Q1 2022 Choice Hotels International Inc Earnings Call
[music].
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by.
Welcome to choice hotels International first quarter 2022 earnings call.
At this time all lines are in listen only mode.
I will now turn the conference over to at least kind of Investor Relations director for choice hotels.
Okay.
Good morning, and thank you for joining us today before we begin we'd like to remind you that during this conference call certain predictive or forward looking statements will be used to assist you in understanding the company and its results.
Actual results may differ materially from those indicated in forward looking statements and you should consult the company's forms 10-Q, 10-K, and other SEC filings for information about important risk factors affecting the company that you should consider.
These forward looking statements speak as of today's date, and we undertake no obligation to publicly update them to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.
You can find it of a conciliation of our non-GAAP financial measures referred to in our remarks as part of our first quarter 2022 earnings press release, which is posted on our website at choice hotels Dot com under the Investor Relations section.
This morning put patients, our president and Chief Executive Officer, and Dragovich, Our Chief Financial Officer will speak to our first quarter operating results and financial performance.
Following patent Dumbs remarks, we'll be glad to take your questions and with that I'll turn the call over to Pat.
Thanks, Sally and good morning, everyone. We appreciate your taking the time to join us.
It's been a rewarding and successful start to the year.
Choice hotels generated record earnings continued our industry, leading revpar growth.
And attracted significant new developer interest in our portfolio of proven hotel brands.
Consumer trends such as remote work rising wages retirements and road trips are all expected to fuel future demand.
I'm pleased to report that we generated $96.6 million of adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter.
53% year over year increase.
And a 28% increase when compared to the same quarter in 2019.
At the same time, we expanded our adjusted EBITDA margins to 74% year over year.
These exceptional financial results were fueled by continued revpar growth that materially outperformed the industry by 13 percentage points for the first quarter as we gained share across every segment in which we compete.
For over two years, our revpar gains as compared to 2019 have been significantly higher than the competitions.
This continued impressive performance is driving high demand for our brands from the franchise community.
In fact in the first quarter, we saw a 46% year over year increase in new applications for domestic franchise agreements.
We have always had a strong relationship with our franchisees in the past two years have only reinforced this bond.
Last week, we hosted more than 5000 franchisees hotel general managers and industry suppliers at our 66th annual convention.
This was the first time in three years that our entire choice community has been together for an in person event.
And the level of enthusiasm around the future of our brands was remarkable.
We spent the week sharing our long term brand growth plans and listening to our hotel owners and operators.
It was also an important opportunity for our franchisees to learn about the exciting new investments we have made in tools and resources that can further improve their businesses.
Our franchisees left the event energized and optimistic that they can drive the profitability of their hotels to new levels.
Of course, the success of the event was only possible. Thanks to the hard work of all of our choice associates.
Throughout the remainder of our remarks will provide revpar comparisons to 2019.
We believe our more meaningful in analyzing trends given the pandemic impact on the industry's prior year performance.
Our first quarter Revpar growth was impressive.
With domestic system wide revpar, increasing 10.4% from the same quarter of 2019.
Even with the omicron variant demand during the first quarter surpassed 2019 levels.
Combined with our hotels' ability to drive room rates, we have now exceeded our 2019 revpar levels for 11 consecutive months.
And we expect our momentum to continue into the second quarter.
Our April Revpar results exceeded 2019 levels by approximately 16%.
We remain very optimistic about our growth prospects because of the long term investments we have made and will continue to make in our business.
These investments are designed to capitalize on the consumer trends that have accelerated during the past two years and are expected to continue.
Trends that favor at leisure travel.
Limited service hotels and longer lengths of stay.
All of which are key strengths of our business.
We believe that remote work, which affords Americans greater flexibility as to when where and for how long. They travel will continue to fuel the strong performance of our brands.
We expect these trends to continue to be strong tailwind for our company's long term growth.
Consumers, who have built up their savings during the pandemic and are experiencing rising wages.
Our pivoting towards spending more on experiences than on durable goods.
In fact this year research shows that Americans are expected to budget more on domestic leisure travel compared to pre pandemic levels.
Consumer preferences also are shifting as to how and where they choose to travel.
Recent study shows that domestic road trips are now more popular than they were pre pandemic a trend that is particularly beneficial for our portfolio of over 4000 hotels located within a mile of an interstate exit.
And with over 2000 domestic hotels near beaches and National Parks, our hotels are in the right locations to capture growing demand from travelers, who continue to discover the great American outdoors.
All of these trends highlight the potential for choice to further increase our share of consumer travel demand.
