Isaac Sellhausen: Okay. Great. Thank you so much.
Geoff Ballotti: Thank you.
Operator: We’ll go next now to Alex Brignall of Redburn Atlantic.
Alex Brignall: Hi. Thanks so much for taking the questions. The first one is on RevPAR and it’s kind of a broader question that I’ve been putting to everybody. But the comps that you’re referring to, obviously the year-on-year number in Q1 2023 was the highest. But based on your own disclosure, the number versus 2019 was the lowest in Q1 of 2023 and it’s about 600 basis points, 700 basis points harder in terms of versus 2019 to H2 2023. In Europe, that’s — it’s all obviously not in the U.S., it’s all international. In Europe, we’re beginning to see those year-on-year numbers turn negative, particularly U.K., because the versus 2019 comp, that’s when it got harder. So I’m just trying to reconcile how you’re thinking about that comp in terms of versus 2019 rather than versus the year-on-year number that you talked about? Thank you very much.
Geoff Ballotti: Yeah. Thank you, Alex. I’ll let Michele dive into the year-on-year comps. But just overall, we were really pleased with what happened in Europe. All of our largest countries saw positive year-on-year. And let’s just talk year-on-year for a moment, because then I’ll get to the, I think, the base of the question, which is the tailwind we have still to 2019. But we saw Germany and you mentioned U.K., both with sort of low single-digit year-on-year growth. The U.K. was both rate and occupancy for us. I think we were up about 3% in the U.K. year-on-year. 1 point was — 2 points were rate and occupancy was probably flat. And we saw growth in Turkey as well, that was double-digit and Spain was double-digit. But the opportunity for the rest of the year is still an occupancy tailwind when we look back to 2019.
I mean, versus 2019, international accelerated from, and I think, this is in the deck, from 45% from Q3 to Q4 to 60%, I believe it was for Q1 versus 2019. So there are 14 solid points of occupancy tailwind to capture internationally. And across the world, all of our regions are seeing a really sharp uptick, and obviously, overseas, corporate contracted and MICE is very important for us. We’re seeing a pickup there. Tour operators over in Europe are very optimistic. European low-cost carriers are forecasting a banner summer and a record high. So our European team is encouraged and we see opportunity there as we do in Asia. But Michele, I don’t know if you want to add anything to that.
Michele Allen: Yeah. That was great, Geoff. I think the only thing I would add is most of the growth we’ve seen in Q1 versus 2019 is ADR, and it’s the pricing power, it’s not the recovery and occupancy. We still have a long runway of occupancy recovery in EMEA, in Asia-Pacific and most of the international region. So that’s what we’re really focused on from a recovery standpoint in international.
Alex Brignall: Okay. Fantastic. And then just to follow up, you have phenomenal signings performance all the way through COVID, much better than some of your peers. And it seems that that’s continued after the hiatus that you had that wasn’t of your causing. Do you think that the strength in Q1 is the market being stronger or would you attribute it largely to your own kind of performance and maybe taking back some share that had been held back whilst you were dealing with other people?
Geoff Ballotti: Sure. I’d say it’s more of the latter, Alex. I — our — you look at it — we look at it both ways from a conversion and a new construction standpoint. But our new construction prototypes, our La Quintas, our La Quinta Hawthorn dual brand, our Microtel, our ECHO Suites. I mean, they have all been really performing well with developers and any of that hiatus uncertainty that was out there, any conversations that we’ve been having that may have been paused, those are picking back up. Our new construction executions were up 20% versus, as I said, all the way back in pre-COVID and you’re seeing it reflected in our pipeline and certainly conversion room signings. Because of the owner-first value proposition we’re delivering, just continuing to, we believe, perform well and steal share and there’s no reason we can’t keep doing that.
Alex Brignall: That’s fantastic. Thank you so much.
Geoff Ballotti: Thanks, Alex.
Operator: We’ll take our next question now from Dan Wasiolek of Morningstar.
Dan Wasiolek: Hey. Good morning, Geoff and Michele. Thanks for taking my question. You kind of already talked about this, but just in relation to that, I guess, tailwind potential of ADR kind of closing that gap with inflation and the occupancy recovery that you can still have. How are you guys thinking about that looking beyond this year? I mean, is this barring an economic recession, a potential couple year tailwind for RevPAR growth that we can kind of look forward to maintaining the type of growth you’re expecting this year for the next few years after that?
Michele Allen: Yeah. I think it’s a multiyear recovery, especially on the occupancy side and we know that during periods of increasing demand, there’s the ability to push rate higher. I would say, absent the occupancy recovery, I think, there is still room for ADR growth, particularly when you look at it compared to the rate of inflation. So, we see it as a multiyear recovery in both occupancy and ADR across the globe.
Dan Wasiolek: Okay. Thanks. All my other questions were already asked and answered. So, thank you. Nice quarter.
Michele Allen: Thank you.
Geoff Ballotti: Thanks.
Operator: We’ll go next now to Meredith Jensen of HSBC.
Meredith Jensen: Yes. Hi. I was interested in the Wyndham for Business and how the new platform might differ from what existed prior and what kind of metrics or what kind of questions we can ask going forward to kind of track the progress of that given the importance of groups and small businesses to your overall business? Thanks.
Geoff Ballotti: Sure. Well, we are adding a lot to it. We’ve had a focus on, Meredith, obviously helping companies manage their travel needs and providing discounts, but we’re looking to help these planners make it easier to book. And I think the metric that you want to look at going forward are the number of members we have and the pace of applications and those applications being signed. And as I said, since we’ve launched it just a week ago, our weekly pace has doubled and it will further continue to drive the 1.8 million companies out there that are booking this infrastructure business for our select service economy and mid-scale hotels across the country. So, it is just one of those. We’ve done a lot from a technology standpoint to continue to make it easier to do business with us, we’ve been investing heavily in our capabilities and we’ve been increasing our sales team to sell Wyndham business.
