United Parks & Resorts Inc.

Thank you for standing by. My name is Tina and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the United Parks First Quarter 2026 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. To ask a question, simply press star 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Matthew Stroud, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning everyone. Welcome to United Parks and Resorts first quarter earnings conference call. Today's call is being webcast and recorded. A press release was issued this morning and is available on our Investor Relations website at www.unitedparksinvestors.com. Replay information for this call can be found in the press release and will be available on our website following the call. Joining me this morning are Mark Swanson, Chief Executive Officer, and Jim Forrester, Interim Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. This morning, we will review our first quarter financial results, and then we will open the call to your questions. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that our comments today will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to be materially different from those forward-looking statements, including those identified in the Risk Factors section of our annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These risk factors may be updated from time to time and will be included in our filings with the SEC that are available on our website. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. In addition, on the call, we may reference non-GAAP financial measures and other financial metrics, such as adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. More information regarding our forward-looking statements and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measure is included in our earnings release available on our website and can also be found in our filings with the SEC. Now, I would like to turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Mark Swanson. Mark?

Thank you, Matthew. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Our first quarter results fell short of our expectations primarily due to unfavorable weather and a decline in international attendance. As many of you likely experienced yourselves, the weather was unfavorable in San Diego and Florida in January and February and again in Florida and Texas during their peak spring break periods. Our international attendance decline was consistent with the broader United States international tourism declines resulting from geopolitical and other dynamics. Attendance in the first quarter was negatively impacted by approximately 140,000 guests due to weather and approximately 80,000 guests due to declines in international visitation. Adjusting for these impacts, attendance would have increased more than 1% for the quarter.

We delivered another strong quarter of in-park execution

growing our impact per capita and producing another quarter of record results. We also saw strong past sales performance during the quarter with paid past sales up approximately 10% during the quarter and up approximately 12% through April 30th, 2026. Looking ahead, our advanced bookings revenue for Discovery Cove in our Group business are both currently outpacing 2025 levels, with Discovery Co. bookings up a double-digit percentage. We continue to strongly believe our stock is materially undervalued, and as such, continue to repurchase shares in the first quarter, buying approximately 2.6 million shares for nearly $93 million. This action emphasizes the strong cash flow generation of this company, our longstanding commitment to returning excess cash to our shareholders, and our belief that our shares are materially undervalued. As a reminder, for 2026, we have a truly outstanding lineup of new rides, shows, and attractions, an updated events calendar, an expanded concert lineup, and new and upgraded food and retail locations. All this is supported by a revamped and enhanced marketing plan and strategy. We are confident these planned investments will drive attendance and guest spending across our parks. Despite the headwinds in the first quarter, we are encouraged by our forward indicators and remain committed to delivering strong financial performance and growth in revenue and adjusted EBITDA in 2026.

I want to thank our ambassadors whose preparation and hard work are vital as we soon enter the busy summer period.

I also want to be sure to communicate that we are well aware of and acknowledge the current reality of geopolitical and macro uncertainties and the current level of gas prices in particular and the potential impact on consumers. As a reminder, we operate a resilient business that offers incredible value to our visitors and we have a long track record of successfully navigating through uncertain and volatile times, including when there is financial pressure on consumers. Because I'm sure it's on many of your minds, what I can tell you today is that we can't obviously see a material slowdown or other issues with our consumers' interest and willingness to spend, especially with the growth in our impact per capita. We are closely monitoring conditions and are prepared to adjust our plans if we see any changes. For 2026, along with our new rides and attractions, we just recently announced an exciting summer entertainment lineup across several of our parks, including exciting new drone shows, new nighttime animal presentations, and other fun. We believe these additions will be well received and popular with our guests. We're also thrilled to note that Discovery Cove has just been named Newsweek's number one best theme park for 2026 in the publication's Reader's Choice Awards, placing the Orlando destination among the country's top summer travel experiences as voted by Newsweek readers nationwide. Congratulations to Discovery Cove. Now, let me give you a brief update on some of our strategic initiatives. On real estate, as discussed on our last call, we have received a number of inbounds on our real estate portfolio. During the first quarter, we enlisted the help of advisors to assist us in managing the interest of the various parties and have recently received the latest round of comprehensive formal proposals from multiple parties. We are currently evaluating these proposals along with the advisors and will update you as and when there is more information to share. On sponsorships, during Q1, we entered into two sponsorship agreements with high-quality brands. Based on our current pipeline, we expect to enter into several more in the coming months and expect to realize over $15 million in sponsorship revenue in 2026. As previously discussed, we expect this business to be at least a $30 million line of business in the coming years. On international, we continue to be in discussions with multiple partners and expect to be able to share more news in the coming quarters. On IP partnerships, we are in multiple active discussions to bring compelling and well-recognized IP into our parks in innovative and exciting ways and with different global partners. Later this year, we expect to have some exciting announcements related to these opportunities in 26 and in 27 and beyond.