Even with rising inflation and gas prices, we continue to expect strong consumer demand, especially as we enter the busy summer leisure travel season.
Based on our focus group research and current projections, we do not expect to see an impact on aggregate travel demand through the summer travel season.
It is worth noting that gas prices historically have had little to no impact on travel.
Rather consumers indicate that rising fuel costs could mean adjustments in how they spend their money such as travelling shorter distances choosy.
Choosing destinations closer to home or not dining out as often.
But they are going to travel.
Indeed, recent studies point to a significant year over year uptick in consumer's intent to travel in the next six months.
Nine out of 10 American travelers surveyed are saying they are ready to travel the highest levels we've seen over the last two years.
Likewise, we are continuing to see the return of customers who were once hesitant to travel.
In addition to leisure travel we are also observing business travel trends that are favorable for our brands.
In the first quarter, we witness sequential quarter over quarter increases in our business travel bookings with demand continuing the steady progression back to 2019 levels.
We expect business travel in our key industry verticals to increase fueled by the additional onshoring of the U S supply chain and investments from the infrastructure Bill.
The strengthening of group travel demand. We expect this year will also serve as a catalyst for our portfolio.
By establishing our strong foundation within the small group travel segment.
We positioned choice to benefit from the recent demand shift towards smaller size meetings.
In addition, our recent partnership with the industry's leading provider of group travel booking platforms makes us one of the few companies able to provide travel planners with instant booking capability for our group rates.
This new capability positions us well to capture additional share of group travel as it bounces back.
We are also investing to drive demand from all travelers through a new nationwide advertising campaign centered on choice hotels, serving as the base for our guests to have great experiences at their destinations.
With so many people returning to travel following a two year hiatus. The campaign encourages our guests to take advantage of spontaneous trips after months of Lockdowns and travel restrictions.
Now that we have exceeded our pre pandemic performance levels and are encouraged by the long term fundamental shifts in consumer behavior, we will continue to invest in our brands as well as our franchisee and guest value propositions.
Underpinning our first quarter success are the deliberate decisions and strategic investments we have made in our brand portfolio.
Proposition.
Platform capabilities and other franchisee facing tools.
Our results show that our long standing strategy continues to work and has put choice hotels in a stronger position than we were in 2019.
As we have noted before we believe the key strategic building blocks, we have established will drive our sustained growth in the years to come.
Let's take a closer look at some of the accomplishments for this quarter.
First we continued to strengthen our core portfolio of brands.
The transformation of our comfort brand as a Prime example of our long term investment approach.
Since its successful refresh the comfort brand has registered nine consecutive quarters of unit growth year over year and has continued to generate revpar index gains versus its local competitors do.
Demonstrating the attractiveness of this iconic brand to hotel developers and guests alike.
Now we're starting the next chapter of our flagship brand with a new competitive prototype that we introduced last year.
This has driven a 45% year over year increase in domestic franchise agreements awarded in the first quarter.
Our quality Inn brand with over 1600 hotels opened in the United States continues to be a leader in the Midscale segment with strong developer demand and an eight 4% increase in Revpar outperforming the segment during the first quarter versus the same period of 2019.
Are clarian Pointe brand has also continued to grow in.
In the three and a half years since its launch Clarion Pointe has expanded to 45 open hotels with another 32 hotels awaiting conversion this year.
We also further invested in the extended stay segment, which continues to be a significant driver of our unit and Revpar growth.
Our current extended stay domestic pipeline expanded to 350 hotels and we expect the number of our extended stay units to grow by double digits over the next five years.
These results reflect investors' confidence in committing their capital to our extended stay brands.
Specifically in the first quarter, we awarded twenty-nine extended stay domestic franchise agreements a threefold increase year over year and a two fold increase compared to 2019 levels.
Our investments in the Woods spring suites brands marketing and distribution capabilities enabled us to achieve over 27% Revpar growth in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the same period of 2019.
What's spurring suites pipeline reached nearly 190 domestic properties as of the end of March a 26% increase year over year with over 30 construction projects started and.
And we expect the brand's ground breaks this year to exceed 2021 levels.
Our newest extended stay brand ever homes suites is off to a strong start this year and its first hotel is scheduled to open this summer.
The appeal for this mid scale, new construction option in the development community continues to grow with nearly 30 additional projects already in the pipeline and a significantly higher number of domestic contracts expected for 2022 as compared to last year.
And finally, we recently introduced suburban studios and innovative transient hotel two extended stay hotel conversion model.
To provide growth minded hotel owners, a quick low cost opportunity to reposition their existing properties into the high performing economy extended stay segment.
