UPDATE 5-Royal Caribbean sees Q4 loss; shares slump

* Projects Q4 loss on pricing weakness, Florida economy

* Current bookings indicated positive yields in '10- CEO

* Shares stumble on the NYSE (Recasts; Adds comments from CEO interview, new analyst comment)

By Deepa Seetharaman

NEW YORK, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Royal Caribbean Cruises <RCL.N (RCL.OL) said on Tuesday that lower-than-usual prices for holiday cruises and Florida's sluggish economy would pinch fourth-quarter revenue and it forecast a loss for the period.

The world's second-largest cruise operator projected a loss of 5 cents per share for the fourth quarter. Wall Street had been expecting a per-share profit of 4 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company said that bookings for holiday cruises were not commanding their usual premium. Eleven-percent unemployment and a weak real estate market in Florida would also dent results.

"The fourth quarter has historically always been the most price-sensitive quarter," said Chief Executive Richard Fain in a Reuters interview. "If you're at the margin, relatively small changes in a steeper curve end up having a bigger impact."

Royal Caribbean's earnings fell 44 percent for the third quarter, but surpassed analysts' expectations as close-in bookings showed strength. Cruise bookings since mid-September were up 40 percent compared with the same period last year.

Yet the earnings beat did little to stem the sell-off in the company's shares. The stock dropped 4.5 percent to $19.75 on the New York Stock Exchange Tuesday after falling as low as $18.95 earlier in the session.

"Investors remained concerned that softer demand/pricing dynamics in 4Q09 could spill over into 2010," said Stifel Nicolaus analyst Steve Wieczynski in a note.

Fain said he understood worries about future results, but said the company stood by its comments about next year.

"I'm well aware that there are many people that are more pessimistic about the future," Fain said. "We're not really so much predicting the future as we are extrapolating booking trends."

He added: "Based on the bookings we're seeing, even without a big upturn in the economy, we felt pretty good about making a forecast of positive yield improvement."

Pricing has stabilized, but it is by no means robust, Fain added. Yields, a measure of how profitable a cruise is, are expected to drop 14 percent in 2009 before climbing into positive territory next year.

The Miami-based company expects 2009 earnings per share of 70 cents, 4 cents below what analysts had been forecasting.

"Our best scenario is that (2010) will be a lousy year, but it won't be as lousy as this year," Fain said.

THIRD-QUARTER RESULTS

Royal Caribbean posted a net income of $230.4 million, or $1.07 per share for the third quarter, compared with $411.9 million, or $1.92 per share a year earlier.

Analysts, on average, had expected $1.00 per share. Revenue slid to $1.8 billion.

Share of Royal Caribbean have surged since March amid talk of an economic recovery and mounting signs of stabilization within the sector. The company expects its Oasis of the Seas, the largest cruise ship in the world, will drive demand.

But recovery in the cruise industry remains slow on fears of the H1N1 virus and high unemployment.

Demand for cruises from Florida fell "double-digits" this fall, the company said. About 20 percent of guests on Royal Caribbean's cruises to the Caribbean come from the state.

Still Fain noted that the company's overall yield forecast had not changed.

"The supply-demand scenario for our business hasn't changed but it will go through regional and temporal variations."

(Reporting by Deepa Seetharaman; editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Andre Grenon and Gunna Dickson)