By
Rebecca |
Carnival Corporation has appointed Gus Antorcha as president of Holland America Line and Neil Palomba as executive vice president and chief operations officer for Carnival Cruise Line.
Antorcha has held several leadership roles at Carnival Cruise Line over the past nine years, most recently serving as chief operations officer. In his new role, he will lead Holland America Line’s return to cruise operations and oversee sales and marketing, revenue management, deployment and itinerary planning, public relations, guest services operations and strategic planning. He will report directly to Stein Kruse, group CEO of Holland America Group and Carnival UK.
Palomba, who has been president of Carnival Corporation’s Italian brand Costa Cruises since February 2015, will now be responsible for overseeing all hotel operations, guest services, guest commerce and guest care at Carnival Cruise Line. He will continue to oversee the resumption of Costa operations over the next few weeks while progressively taking over his new responsibilities at Carnival Cruise Line, where he will report to president Christine Duffy.
The new appointments are part of Carnival Corporation’s efforts to best prepare the two brands for the return of cruising following the Covid-19 pandemic.
“As part of our ongoing efforts to continue enhancing our global operations, these moves clearly demonstrate the depth and strength of our leadership team,” said Arnold Donald, president and CEO of Carnival Corporation. “We are using this pause in guest operations to evaluate every aspect of our business, including our leadership structures, and make changes where appropriate to improve our business. Gus and Neil are both proven and strategic leaders within our organization, and we are looking forward to their contributions and success in these new roles as we position our company and our brands for a bright future."
Michael Thamm, group CEO of Costa Group and Carnival Asia, will now serve as president of Costa Cruises. Meanwhile, Mario Zanetti, president of Costa Group Asia, will also take on the role of chief commercial officer of Costa Cruises.
“The current pause in our cruise operations has given us the opportunity of redesigning every aspect of our business, from our commercial strategy, to product design including our organisational structure to make sure we come back stronger when we resume operations,” said Thamm. “We all thank Neil for his outstanding contribution to the success of Costa Cruises in the past six years and wish him the best for his new role within the Carnival family of brands.”