The first suburban studios property is already underway and set to open this summer and.
And interest is high among owners and developers to join the portfolio of 70 open suburban hotels.
We're also pleased with our upscale portfolio, where our focus efforts and investments continue to drive a healthy payoff.
The Cambria brand continued its positive unit growth momentum expanding to 58 units with an additional 68 domestic properties in the pipeline.
Including 19 projects under active construction at the end of March.
The recently introduced Cambria Hotel prototype designed for secondary and leisure markets has been enthusiastically received by the developer community with 10, New prototype agreement signed as of the end of the first quarter.
2022 is shaping up to be another great year for Cambria we.
We expect to open over 10 additional hotels across the country. This year.
Further fueling the revenue intensity of our system.
In addition, consumer confidence in our upscale products continues to drive the brand's Revpar index gains versus their local competitors and underlines the attractiveness of choice hotels' value proposition in the upscale segment for current and prospective owners.
Another key contributor to our success has been our economy brand portfolio.
Developers and our franchise owners have taken note of our economy brands segments, Revpar index gains versus local competitors and it's 17% revpar growth in the first quarter compared to the same period of 2019.
Specifically, our economy large brand experienced an increase in domestic franchise agreements awarded in the first quarter of 2022, compared with 2021 and 2019.
Contributing to the brands, 14% year over year domestic pipeline expansion as of the end of March.
As we emerge from the pandemic. We also continued to improve the value proposition that we deliver to our franchise owners.
Thanks to our pricing optimization and merchandising capabilities, our owners are able to effectively capture additional market share drive topline revenue and reach their target customers.
The award winning tools, we've introduced and new enhancements. We recently deployed are contributing to our brands outperformance.
In fact for over two years, our revpar gains as compared to 2019 have been significantly higher than the competitions.
What's most impressive is that we continue to drive strong performance through both rate and occupancy share gains.
In addition, our franchisees are benefiting from our strong business delivery to their hotels.
Thanks to our enhancements in our distribution capabilities, we drove growth as compared to 2021 and 2019 through increased revenue contribution in the first quarter of 2022 from choice hotels Dot com.
Business delivery through this channel significantly improves our owners' profitability as it brings more guests into their hotels at the lowest cost.
Owners are seeing the increasing value in our brands interacting upon it.
As evidenced by existing owners renewing their agreements to remain in our system and new owners buying existing choice flagged hotels.
In fact, the first three months of 2022 marked the highest quarter over the past five years for franchise re licensing and renewal revenue and contracts.
This is true for new hotel development as well as nearly seven out of 10 franchise agreements awarded this quarter were with existing or returning owners.
And finally, our franchise owners are remaining with choice as seen in our industry, leading voluntary franchisee retention rate.
At the same time, we continued to improve the unit economics for our franchisees concentrating on investments like housekeeping upon request that lower their total cost of ownership, while providing them with resources to operate more efficiently.
As a result of our progress we are well positioned for stronger profitability in the future with ample runway as we execute our strategy.
The results we achieved this quarter confirm that our long term strategy is working.
We are further improving our revenue delivery to our franchisees, while focusing on growth in more revenue intense segments and locations.
This is what gives us such high confidence in our ability to continue to drive exceptional results in the coming years.
I want to now spend a moment on the efforts, we're making to live up to our ESG commitments, which like our strategy are focused on the long term.
Among our recent actions was the creation of a dedicated role to lead our environmental social and governance efforts across the choice Hotels' community.
This is a testament to our commitment to raise choices sustainability and corporate social responsibility efforts to the next level.
And bring a fresh perspective on how to expand and reinforce our award winning ESG programs.
We recently rolled out choices commitment to green program that signals, our growing focus on how we can contribute to a more sustainable future for our planet, while also being mindful of our owners bottom line.
In this regard, we're making progress with our cloud based property management dashboard that will enable our franchisees to track utilities usage at the hotel level.
<unk> us to benchmark our system and.
And help identify opportunities for additional energy water and waste conservation.
This is a win win because it reduces franchisees operating costs, while benefiting the environment.
A central focus of our ESG efforts is our commitment to fostering an environment supportive of diversity and inclusion.
Our fully dedicated franchise development and service team continues to drive diverse ownership of choice franchised hotels.
[noise] underrepresented women and minority owners.
With over 300 franchise contracts awarded since the program began over 15 years ago.
As part of our efforts to raise the level of women's hotel ownership I am pleased to say that last week, we announced our newly enhanced program.
Her towels by choice.
