Marriott International

Stand by, your program is about to begin. Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Marriott International Q4 2024 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, you'll have the opportunity to ask questions during the question and answer session. You may register to ask a question over the phone at any time by pressing the star and 1 on your telephone keypad. Please note today's call will be recorded. We will be standing by if you should need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn today's conference over to Jackie McConaughey, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Marriott's fourth quarter 2024 earnings call. On the call with me today are Tony Capuano, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Leni Oberth, our Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President, Development, and Pilar Fernandez, our new Senior Director of Investor Relations. Before we begin, I would like to 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's filings, which could cause future results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by our comments. Unless otherwise stated, our rev far occupancy, average daily rate, and property level revenue comments reflect system-wide constant currency results for comparable hotels, and all changes refer to year-over-year changes for the comparable period. Statements in our comments in the press release we issued earlier today are effective only today and will not be updated as actual events unfold. You can find our earnings release and reconciliations all non-GAAP financial measures referred to in our remarks today on our investor relations website. And now I will turn the calls over to Tony.

Thanks, Jackie. Good morning, everyone. Merriam had excellent results in 2024, reflecting continued robust demand for customers, owners, and franchisees for our more than 30 brands. For the full year, we achieved net rooms growth of 6.8%, and global REVPAR rose over 4%. We ended the year on a high note, with fourth quarter worldwide REVPAR increasing 5%. ADR rose 3%, and occupancy increased over one percentage point. All of our regions produced better REVPAR growth than we had previously expected, with strength across all of our customer segments. The US and Canada, saw its best quarterly REVPAR growth of the year, with fourth quarter REVPAR rising over 4%, primarily driven by a higher ADR. The drop in occupancy around November's U.S. election was not as severe as we had anticipated, with demand rebounding quickly after the election. International REVPAR rose over 7% in the quarter, driven by a 4% rise in ADR and a 2 percentage point gain in occupancy. APEC REVPAR increased 12.5%, led by strong growth in Japan, India, and Thailand, and aided by strong cross-border demand, especially from Greater China. REVPAR in the EMEA region rose 8%, with broad-based growth across the region, led by strong leisure demand. REVPAR in Greater China declined 2%, better than prior expectations. as the region benefited from the recent expanded visa-free transit policy and better-than-anticipated demand across multiple holidays and citywide events. By region, REVPAR growth was positive in Tier 1 cities, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, while Hainan Island again saw the largest REVPAR decline. Hainan was again impacted by weak domestic leisure demand as wealthier travelers continued to vacation across other parts of the region. However, Hynan did see nice sequential improvement, with RevPar down 16% in the quarter compared to down 24% in Q3. Turning to trends by customer segment, Leisure, which comprises the largest portion of global room nights at 44%, had its strongest RevPar growth quarter of the year and was the fastest growing of our customer segment. Fourth quarter leisure rev par rose 6% globally and 4% in the U.S. and Canada, driven by gains in both room nights and ADR, with strength across all tiers from luxury to select service. Business transient contributed 33% of global room nights in the fourth quarter. Solid gains in ADR drove business transient rev par up 3% globally and up 4% in the U.S. and Canada. Group Red Bar, which comprised 23% of room nights, rose 3% in the quarter. As expected, this was Group's lowest growth quarter of the year due to fewer group events in the U.S. around November's election and a decline in Group Red Bar in Greater China. Looking at full year 2024, all customer segments experienced solid Red Bar growth on a global basis. Group increased an impressive... 8%, and leisure and business transient rising 3% respectively. As Leni will discuss during her remarks, we are pleased with the solid momentum we have in our business as we start off 2025. At the end of 2024, global group revenues were pacing up 6% for 2025 and 10% for 2026 on increases in both room nights and average daily rate. Shifting to development, 2024 was another terrific year. Net rooms grew 6.8%, held by the addition of around 38,000 rooms from our agreement with MGM and approximately 9,000 rooms from Sonder. Conversions were again a large driver of growth in 2024, contributing about a third of our signings and over half of our openings. Our industry-leading global launching portfolio now boasts over 1.7 billion rooms across 144 countries and territories. With a record of over 1,200 deals signed last year, we ended the year with over 577,000 rooms in our pipeline. In the U.S. and Canada, our largest market, we led the industry in growth room additions, with around one-third of all rooms open during the year flying one of Marriott's flags. While financing in the U.S. remains particularly challenging for new construction, we also had the leading share of new-build construction starts in 2024, as banks have shown preference for deals associated with our strong brands and an experienced player like Merriam. During the year, we also meaningfully expanded the breadth and depth of our portfolio across customer tiers, from luxury to mid-scale, and across both traditional and alternative lodging product offerings. We continue to have strong owner interest in all of our mid-scale brands, given their compelling brand design, the power of our revenue engines, and their simple bundled affiliation costs, which we believe are the lowest in the industry. At the end of the year, we had over 300 open and pipeline, four points flexed, Studio Res, and City Express by Marriott Properties just a year and a half after entering the mid-scale tier. We also continued to expand our incredible luxury portfolio with the opening of several notable hotels, including the St. Regis on the Bund in Shanghai and W's in Prague and Sao Paulo. In the non-traditional lodging space, in December, we announced our plan to launch an outdoor-focused collection. which will be anchored by founding deals with Postcard Cabins and Trail, two innovative outdoor hospitality brands. Ilma, the second luxury superyacht in the Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection, had its maiden voyage in the Mediterranean last September, and our third superyacht, Luminara, is expected to set sail this summer with itineraries in the Mediterranean, Asia, Alaska, and Canada. Our focus on offering fantastic travel experiences for every trip purpose is key to ensuring that Marriott Bonvoy remains the industry's leading travel platform. We added over 31 million new members to our loyalty program last year, growing to nearly 228 million members at year end. Bonvoy member penetration of room nights achieved historic highs in the fourth quarter at 73% in the U.S. and 66% globally. As we grow that member base and our global portfolio and add travel adjacent products and collaborations like our 33 co-brand credit cards and tie-ups with partners like Uber and Starbucks, we are deepening engagement with our members and capturing more of our customers' share of wallet. Driven by a strong increase in global card spend, our co-brand credit card fees rose nearly 10% last year. Our digital channels, and mobile in particular, remain key drivers of direct tokens at a lower cost to our owners. In 2024, Marriott Bonvoy app downloads rose nearly 30% year over year. We're excited about enhancing the customer experience across all our digital channels through the multi-year digital transformation we have underway, that we expect to begin rolling out a little later this year. Before I turn the call over to Leni to discuss our financial results in more detail, I want to thank our teams around the world for their hard work and dedication and for making Marriott a place where innovation and excellence thrive. Leni?