Marriott International, Inc. (NASDAQ:MAR) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Tony Capuano: Sure. Shaun, let me start and then I’m sure Leeny will chime in. On your first question, you’re right, there is a very modest kind of a 20 bps adjustment at the high end to the guidance. We are delighted with the impact of this terrific MGM deal to so meaningfully increase our guidance for net unit growth for 2023. That little tweak at the high end really is reflective of kind of normal ins and outs. On the plus side, we’ve seen a little lower deletions to the system than we had visibility into a quarter ago. And then we’ve seen a handful of projects that we still are confident will open, but we’ve seen the timing of a handful of those openings slip into early 2024. And it’s those ins and outs that led to that modest tweak to the high end of the guidance.

On your second question, I would suggest to you that last year was probably the bottom of the trough. The numbers we’ve seen, particularly on the conversion front, are leading strong growth towards that mid-single-digit unit growth that you’ve become accustomed to in your time covering Marriott. I think in terms of continued improvement. You’ll hear a little more of this from Leeny. I think the biggest thing we’re hoping for now is continued relief from the constriction we see in the debt markets in the US and Europe for new construction. We’re seeing powerful interest on the conversion side. We’re seeing no shortage of developer interest or availability of the equity. I think the one impediment we’re seeing is it’s not an absolute absence of debt, but we’re not seeing the free-flowing debt we saw a few quarters ago.

Leeny Oberg: So Shaun, the only other thing that I would add is the reality that you’ve heard us talk more and more about multiunit conversions, which does make things a little bit lumpier on the rooms growth. If you remember, when we added a big slug of all-inclusive rooms a couple of years ago, when you look at the MGM deal that we recently announced, I take your point that M&A would be looked at separately. But I do think on the conversion side, you should continue to see us chasing these lovely multi-unit conversion opportunities that can bounce the numbers around a little bit, but definitely give us confidence in our mid-single-digit net rooms growth number as we look forward.

Shaun Kelley: Great. Thank you very much and congrats on the MGM deal.

Tony Capuano: Thanks, Shaun.

Operator: And we will take our next question from Jeff — I’m sorry from Joe Greff with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Joe Greff: Good morning, everybody.

Leeny Oberg: Hey, Joe.

Tony Capuano: Hi, Joe.

Joe Greff: I have two questions. One, what’s embedded in your full year fee guidance for incentive management fees? It looked like in the 2Q IMF per managed room was up nice 13% over 2019. How does what you have incorporated in full year guidance for IMF, how does that compare on a per-room management basis to 2019, both domestically and internationally?

Leeny Oberg: So Joe, we can work through the per room. Obviously, we’ve got the reality that the system overall is about 11% bigger than it was in 2019. So those comparisons start to be a little bit less meaningful. But to your point about where IMF should be for the full year, I think what you’ve seen in what we reported today clearly points to the reality that we hope, assuming things continue the way our guidance predicts, is a number of IMF that exceeds our 2019 peak by a good amount. The amount of percentage of hotels earning incentive fees so far is 62% in Q2 versus 72% in 2019. So we’re clearly getting much closer. And in Asia Pacific, it’s in the mid-80s in both years. So I think it — as you know, we’ve got a different structure of IMF in Asia Pacific.

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