On marketing, we have been making significant changes and enhancements to our plans and strategies.

Admittedly, we have had some hiccups in our execution across some of the parks and in corporate as we transition to a more dynamic and ultimately more effective media and marketing model. We have been testing, learning and making fundamental changes to our media mix, channel and geography allocation, creative and partners. We expect to improve considerably in our execution over the course of the year and are excited to launch a dedicated SeaWorld brand national campaign across key markets later this month. Please be on the lookout for this first meaningful national campaign from us in many years. We are very excited about this. On costs, we continue to be committed to and make progress on our $50 million gross cost savings target for 2026 that we discussed last quarter. On the technology front, we are actively pursuing various initiatives, including implementing AI-powered camera technology autonomous cleaning robotic technology, more digital ordering kiosks in our food and beverage locations, automated front turnstiles, and automated parking tools to help us deliver more revenue, reduce costs, and improve guest experience. Regarding capital allocation, we continue to benefit from a strong balance sheet and the flexibility to invest in and grow our business and to opportunistically allocate capital with the goal to maximize long-term value for shareholders. Given where our public shares currently trade, we find very compelling value in purchasing our shares, and we expect to do so as long as our stock trades at levels we find attractive. When and if we hit a limit on share repurchases, we and our board will consider other forms of capital return, including regular and or special dividends, debt pay down, and other investment opportunities. During the first quarter, we repurchased 2.6 million shares for an aggregate total of approximately $92.7 million. Subsequent to the end of the quarter, we have repurchased an additional 1.8 million shares for an aggregate total of approximately $64.8 million. I'm truly excited about the significant investments we are making and the many initiatives we have underway across our business that we are confident will improve the guest experience, allow us to generate more revenue, and make us a more efficient and more profitable enterprise. We are building an even stronger and more resilient business that we expect going forward will deliver improved operational and financial results and increases in value for our stakeholders. With that, Jim will discuss our financial results in more detail.

Jim?

Thank you, Mark. During the first quarter, we generated total revenue of $278.3 million, a decrease of $8.7 million when compared to the first quarter of 2025. The decrease in total revenue compared to the first quarter of 2025 was primarily a result of a decrease in attendance, partially offset by an increase in total revenue per capita spending. Attendance for the first quarter of 2026 decreased by approximately 171,000 guests, when compared to the prior year quarter. The decrease in attendance was primarily due to unfavorable weather and a decrease in international visitation compared to the prior year quarter. As Mark noted, our attendance would have been up more than 1% adjusted for weather and international. In the first quarter of 2026, total revenue per capita increased 2.1%. Admission per capita decreased 0.5%, and in-park per capita spending increased 5.3% to a record $40.62. Admission per capita decreased primarily due to lower realized pricing on certain admission products and the net impact of the admissions product mix when compared to the prior year quarter. In-park per capita spending involved improved, I should say, primarily due to an increase in demand across many in-park offerings when compared to the first quarter of 2025. Operating expenses increased $10 million when compared to the first quarter of 2025. The increase in operating expenses is primarily due to an approximately $3.7 million increase in non-cash self-insurance adjustments and an approximate $3.3 million increase in one-time non-recurring consulting and other costs when compared to the first quarter of 2025. Selling, general, and administrative expenses increased $3.9 million compared to the first quarter of 2025. The increase in selling, general, and administrative expenses is primarily due to a non-cash $3.1 million increase in information technology costs primarily related to the amortization of a new enterprise resource planning system when compared to the first quarter of 2025. We reported a net loss of $34.1 million for the first quarter compared to a net loss of $16.1 million in the first quarter of 2025. We generated adjusted EBITDA of $58 million, a decrease of $9.5 million when compared to the first quarter of 2025. The decline in EBITDA was driven by lower revenue and a modest increase in expenses. During the first quarter, we repurchased 2.6 million shares for an aggregate total of approximately $92.7 million. Subsequent to the end of the quarter, we have repurchased an additional 1.8 million shares for an aggregate total of approximately $64.8 million. Of the $500 million stock repurchase authorization approved in 2025, the company has approximately $198 million remaining. Our deferred revenue balance as of the end of March was $203.8 million. Deferred revenue increased approximately 4.1% when compared to March of 2025, reflecting a healthy outlook for ticketing, our group business, and our ancillary products. As a reminder, our deferred revenue balance contains a number of products, including ticketing, vacation packages, annual and seasonal passes, group sales, and ancillary products. Through April 2026, our paid pass base, excluding any free passes, was up compared to April 2025. As Mark mentioned, we are pleased to have seen paid pass sales up 12% so far this year through April 30th. We believe we have our best pass benefits program ever and one of the best in the industry, and we expect we will continue to drive additional increases in pass sales and a strong pass base for the remainder of the year. We are especially pleased since we are in the peak advertising and selling season right now. We spent $69.6 million on CapEx in the first quarter of 2026, of which approximately $62.7 million was on core CapEx and approximately $7.0 million was on expansion and or ROI projects. For 2026, we expect to spend approximately $175 million to $200 million on core CapEx and and approximately $50 million of capex on growth and ROI projects. Now let me turn the call back over to Mark, who will share some final thoughts.

