Marriott International

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to Marriott International's fourth quarter 2020 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. I would now like to hand the conference over to Jackie Burka-McConica, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. We are all truly heartbroken by the recent unexpected passing of our President and CEO, Arne Sorensen. He was an exceptional visionary leader, but more importantly, an exceptional human being. He will be deeply missed. As you are aware, Arne decided to reduce his schedule to fully focus on his health earlier this month. In consultation with the board, Arne asked Stephanie Lenarks, Group President of Consumer Operations, Technology and Emerging Businesses, and Tony Capuano, Group President of Global Development Design and Operations Services, two longtime members of our leadership team, to jointly oversee the company's day-to-day operations. Stephanie and Tony will continue in this capacity until our board appoints a new president and CEO, which is expected to occur in the next two weeks. Stephanie and Tony are joining us on our call this morning. As usual, we have Leni Oberg, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Betsy Dahm, our Vice President Investor Relations, with us as well. I will remind everyone that many of our comments today are not historical facts and are considered forward-looking statements under federal securities laws. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, as described in our SEC filings, which could cause future results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by our comments. Statements in our comments and the press release we issued earlier today are effective only today and will not be updated as actual events unfold. Please also note that unless otherwise stated, our REVPAR occupancy comments reflect system-wide constant currency year-over-year changes for comparable hotels and include hotels temporarily closed due to COVID-19. You can find our earnings release and reconciliations of all non-GAAP financial measures referred to in our remarks today, on our Investor Relations website. And now I will turn the call over to Leni. Thank you, Jackie, and good morning.

Like all of you, my heart is very heavy at Arnie's passing. I feel incredibly fortunate to have worked with such a wonderful and talented leader and to count Arnie as a good friend. So many of you have reached out to us with your condolences for his family and for Marriott and have shared your fond memories with him. And we've been comforted by your kind words. Stephanie, Tony, and I wanted to share a few stories with you about Arnie as well this morning. In the hospitality business, work inherently includes a lot of travel. Most days, when Arnie was on the road, he would lead an early morning group run around the hotel's neighborhood with as many associates as were interested. As a fellow runner, I would join the crew and watch Arnie somehow find a way to spend time with every runner in the group. He'd run ahead with the quick runners and then run back to the walkers and find a way to connect with each and every person. He'd ask them about their families, their roles at Marriott, and their points of view about their markets. The run would be over at 6.30, and then he would move on to a full day of meetings and at least five more hotel tours. You could tell he fed on these connections with people and that he cared about them deeply. I've learned so much from him, and I'll miss him tremendously. We're all committed to honoring our incredible leader by building on his legacy, and we, of course, want to update you on our business this morning as we move the company forward. Today, we will cover our usual earnings call topics with Stephanie focusing on the customer and demand side of the business and Tony discussing our room's growth and development trends. I'll cover our financial results and liquidities. Given the uncertainty around the pace of vaccinations and therefore demand recovery, we will not be providing earnings guidance today. We will, however, share what we can about our outlook for 2021 in a few key areas. We'll plan to take your questions after our prepared remarks. And now, I'll turn it over to Stephanie.