Michael Bellisario: Thank you very much.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question will come from Bill Crow with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Bill Crow: Good morning. Thanks. Tony, there’s a difference between normalization in leisure demand and the consumer weakening? And I guess given your broad scope across price points and globally, where are you seeing the consumer weaken?
Tony Capuano: Well, on a macro basis, the consumer continues — we continue to see fairly consistent strength in the consumer. We’ve seen a little bit of trade down. We obviously compete across price points. But as Leeny pointed out in response to one of the earlier questions, in the third quarter we saw some strength in rate in the luxury tier, which suggests that maybe that’s an ebb and flow as opposed to a multi-quarter trend. We do think there is a value-driven consumer that perhaps we were not capturing before, which is one of the reasons we’re so enthusiastic about entering the mid-scale tier for the first time. We think that’s a segment of the traveling public that perhaps we had been priced out of capturing fully in the past.
But beyond that, we continue to see strength really across the consumer. The one thing that’s going to be really interesting to watch, I think, I’ve mentioned in my opening remarks, there were within a percentage point of getting back to pre-pandemic levels of cross-border travel. And you’ll recall, we had lots of good conversations back and forth in 2019 about emerging middle classes in markets around the world and their appetite for cross-border travel, much of the recovery we’ve seen in international markets has been on the shoulders of domestic demand. And as international airlift recovers, one of the things we’re watching closely is how strong is that middle class consumer and how strong has their appetite for cross-border travel recovered.
I realize that’s a bit of a rambling answer, but I mean, we’re watching the strengths of the consumer around the world. And most of what we’re seeing is either encouraging or wait and see, and I think wait and see applies to that cross-border question, but the early returns are encouraging.
Leeny Oberg: The only thing I would add is that, if this trend around experiences versus goods, which we continue to see a really positive element of demand. So whether it is for music concerts or professional sports games or for youth athletics or all of those pieces of people’s lives, that continues to be a great driver of demand for travel and really is quite global. So again, kind of a realization on the part of people that travel is a fundamental part of life and one that is very much appreciated.
Tony Capuano: And, Bill, just to build on that point, as we talk to our credit card partners, who obviously have rich consumer spending data, the trend that Leeny just described was much more prevalent in the younger generations pre-pandemic. When you look at current credit card spending data, it appears that that’s a trend that really spans generations now, which is obviously great news for our business.
Bill Crow: Great. Thank you very much.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Conor Cunningham with Melius Research. Please go ahead.
Conor Cunningham: Hi, everyone. Thank you. I just wanted to talk a little bit about your expectation for a recovery in large managed corporate. You talked about solid gains in lagging industries in the third quarter. Just curious on how your long-term expectation has changed on large manage? I realize that small and medium has been quite strong, but is a full recovery in large manage still possible at this point? Thank you.
Tony Capuano: Yes. So we’ve had a version of this conversation in the past. It often starts with a question, do you think business travel is permanently impaired? And I’ll give you a version of the answer I’ve given in the past, which is, I absolutely don’t think travel is permanently impaired. I just think it’s going to look a little different. The small and medium, we’ve talked about [indiscernible] that has been recovered now for a number of quarters and continues to show strength. There are a number of factors that are impacting some of the big corporates, whether that be concerns they have about macroeconomic conditions, whether that be sustainability goals that they set for themselves. Whatever it might be, it is having some impact on the pace at which their travel volumes recover.
But we’re seeing offsets to that impact on the strengths that you heard Leeny describe in group. We’re also seeing offsets in the amount of blended travel that’s driving, for instance, the extraordinary recovery we saw on Sundays and Thursdays. And so, I think that the day of the week looks a little different, the segments look a little different, but the overall volumes are quite encouraging.
Conor Cunningham: Okay. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Meredith Jensen with HSBC.
Meredith Jensen: Good morning. I was wondering if you could discuss a little bit about partnerships like Rappi? And if that kind of collaboration might be a model for additional partnerships that we’ll see going forward? And any color you could give to that and how that might compare to others? Thanks.
Tony Capuano: Yes, great question. The short answer is I hope so. Bonvoy is such an extraordinarily powerful platform for us, it’s a platform that strengthens the connectivity to our guests, ties together the breadth of our brand portfolio and partnerships like Rappi give us greater stickiness with the platform and allow us to connect more deeply in, in the case of Rappi, in markets like Latin America. They have to make sense for both sides to be obvious, but Bonvoy gives us a terrific opportunity to explore, create, and take advantage of those sorts of partnerships. And so, we will absolutely continue to look for those sorts of opportunities.
Meredith Jensen: Great. Thank you.
Tony Capuano: Welcome.
Operator: Thank you. At this time we have no further questions in queue. I’ll now turn the call back over to Tony Capuano to close this out. Please go ahead.
Tony Capuano: Great. Well, thank you again for all your interest and great questions this morning. We appreciate your continued interest in Marriott and look forward to seeing you on the road. Have a great afternoon.
Operator: This does conclude today’s call. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.