Mark? Yeah, thank you, Jim. Before we open the call to your questions, I have some closing comments. In the first quarter of 2026, we came to the aid of 211 animals in need. Over our history, we have helped over 43,000 animals, including bottlenose dolphins, manatees, sea lions, seals, sea turtles, sharks, birds, and more. I'm really proud of the team's hard work and their continued dedication to these important rescue efforts. Our 2026 roadmap is defined by a compelling lineup of new rides, attractions, and events, an updated events calendar, an expanded concert lineup, and upgraded food and retail locations, all supported by a revamped marketing plan design to increase guest visitation and spending. With very clear opportunities to grow attendance, revenue, and adjusted EBITDA, we are excited about the rest of 2026 and the years to come.

Now, we will take your questions.

As a reminder, to ask a question, simply press star 1 on your telephone keypad. We do ask that you limit questions to one and one follow-up and then re-queue. Our first question comes from the line of Steve Wozinski with Staple. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Good morning. So, Mark, I guess I'm interested in your comments. You know, did you guys think you can grow your EBITDA this year, especially with the first quarter results coming in below, you know, what you obviously were hoping for. So as we think about the rest of the year, I guess I'm probably a little bit surprised you seem so comfortable giving that so-called, let's call it guidance, given we still aren't sure what weather is going to look like. Obviously, international visitation remains somewhat subdued, and there's obviously other potential headwinds out there as well. So as we think about the last three quarters of the year, can you maybe just run through some of the gives and takes here? And maybe do you think the EBITDA, if there is growth year over year,

know from here on out it's going to be more top line driven or is it going to be more cost driven thanks yeah hey steve i i can take that question for you so i i think about the year in in a couple different ways here so uh first of all we've got a really good lineup of new rides and attractions events and new things coming to our parks that's largely still ahead of us. And as a reminder, the bulk, the vast majority of our year is still ahead of us. Even though we're here at the end of April, the vast majority of our attendance and revenue is still ahead of us. So there's a really good lineup of new things to do in our parks that will support what we believe will be more visitation and more spending in the parks. We also, like you mentioned with With the weather component, you know, we recognize there's some favorable comparisons on a go forward basis. We also recognize, you know, we don't control the weather, but to the extent weather does improve over last year, that should be a benefit for us. We'll have to wait and see, obviously. And then we know we will start to lap some of the international decline that we've experienced here. If you remember, that was more of a second half component last year. So those are some of the things, and really, you know, my confidence is driven by all those things, but also a couple other things that you heard us mention. One is the increase in the paid past sales in the first quarter was pretty substantial, as you heard me and Jim say. You may not have caught it, but Jim also pointed out that our deferred revenue is now up, you know, 4% at the end of March, and It looks like it's retaining pretty close to that for the end of April as well. And if you remember, at the end of last year, that was down 4%. So a pretty substantial improvement in deferred revenue, which is another go-forward indicator to kind of go along with the increase in the Discovery Coast booking revenue and the guest sales pacing ahead as well. So the guest sales revenue pacing ahead of last year. So All those things taken together, I think, give us a good amount of confidence that going forward here, we will see growth in our parks. I'm really excited, again, about the attractions, the lineup, the things we're doing in marketing to hopefully put us in a better spot there. And then certainly the past sales. And we're just getting into that peak period, as Jim mentioned. So hopefully that gives you some color.

Yeah, it does. I appreciate that, Mark.