The program builds on our legacy and will provide dedicated training education, Mentorship and financial assistance to advance and empower the industry's female entrepreneurs and ensure they thrive as a choice hotels franchisee.
As part of this initiative, we've met with well over 100 current and potential women owners and are committed through her tells by choice to make their dream of owning their hotel a reality.
In closing I am confident that our effective strategic investments and commitment to our franchisees' profitability will continue to create value and deliver results for our owners and shareholders.
We believe that we are well positioned to build on the success achieved this quarter and that our increased earnings power will enable us to further capitalize on growth opportunities in 2022 and beyond.
With that I will hand, it over to our CFO .
Dom.
Thanks, Pat and good morning, everyone I'm very pleased to be with you today to report our impressive first quarter financial performance.
Specifically I will provide additional insights on our first quarter results share expectations for what lies ahead and update you on our liquidity profile and capital allocation approach.
Throughout my remarks today, I'll be making financial performance comparisons to 2021.
Just a reminder, choices full year 2021 adjusted EBITA exceeded 2019 levels and as a result, we are focused on building on last year's record performance.
However for Revpar growth I will continue to make these comparisons to 2019, which we believe are more meaningful and analyzing the industry trends.
For Revpar comparisons to 2021, please refer to our press release.
For the first quarter 2022, compared to the same period of 2021.
Total revenues, excluding marketing and reservation system fees were $131 $1 million up 43% increase in adjusted EBITDA grew 53% to $96 $6 million driven by impressive Revpar performance strong effective royalty rate growth.
And disciplined cost management.
Our adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 74% an increase of nearly five percentage points.
And as a result, our adjusted earnings per share were $1 <unk> for the first quarter, an increase of 81% versus the same period of 2021.
I'd like to now turn to our three key revenue levers beginning with Revpar.
Our domestic system wide revpar outperformed the overall industry by 13 percentage points for the first quarter, increasing 10, 4% versus the same period of 2019.
Pacifically, our average daily rate grew by over 9% and our occupancy levels increased by 60 basis points compared to the same quarter of 2019.
As you already remember from our prior calls our brand strategy is focused on driving growth across the higher value and more revenue intense upscale extended stay and mid scale segments.
Through our investments in these strategic segments, we have materially outperformed the industry in revpar growth and continued to gain share versus our local competitors across all segments in which we compete in the first quarter versus the same period of 2019.
For first quarter, we increased Revpar index versus our local competitors by over three percentage points as compared to the same period of 2019, reflecting continued growth in both weekday and weekend Revpar index.
Specifically, we continued to gain average daily rate and occupancy index share versus local competitors and achieved average daily rate and occupancy growth stronger than the industry.
Contributing to this performance are the key investments we continued to make during the pandemic, including our award winning revenue management tool.
Which successfully rolled out across our system last year.
Expert advice from our revenue management consultants, along with the tools and capabilities. We provide are enabling our franchise owners to quickly determined and execute the right pricing strategy, which is increasingly critical in this inflationary environment.
We believe that the new enhancements. We are currently deploying to our revenue management tool will allow us to further drive rate growth in 2022 and beyond.
Also giving us confidence as we look ahead, our positive consumer and macro demand trends that we expect will continue to drive outperformance within our brand segments.
For full year 2022, we currently expect domestic revpar to surpass 2019 levels, an increase between 10% and 13% as compared to full year 2019.
Our effective royalty rate also continues to contribute to our strong revenue growth.
Our domestic effective royalty rate once again exceeded 5% for the quarter, increasing three basis points for the first quarter of 2022 compared to the same period of the prior year.
This performance is further validation of our long term investment strategy on behalf of our franchisees and reflects the continued strengthening of our value proposition to our franchise owners and the attractiveness of our proven brands.
With hotel owners continuing to seek choice hotels proven capabilities to consistently deliver strong topline revenues that maximize return on investment while reducing total cost of ownership, we expect our effective royalty rate to grow approximately five basis points for full year 2022 year over.
A year.
The third revenue lever I'd like to discuss is unit growth, where we are able to leverage our portfolio is absolute size and the revenue intensity of its hotels.
For the first quarter, our revenue intense brands grew by nearly 1% year over year, excluding last year's departures of 17 am resorts from our ascend collection and the exit from our portfolio of just over 40 underperforming assets that we discussed last quarter.
For full year 2022, we expect the unit growth of the more revenue intense segments to accelerate and range between 1% and 2%.
Furthermore, we expect the broader revenue intensity trends of our overall portfolio seen in 2021 to continue with a new units entering the choice system to generate on average twice the revenue as a unit exiting our system.
