. That's a lot more capacity here in China (16,500 berths) in 2016 than the entire company had (9,200 berths) when I joined in 1988.

The third thing is to make sure there are enough home ports and enough ports of call in the growing market to offer the right itineraries to the guests and to make sure that our big, new ships have places to go.

China is widely regarded as the world's fastest-growing cruise market and is expected to overtake the United States to become the largest in the future. Do you agree?

The generation of income and wealth in this country in the past 25 years has put millions of people in the position where they have the ability to travel internationally - 120 million people left the country last year to travel. The cruise industry would be driven super-fast even with a very small percentage of that amount. There were more than 1 million people who went on cruises in China last year, and it will be much more this year.

What has Royal Caribbean done to remain competitive in China? What's your biggest achievement in China so far?

We brought the greatest cruise ships in the world to this market. We have the most extensive coverage of the coast of any cruise brand, and we have the most capacity here of any cruise brand. Two of the three Quantum-class ressels in the world will be in China by this summer.

But we still feel like the whole situation here is very much at the beginning, so we have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of consumer awareness we need to create. We have a lot of travel agent knowledge and understanding that doesn't exist yet that we need to develop. We also get attention in the general vacation market, where cruising has a very small share, but bringing ships like this to China makes more people notice us.

How have you modified your products to appeal to Chinese customers?

We have enhanced the retail shopping experience by bringing brands like Cartier and Tiffany, as the Chinese are the world champions for shopping. Some of the greatest retail brands in the world previously were not interested in being on board cruise ships.

My conversation with Cartier was probably 10 years long, trying to convince them, and their decision to go for it finally has a lot to do with Quantum coming to China. The first Cartier was on the Mariner of the Seas in 2014.

We have been able to find a good balance between providing comfortable experiences for the Chinese customers and value, the food they like and know, entertainment that they can understand, and at the same time offering completely new experiences that they may have never had before, and introducing them into a world-class experience.

An 86-day, around-the-world trip tailored for the Chinese market was made by a Costa Cruise ship in 2015. What do you think about this trial voyage?

Our industry is characterized by a variety of choices. It's great that there are cruise brands offering 86-night cruises, but we don't have any plans to do that.

Our focus at the moment is on penetrating the market, growing the market, with the types of cruises that are available to people. So four, five, six nights of cruising from Shanghai and Tianjin, going to South Korea and Japan, is the main way to grow the market, and that's our focus.

The Chinese cruise market is about 10 to 15 years away from maturity.

How did Royal Caribbean perform in the China market during the past decade and what are your business prospects?

Last year, the China market contributed about 10 percent of the revenue at the corporate level, and 10 years ago that figure was zero. We are optimistic about more opportunities in the future.

The growth rate for the company is between 3 and 5 percent, but the China market is growing much faster than that now.

It was a huge transition for you to switch from a law firm into the cruise industry. How did that happen?

It was chance, really. I was interested in doing something in business before I went to business school, and I was fortunately connected to a shipping company in London that had many clients, including Royal Caribbean. So I went there and then I went to business school in 1987 in France. Later, Richard Fain asked me if I would work in the cruise part of the business in Miami, and I am still working for him 27 years later.

There are many negotiations and contract situations, different transactions that we do, or even discussions about options and risks, where the background of the legal degree is helpful.

I am fortunate that I joined a business and an industry when it was beginning a long-term growth curve. I think our business is 14 or 15 times bigger than when I started at the company.

How do you define effective leadership at a multinational company?

A very complex undertaking is certainly one where you need to have a vision, so that you can lead people there; strategies, for how you are going to accomplish that vision; the ability to get things done despite many obstacles, to get things done in a timely manner and the ability to make decisions, including difficult decisions, especially the most difficult people-decisions.

You have to see yourself as a leader, and you need to try to be a good colleague with your peers.

What are your hobbies?

I am a competitive person, so I have competitive hobbies - running, table tennis, rowing. I was on the rowing team in college, but stopped because of back problems. I started again this year, and I am supposed to row in Venice, Italy, in May with my teammates from college.

We also like to ski as a family when we can, read magazines and take care of my two children. It's a good balance for me, to keep the business part of my life under control.

wangying@chinadaily.com.cn