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Carnival

After stormy times for the travel industry in 2001--and some profit-hitting real storms in the Caribbean last summer--the skies now seem cloudless for Carnival. Its 2003 acquisition of Britain's p&o Princess Cruises secured a place for the world's largest cruise company in the s&p 350 last year, but an extraordinary 2004 saw it steam up the rankings. Adding eight new ships to its fleet of 70 helped, particularly since one of them was Cunard Line's Queen Mary 2, the world's largest ocean liner and Carnival's most profitable vessel. A big leap in capacity can bring its own problems, but Carnival's 12 cruise brands have managed to fill their berths, taking a record 6.3 million passengers on vacation in 2004.

Annual sales moved up 45%, to €7.9 billion, with net income up 53%, to €1.5 billion. And 2005 looks to beat that. Net income for the first quarter rose 70%, to €281 million. Two-thirds of Carnival's revenues come from the U.S., and Chairman and CEO Micky Arison plans to bolster his marketing there. But Arison's betting the strongest growth will come from Europe, to which he has dedicated eight of the 12 new ships on his order book through 2009. He has got his money on Germany, where despite the bad economy he thinks he can find lots of new passengers. "We don't focus so much on the economy, as on building ships and our brands," Arison says. With figures like Carnival's, who's to argue?