Aided by our strong value proposition and continued Revpar performance demand for new franchise contracts has continued to build since the beginning of the year with nearly two thirds of the total domestic agreements executed in the month of March alone.
For the first quarter, we awarded over 90 domestic franchise agreements, a 39% increase year over year, excluding last year's Penn National Gaming multi unit transaction.
Nearly 90% of all domestic contracts awarded in the quarter were for our revenue intense segments.
Our developers share are increasing optimism regarding the long term fundamentals of the lodging industry.
Specifically, we are very pleased to see that demand for our new construction brands in the first quarter more than doubled year over year.
In fact more than 40% of total domestic franchise agreements awarded in the first quarter were for new construction contracts at.
At the same time demand for our flagship comfort brand conversions increased by 56% year over year, driven by the brand's strong value proposition and performance.
Developers continue to choose our brands versus the competition as they seek to improve their operations and boost their hotels long term value.
A 46% year over year increase in new applications for domestic franchise agreements in the first quarter further reinforces our confidence in our continued growth prospects through 2022 and beyond.
Let me now turn to our balance sheet, the strength of which is one of the major reasons. We believe we are an even stronger company today than in 2019.
Our strong performance effective allocation of resources to drive top line outperformance and margin expansion has further bolstered the company's liquidity position. Despite the first quarter being historically, our lowest cash flow period.
More specifically at the end of first quarter 2022, the company had more than $1 $1 billion in cash and available borrowing capacity through its revolving credit facility.
We are pleased to report a significant year over year increase in cash flow from operations from nearly flat to $64 million for the first quarter 2022.
We continue to maintain a best in class balance sheet with a gross debt to EBITDA leverage level below our target range of three to four times and net debt to EBITDA leverage at 1.2 times as of the end of first quarter 2022.
This lower leverage reflects our improved profitability and means we have the flexibility to utilize our balance sheet as needed for additional growth.
Year to date through April we returned over $41 million back to our shareholders in the form of cash dividends and repurchases of our common stock.
During the first quarter of 2022, we increased the quarterly dividend to a level higher than pre pandemic and we expect to pay dividends this year of $53 million more than double the level of 2021.
2022 will continue to be an investment year for us we will utilize our strong leverage position to further invest in the core business, especially in our product portfolio and deploy capital for ancillary growth opportunities.
In doing so we are building upon the successful investments we have made in our key strategic segments over the last few years, such as the new brand launches of Clarion Pointe and ever home suites, the strategic redesign of suburban studios.
And development of new prototypes for our comfort brand family and Cambria hotels.
In addition, we have been making significant investments in our value proposition capabilities, including the introduction of our new revenue management tool and enhancements to our merchandising capabilities.
These investments are providing the tailwind driving our brands Revpar outperformance increased developer demand for our products and the industry's leading voluntary franchisee retention rate.
Today's results are a testament that our investments are working and we are committed to continue to invest and drive attractive returns for years to come.
As such we expect to incur higher adjusted SG&A expenses year over year and 2022 with the majority of investment activity planned for the second half of the year.
We anticipate adjusted SG&A expenses to revert to historical growth rates thereafter.
Despite these planned elevated investments we expect to drive continued growth in adjusted EBITDA for full year 2022, compared to full year 2021, and grow our adjusted EBITA margin above 2019 levels.
Our confidence in our ability to generate strong levels of cash combined with ample liquidity and debt capacity position us well to continue to grow the business and return excess cash flow to shareholders for the remainder of the year and well into the future.
As you can see choice hotels once again had a strong start to the year and we remain optimistic that our performance will continue as we drive results guided by our long term focus.
Accordingly, we will continue to adjust the level of our investments as we monitor the broader environment and its recovery trends, we look forward to providing you with further updates in August during our next earnings call.
In closing I want to reinforce the confidence we have in our long term strategic approach and the resilience of our business model, which allow us to deliver strong operating results and generate substantial cash flow through multiple growth levers.
We believe these strengths combined with our disciplined capital allocation strategy and strong balance sheet will allow us to further capitalize on growth opportunities and drive outsized returns in the years ahead.
At this time, Pat and I would be happy to answer any questions operator.
We will now begin the question answer session.
Ask a question you May press Star then one on your Touchtone phone.
If you are using a speakerphone please pick up your handset before pressing the keys.
To withdraw your question. Please press Star then two.
At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster.
