But looking back 6 to 12 months, most of those groups were hedging, just based on the significant run up that had happened over a short period of time, and some unpredictability based on availability of labor and supply chain challenges. I think today the — that the cost of construction continues to be a limiter on new supply growth in individual markets. And a significant portion of that cost and a meaningful component of it is the increased financing costs. So to the extent financing is available, and it’s still more limited than it has been at other points in the cycle, it comes at a higher cost, and that costs further inflates, what are already costs that are inflated to pre pandemic levels. And what that tends to do is limit the number of markets where you can justify construction projects.
It also, and I think, importantly, makes our construction takeout more attractive, because in some cases, it puts developers in a position to obtain more reasonably priced financing. And at the very least, provides assurances of a takeout above their costs to the extent they control or manage cost effectively on the projects. And I think because of the way the outlook is shaped up, our expectations are that for the foreseeable future new construction will be muted. And I think that shouldn’t be mistaken to be or be stretched to an assumption that there won’t be any new supply. Obviously, we anticipate in our best markets that we will continue to see supply and for that reason, we continue to seek out assets that are incredibly well located within those markets and have the amenities that guests are looking for.
But by and large, we anticipate that for the foreseeable future we’ll be in a meaningfully better position than we were coming into the pandemic in terms of supply growth. And as Liz and I both highlighted in our prepared remarks, that puts us in a position to benefit in a more meaningful way from incremental demand, both leisure and business side. And I think importantly, though, we don’t foresee a meaningful downturn in the near-term, should also put us in a much better position to the extent there were to be a pullback in the overall economy.
Anthony Powell: Yes, Thanks. And maybe one on RevPAR. So you took up your RevPAR gains by 1 percentage point. What was better than your original outlook? Was it business travel, leisure travel in certain markets, and maybe go through the guidance preset, so we can understand what kind of like driving kind of the upside here?
Liz Perkins: We have been slightly above the midpoint. You know, as we reported Q1, we were slightly ahead at that time. I think from that point forward, we continue to see strength in trends and not indications of a pullback, at least as quickly as the macroeconomic consensus view was earlier in the year. And I think coupled our year-to-date performance plus consensus slowing, pushing out some gave us incremental confidence to increase at the midpoint. And again, given the trends we continue to see in July, post, July 4th holiday week, I think are encouraging. So we’re optimistic that we’ll continue to see strong performance.
Anthony Powell: All right. Thank you.
Justin Knight: Thank you.
Operator: The next question comes from Michael Bellisario with Baird. Please go ahead.
Michael Bellisario: Thank you. Good morning, everyone.
Justin Knight: Good morning.
Michael Bellisario: Just want the big picture focus on ’24, but really focused on brand standards and what might come back as you look out to ’24. It’s not that you can maybe quantified at this point, but directionally, it would be interesting to hear your color. But how many more stay over rooms do you think we’ll need to be cleaned next year? Are the brands pushing for the happy hours to come back? Or just maybe how much [indiscernible] when you think all the extras on the brand side will be as we flip the calendar into ’24?
