Host Hotels & Resorts, Inc. (NASDAQ:HST) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Sourav Ghosh: Sure. So if you think about the $1.670 billion that we have guided to for the year, the way to think about long-term run rate, you take out $38 million of BI, right? So it’s effectively the $10 million that we already had in the previous guidance, plus the $28 million that we have put into the guidance. You’ll take out the $38 million, and then you will add $10 million for Alila Ventana, you would add $13 million for Nashville. So that, as Jim mentioned, we’re expecting about $42.2 million this year. We already have $29 million in there. So that’s where the $13 million is coming for Nashville. And then you would add another about $46 million, call it, for Maui. But for this year, our estimated Maui EBITDA is about $114 million. And if you add the $46 million, that sort of gets you back to where we were pre-fire. So when add that all up, I would say it comes to a pretty even $1.7 billion in terms of sort of ongoing run rate.

Operator: Our next question is coming from Bill Crow with Raymond James.

Bill Crow : Perfect. Jim, it seems like the Four Seasons, Orlando is an interesting resort to look at it. It seems — correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like that asset, in particular, benefited from pent-up inbound international demand and maybe what might be called aspiration or surge spending over the past couple of years. I’m just curious how 2024 is shaping up relative to ’23? And maybe more generally, is surge spending kind of coming down or cooling a bit?

Jim Risoleo: Bill, it’s — yes, I would say that I don’t know if I want to say that it’s coming down or cooling a bit. The ADR is likely to be lower this year in Orlando than it was in ’23, but it’s still meaningfully above where it was in 2019. So we’re not seeing a reset really backwards by any means. And one of the other things that will impact us a bit in Orlando this year is some disruption associated with our condo development. So we are steering guests away from a certain side of the building during times of construction. And — so that is going to be an impact on Orlando as well. But all in all, we’ve had — we still continue to have I think 5 resorts in the quarter that drove over $1,000 ADRs. And we’re not seeing a real slowdown in the affluent customer.

There has been a rotation that we talked about last year with respect to an international inbound versus — international outbound versus inbound imbalance. That is still occurring. I think over time that will right itself and correct itself. I think going back to Orlando for a moment, the Four Seasons in the quarter, we’ve had an ADR of over $2,000. So people are still — they still want to go to Orlando, they still want to stay at the Four Seasons. And what we have working against us a bit is a strong dollar. It’s not weakening. It will likely weaken once rates start to come down, and that’s keeping the international traveler away from the United States right now. I mean there was a fairly significant uptick in the first quarter. As we all try to wrap our head around the soft leisure demand — we talked a lot about weather in 3 states: Arizona, Florida and California, and it was meaningful.

I mean we lost group business at the [Fenician] over the course of the waste management open because of the rains. Now we dug into this a little more. And we tried to answer the question, where do these people go? I mean the demand didn’t just disappear. People just stay home. We found out that as an example, the international outbound to the Caribbean in the first quarter was 135% of where it was in 2019 levels and RevPAR in the Caribbean was up 17%. So it’s just a longer way of saying that our belief is that the consumer — the affluent consumer is still healthy. They’re still spending money. They’re still prioritizing experiences over goods. And we’re just not seeing the reset back.

Bill Crow : That’s helpful. Jim, you were one of the louder voice among your peers. I think everybody talked about it, but kind of projecting that this inbound outbound balance would correct itself this summer. Has the change in currency values — and maybe some of the outbound activity you saw in first quarter, has that kind of reduce your conviction on that call?

Jim Risoleo: I would say it’s going to take longer than we anticipated. Yes. We just – just very difficult to wrap your arms around that. One of the other things that we as an industry are dealing with through U.S. travel and AHLA is working with the state department to see what can be done to shorten Visa wait times. I mean Visa wait times in the U.S. are still running at 400 days. And that is a discouraging factor to many people as they are looking to come to the U.S. A corollary to that is in Canada, you can get it a Visa 40 days out. So there is a program in place to try to break that log jam and to hire more people to do the processing necessary.

Operator: Our next question is coming from Duane Pfennigwerth with Evercore ISI.

Duane Pfennigwerth: Most of my questions have been asked. But just on the Naples Ritz, can you remind us what seasonality is for that asset historically? I know your guide implies about 50% of the full year contribution in the March quarter. But does that align with historical seasonality? What did 1Q typically represent historically, if there’s such a thing as a “normal year.”

Sourav Ghosh: Sure, Duane. So yes, your estimate is right. We did about $32 million of EBITDA from operations of the Ritz Naples – what you will – when you see the $42 million in the income statement, that really includes the $10 million of BI that was in our previous guidance. So for purely from operations, $32 million, that’s about 50%. I would say Q2 is about 25%. Q3 is relatively close to 0, and then Q4 is the remaining 25%. That’s sort of how it breaks up for the year. And yes, it is pretty consistent to prior levels in terms of seasonality.

Operator: Our next question is coming from Robin Farley with UBS.

Robin Farley: Most of my questions have already been addressed. But one, I was just looking at your commentary about the increase in revenue in the quarter, the different parts of revenue per room. And it sounded like the biggest increase was coming from, I think, you said the other revenue, up 6% from cancellation and attrition fees. So I’m just wondering if that was — that increase was an unusually high level? Is that something you’ll be comping next year that we should be thinking about or — maybe thinking about as onetime in nature?