The second question, I'm not sure how much you're going to say here, but given the fact where it's May 11th, we're essentially kind of halfway through or almost through your second quarter. Wondering if you could kind of give us some high-level thoughts around what you kind of witnessed in April. um and then maybe what you've seen so far in may i mean it seems like from our seat weather was seems like it was somewhat normal for the most part around most of the country in april and thus far in may so anything you can say just in terms of how the the second quarter has kind of started i think would be helpful as well appreciate it sure um and steve i wanted to add one more thing on your prior question just just a little bit more i i didn't mention

the growth in the MPARC per caps. But again, you've seen that accelerate even in Q1 from where it had been in the prior quarters. And then you've also seen the admissions per cap come back, still slightly negative, but improving from prior quarters. So I think if we can continue to grow MPARC and hopefully get admissions per cap to a better spot as well, that's another thing that contributes to that growth, obviously, going forward. As far as the month of April, remember with the shift of Easter, you had certainly some Easter days shift out of Q2 of this year into Q1. So, you know, that was an expected headwind in the month of April. So that probably gives you some color on how we think about that month. You know, weather is a little bit mixed. I mean, certainly we had some better weather in like Williamsburg in April, but I know here in Orlando, or in Florida, really one of the few days after Easter. You know, we haven't had a ton of rain, but when it has rained, it was right after Easter there for a couple of days where we have some poor weather. So we'll see how it balances out. You know, hopefully it's a more normalized trend and we'll see where we're going forward. I mean, May is such a backloaded month that I don't know that we can get much read on things, you know, this early in the month.

Okay, Mark. Appreciate it. Thanks for the color.

Your next question comes from the line of Patrick Schultz with Truist.

Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you.

You had briefly mentioned about 30 million or so expectations from partnership. I'm wondering, can you talk a little bit or give a little more granularity on how that impacted your per cap strength actually in the quarter. Is there a way to break that out? You know, what was, how much of the per cap growth came from increase in sponsorship in 1Q? Thank you.

Yeah, I can help you.

I mean, it's still, I think, a fairly small amount in the quarter. Some of the deals that we've signed have been more recent, so you would see those, you know, more on a go-forward basis. So, you know, I wouldn't call it a huge, huge contributor at all to Q1, but we're excited about the go-forward there, obviously.

Okay.

Okay. And, you know, how are you thinking about the tailwind this year from various holiday shifts, whether it's, you know, Juneteenth, July 4th, and especially the Jewish holidays? The Jewish holidays. When I look at certainly hotel bookings in Orlando looks, you know, really strong in that. I'm curious your thoughts around that.

Thank you. Sure. I can help you with that question.

You know, as far as the operating calendar, you know, there's always puts and takes to that. And like I mentioned last quarter that, you know, we had one less Saturday in March. for example, of this year compared to last year. And so that was a meaningful impact on the first quarter not having that. And it offset some of the Easter days that, you know, or partially offset some of the Easter days shifting into the month of March. But, you know, on a go-forward basis, we just had the Easter shift here with some Q2 days shifting into Q1. If you look at, you know, the 4th of July shift, It's on a Saturday. Ideally, I'd love to have that not on a Saturday because we're typically busy on Saturdays regardless, especially in July. But nonetheless, we should still get a three-day weekend out of that for a lot of people, not everybody. So I don't know if that's probably just a push compared to last year. And then go forward. Things move around a little bit, but I don't know if there's anything – significant staying out of my mind right now. We do get a little bit of a longer summer with kind of the early Memorial Day-ish and Labor Day being a little bit later if you kind of line up when those actually occur. It's a longer kind of time between them than normal. But with so many schools, you know, not tied to those holidays anymore as far as when they get out of school or go back, I don't know that it's a significant impact.

Okay. Thank you. I'm all set.

Our next question comes from the line or is from Arpena Kakaran with UBS. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks very much for taking my question. All facts was a bit higher than expected. Was there any timing factors for the quarter? I think you mentioned a couple things in your prepared remarks. Mostly I'm trying to understand. how we should be thinking about overall OPEX for 2026, that mid-single-digit sort of increase. Would you say you're in the low single-digit range for full year or closer to that mid-single-digit for OPEX for this year?

It's Jim.

I think you've obviously asked a good question about the inflation that we're seeing for our OPEX. If you look at our adjusted EBITDA, we're actually, our expenses are very modest 1% growth. So you are probably now focused on what we're showing in our financial statements for OPEX and selling general administrative costs. And I will say that OPEX is being driven by a lot of non-cash or one-time items. I think we mentioned the $3.7 million in the non-cash reserve. There's also a significant amount related to taking care of the cold weather impacts to the Florida market and others predominantly, but mostly in Florida for loss of plant material and repairs for damages from cold weather freezing that we incurred in that February timeframe. For selling and general administrative, you're going to see that increase almost exclusively is related to the amortization of our new ERP that we implemented back in October that will be amortized over the length of the agreement.