The first question today comes from Shaun Kelly with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi, Good morning, everyone I appreciate all the color and detail our Dharma, especially on the outlook just wondering if we could get a bit more color on sort of either what you're implying or expecting to see an overall net unit growth. So it looks like there may be some additional drag here from either.
Our hotels youre prone.
Proactively letting go out of the system or maybe some other moving pieces, but can you maybe just give us a little color on the overall system wide nug it because it sounds like there's probably an offset from higher value hotels, but you know help us think about maybe some of the puts and takes there. Thank you.
Yeah, Shaun let me start and then Dan can fill in some of the detail I mean, I think the most important thing we want.
To be focused on is the hotels that were expecting to open. This year are going to deliver twice the royalty revenue as those that are leaving and that's reflective of our strategy of focusing on these more revenue intense hotel segments and hotel locations.
So that's the that's the most critical piece of this and because of that our unit growth is accretive to our earnings.
The growth in our revenue intense segments, we are projecting this year to be between one and 2%.
And that's consistent with what we are.
What we're what we're seeing in the marketplace I would say on the terminations.
We did clean up, particularly the quality Inn brand last year and a lot of that was due to owners last year had a number of months of really positive performance and if they werent.
Investing back in their hotels, we sort of made the decision to eliminate some of those hotels right now we don't see that for this year as far as taking.
Additional terms two to improve the quality of the brands.
But I'll I'll pitch it over to Dom here for any additional and.
Additions there.
I think when you take a look at the.
Current.
Current quarter results, excluding <unk> and the strategic terms in Q4, the revenue intense unit growth was essentially that 1% Pat mentioned those brands.
We expect those to accelerate throughout the remainder of the year and range between that 1% and 2%. The other obviously component of the broader portfolio unit growth is really the economy brands and what I would say about the economy brands as we expect them to continue the trend to continue.
The same way that they had in 2021 candidly when you take a look at the first quarter, we do see some green shoots there as well so we would actually expect those trends to either stay pretty consistent or even improve somewhat.
For the remaining three quarters of the year I think on the termination side of the house, we do not expect to see any outsized termination similar to what we did in Q4 of last year in fact, I would say the more historical 4% termination rate the vast majority of those being involuntary so choice actually.
No.
Executing the termination.
We would expect those to be more at that 4% historical level.
Great. Thanks, and maybe just as a quick follow up if I if I could.
Love to just talk about you know, obviously, you're continuing to see super strong rates.
Throughout throughout the balance of this quarter it seems like heading into it.
Second quarter as well and obviously you have some mix shift moving these around as we think about it.
The types of hotels that you're that you're opening and ramping can you help us just think about either same brand ADR growth basically how much how much tailwind are you experiencing from some of the new brands that you're opening relative to that overall kind of ADR gauge how much is mix shift versus how much is sort of kind of core same brand the same brand.
ADR growth. Thank you.
Yeah, Let me just start side I mean last week as I mentioned, we were with.
Over 5000 of our owners.
A lot of the rate gain that we're seeing is just more effective pricing. So we rolled out our.
Our revenue management tool last summer at the beginning of the summer.
The effectiveness of that and helping them price their rooms multiple times, a day and that system is getting significant amount of input on what's going on in the marketplace and these owners are able to sit on their couch at 10 o'clock at night and get a recommendation on their phone that they might want to up there.
Right. So the response time has really improved and so I think that that's part of what we're seeing as far as additional runway when we look at our ADR index, meaning how how much we are.
Setting our rates relative to competition, we see significant runway.
And then on top of that we're still gaining occupancy. So when you look at these cycles. It's sort of you know once occupancy sort of taps out that's where you know rate pressure comes in but we're still seeing occupancy gains along the way so just talking to owners about what theyre seeing.
And what they are experiencing in their ability to set their rates multiple times a day using our new tools.
We feel really confident about the strength of our rate setting as we move into the second half of the year here, yes. So the only thing I would add is more tactically speaking when you take a look at exhibit five in the release you can see that that average daily rate increase is pretty consistent across the board. So every single brand with.
It was pretty much pretty close to that at least mid single digits, if not higher. So obviously, we're seeing the tailwind on the revenue intense unit growth and when you apply that multiplier the broader unit growth implied is more like a 3% to 4% for the entire portfolio then on top of that you see pretty consistently across the board those those average daily rate.
So you see how that nine 3% breaks out by brand and that exhibit five.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Robin Farley with UBS. Please go ahead.
Great. Thanks, just wanted to I know there were a lot of puts and takes with the with the unit growth you mentioned that the deletions will kind of go back to a more normal level.
And I understand that the growth is focused on.
Extended stay and upscale segments, but if you net together that and the economy.
Segment.
And kind of.
Maybe not excluding any anything in either period, but just like looking on a company wide basis wearable units in 'twenty to be versus 'twenty. One is it is it flat or maybe slightly down a little bit just trying to.
Back into that number thanks, Robert I would say, it's probably close to a flat or slightly positive candidly again when you take a look at that revenue intense unit growth I would say that 1% to 2% that we mentioned on the call I think your best best way to model the economy brands would be to consider what the unit growth was for that portfolio in 2010.
One if not marginally better year over year, and so I think that when you put that through the model I would think that it would imply some somewhere around flat to slightly positive for the broader portfolio.
And what was the unit growth in economy and in 'twenty one.
It's down about 4% or so.
And then.
And then just lastly, I know you mentioned the.
New revenue management tool.
And I think you said that was rolled out at the end of last summer was that sort of across the portfolio I'm just thinking about.
You know if if there was still.
If it took a couple of quarters to roll out or when we would think about that.
Full year as the full impact of that what would that have been 12 months starting at the end of last summer or did it take a little while the rollout. Thanks.
We started it robin at the beginning of the summer and we were rolling out probably a couple of hundred hotels per week.
And I would say by the end of the summer we had 5000 of our 6000 hotels on the system by the end of the summer. So you can kind of look at it that way the whole.
It tells that are not on it yet our extended stay brands, we're working on that.
Solution as we speak.
And then for our economy hotels, they have the ability to opt in to whether or not to use the system.
And I think about a third do opt in and I would guess after last week's convention when they talk to other owners, who are really benefiting from the system, we're going to see a higher uptake.
From from owners, who can opt in for the rest of our brands. It's a mandatory requirement and our owners are really pleased with the results.
And do you get a greater percentage of revenue from wins book does that is that why you know.
Two thirds of the economy wouldn't be opting in is it does it have an incremental basis points of revenue.
Well I think a lot of the.
Yeah, no it's more of a.
Some of these economy hotels are really small properties there in a market where they may be the only hotel in town. So they are the market.
It's more of that type of owner, where it just doesn't make sense for them. So that's why we didn't.
Mandated for our economy hotels, if youre in a con lodz, it's in an urban market or you're in a secondary market.
You're more likely to have enough competition and really want to be.
Up to date on what's going on in the marketplace and owners are seeing inflation and inflation is moving so quickly that if you're able to price, which we are multiple times a day, it's a real benefit to them to stay on top of what the consumers willing to pay given that day of the week.
Okay, great. Thanks very much.
The next question comes from Patrick Schultz with Chile. Please go ahead.
Yeah.
Hi, good morning, everyone.
Good morning good.
Morning.
First question.
Regarding your balance.
Balance sheet, obviously, arguably under levered and potential capital allocation.
I recall about I think it was.
Roughly 10 years ago, the last time that balance sheet was at these healthy levels.
You folks.
Paid out I would say so.
Sizable surprise, a special dividend would you rule that out as a possibility.
For use of your balance sheet.
Yeah sure Patrick Let me, let me address that I mean, I was I was here and part of that decision 10 years ago. I mean, I think what we what we look at on a constant basis is do we have enough capital capacity to make the investments we want to make in our core business.
If I look back at those decisions we made.
I think youre right. It was about 10 years ago. It was do we have enough balance sheet capacity to support the growth of Cambria do we have capacity to do the.
Investments in our brands cleaning up comfort Inn was was just beginning to be considered.
So those are the those are the really first steps. We take is what's the capital capacity, we need to grow our business.
We do like to have dry powder.
If there are opportunities that come around and so that's also a second.
Factor that that that that drives that.
Then at the end of the day. If those are those are met and we have excess capital capacity. That's how that decision was made.
10 years ago, if I look at where we are today.
And it was really interesting last week being with our owners because we are not just with the small business owners, we're with the vendor community.
With a lot of our international partners from the Middle East and from Europe .
There's a lot of change going on in the world interest rates are going up obviously there is inflation there is a war going on.
There's a lot of.
Potential for some for some opportunities for a business like ours that generates as much cash as we do.
And so I think that's those are all the factors that we that we look at with regard to how we allocate our capital and as we've discussed many times before that hierarchy is really around investment in our in our core.
And as Dom and I've talked about today, you know launching new brands and refreshing our prototypes investing.
Investing in our value proposition and the technology tools that we're developing all of that is is investment that makes sense for us and we're very long term focused business. So these are investments that might pay off in that five to 10 year time horizon. So those are all the things that we consider first we do look opportunistically for.
Acquisition opportunities and then we have returned share capital to shareholders through our dividend policy and obviously through share repurchases. So that none of that capital allocation hierarchy is any different today.
But those are the those are the factors we would consider as we think about the best use of the of the balance sheet.
Okay.
And then a technical question on your guidance, where you talked about.
Revpar growth expectations versus 2019.
As I look at your historical dollar Revpar in 2019 from your earnings releases and also in <unk>.
Factset Bloomberg on Manhattan at $51 20.
Just a word of modeling apples to apples what is the correct.
Our base Revpar from 2019 that we should be modeling that 10% to 13% around is again is 50 120, the right number to use.
Okay.
Yeah.
Just give me one second on that Patrick.
The exact number but we did.
In terms of the Revpar that we've listed in the exhibits in the press release, that's now on an apples to apples basis. So we did show.
Of 2022 versus 2019, so that should be the revpar number that youre using that we have there in the in the exhibit.
Okay.
It's $4 29.
Okay. So 40 29 is the base number to grow that 10% to 13% to 13% op correct correct. That's correct. Okay very good I appreciate it thank you.
Thank you.
Again, if he would like to ask a question. Please press star one to enter the question queue.
The next question comes from Eric Field with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, Good morning, everyone. The airfield under the team at Jefferies and thanks for taking our question.
We're curious about the ever homes suites brand, which I believe I heard correctly signings are already at 30 hotels. If you could just elaborate maybe a little bit more on the strategy here and maybe compare that to the Cambria brand, which is certainly adding properties, but albeit maybe at a slightly slower pace and how youre contemplating growing that brand as well. Thank you.
Sure. So what we looked at was our expertise in the Midscale segment and our expertise to the extended stay segment and the real crossroads, there led us to the conclusion that.
There really has not been a new brand launched in that segment at that price point in over 10 years.
Secondly, we looked at the supply and demand fab.
Factors, where you know the supply is about I think it's 9% of the consumer.
<unk> of the available supply is actually purpose built extended stay and the consumer demand pre pandemic for extended stay was at 18%. So you have this sort of a two to one.
Demand outpacing supply so a real opportunity there from a macro level then we looked at.
The actual unit growth cost and what it cost to build a hotel we worked with a lot of our existing owners to really develop a prototype that can drive the types of.
GOP margins that we see in our other successful extended stay brands and that's really what I think is driving the owner interest is not just the macro trends, but we really have involve them in the development of ever home.
We are working with a number of multi unit developers, which is why we have such optimism that.
Amount of contracts, we're going to award this year is significant.
And as we mentioned on the call. We've already got 30 awarded to date. The first one opens here in a couple of months.
And we're starting to get a lot more ground breaks as the brand really starts to gain traction.
And then the only thing I would say technically speaking is when you take a look at that pipeline. They are actual individuals' signed agreements. So those master development agreements and we mentioned this in the release the master development agreements, which commit the developer to future development. Those are not included in the pipeline. So if you actually do include those master development agreements.
The pipeline would actually be even larger than what you see in the release.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question is a follow up from Robin Farley with UBS. Please go ahead.
Great. Thanks, and I'm, sorry, if he may listen the introductory comments because they were overlapping calls so I might have missed if you did.
But in the past you have commented on potential M&A or.
You know kind of segments of the market, where you might look or can you sort of gives.
Give us your thoughts on any opportunities that.
Are you still seeing opportunities potentially to do that.
Anything around that thanks.
Hey, Robyn I mean, we've always looked at tuck in acquisitions. So we look for opportunities, where we have white space in our portfolio. We've looked at opportunities on the international front, where direct franchising is a is.
As a viable model.
And then we have a litmus test as I've said multiple times before we look for opportunities, where we can improve the return on investment for the franchisees and where we can grow the system size for the benefit of our shareholders. So those are the criteria that we use.
And I would just say we are always looking at the marketplace to see what might fit into our portfolio.
And that's sort of the mindset that we have around a potential M&A.
Okay. Thank you.
And just as a follow up on a previous question Patrick's question on the Revpar to model. The 40 29 was the Revpar for Q1.
The right modeling assumption for full year is 47 18, so I just wanted to clarify that point as well as a 2018.
The Q1 figure.
This concludes our question and answer session I would like to turn the conference back over to Pat patient.
And Chief Executive Officer for any closing remarks.
Well, thank you operator, and thanks again, everyone for your time enjoy your summer and we'll talk to you all again in August have a great day.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation you may now disconnect.
[music].
[music].
Yes.
Yeah.
[music].