And, again, that's a non-cash, again, in the first quarter, non-cash and non-cash going forward.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. Thank you. That's helpful. And, you know, going back to one-time items, I was actually looking at it. It probably makes sense to probably follow up more in detail after the call on this. But, you know, what you're adjusting back to EBITDA, something like $7 million for the quarter. And I think Footnote mentions a bunch of business optimization costs. Could you maybe give a little bit more detail what those are? It seems to be ongoing for several, several quarters here. Just trying to understand what makes those costs one-offs. And then similarly, that $3.3 million that you're adjusting EBITDA back for, what are those costs for?

Yes, so as I mentioned, the consulting costs might be related either to some areas we've got on procurement where we continue to try to ensure we are minimizing costs and doing strategic sourcing. or having others who might have helped us in the implementation of that ERP system or addressing our impacts from the cold weather.

Okay.

Okay. Thank you. Your next question is from the line of Ben Chaiken with Mizuho.

Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. I wanted to follow up on the deferred revenue. If I'm not mistaken, I think this is the first time in maybe 18 months that you're seeing a positive inflection here. Obviously, you highlighted the increase, but what do you think is driving this? What caused the inflection? Thanks.

Yeah. Hey, Ben.

It's Mark. I can take that. And you're right. It had not been positive on a kind of year-over-year basis in quite a while. to your point. So, you know, there's a couple of things, but remember, as Jim mentioned, our deferred revenue has all our advanced products. So you've got, you know, season passes in there. You've got ancillary products. You've got tickets. So it's a combination of all those things. It's experiences in our parks. So I don't know that there's necessarily just one thing dominating it, but, you know, obviously having better sales of passes has helped. Our in-park performance, you know, a lot of the in-park stuff we can sell in advance, and so that sits in there until people come, that type of thing.

Okay.

That's helpful. And then maybe going back to the comment before that you touched on in the first question regarding higher EBITDA year-over-year, you kind of gave us the reasons you were constructive. But maybe we could unpack the variables somewhat. Is this top line driven? And if so, where are you seeing the most traction? Or where do you expect to see the most traction? Is this attendance? Or is this pricing? Is it both? And then maybe why. Thanks.

Sure.

I mean, I think it's some of the points I made to Steve. You know, look, on a go-forward basis, I like the setup of our events, our attractions, the things that are still to come. I like the setup of obviously hopefully having improved weather. We'll have to see. But obviously last year, especially the second half of the year and whatnot, the weather was not real cooperative for us. So hopefully we get a little bit better on the weather. And then obviously we're going to lap the international decline more in the second half of the year. And hopefully that's no longer a drag as we lap that. And then supporting that is really the growth in the in-park per caps. And, you know, in this quarter, our total per cap was up. So, you know, even if you had the exact same attendance, and I'm not suggesting that's what we're shooting for, but even if you did, if you can grow your per caps, you know, that's going to drive the revenue growth there. And we did a good job, you know, this past quarter of growing our per cap overall. So, you know, we put per cap in there, we put attendance, put the sponsorship revenue, and then obviously the costs, we've got to continue to manage to a level that is acceptable, and Jim talked about that. So that's kind of how it all comes together on a go-forward basis.

Okay. Just to follow up very quickly, I mean, I guess the deferred revenue seems like quite an inflection, and so – You didn't seem to kind of like obviously point to attendance. Maybe you are, but we're not like harping on it. I guess, is there a reason why plus four deferred revenue wouldn't translate to slightly positive attendance for the year?

No, I wasn't suggesting we're not going to grow attendance. I mean, certainly that's our plan and that's our expectation. um i was just pointing out you know kind of some of the other drivers as well but certainly the the lineup of things we have across our parks we we believe will will drive people to visit obviously thank you appreciate it your next question comes from the line of lizzy dove with golden sacks hi good morning thanks for taking the question i wanted to just go back to cost for a second you know you mentioned you're still targeting the

50 million of gross cost savings for this year, but you've had, you know, various wage headwinds. You mentioned in the advertising campaign that you're ramping up. So anything you could share just in terms of that, like, gross to net translation this year and your ability to kind of flow that through to the bottom line?

Yeah, let me start, and then Jim can add anything he'd like to add. You know, obviously, as you guys know, we hold ourselves to a pretty high standard with costs. We've done a lot of work over the years, and If you look at the margin expansion, especially since 2019, I think we've done good in that area. More recently here, obviously, we need to do a better job, clearly. But we're keeping that EBITDA expense growth. The costs that sit between revenue and adjusted EBITDA for this quarter, as Jim mentioned, was under 1%. So our goal is to obviously achieve the cost savings that we've set out to achieve. And in a lot of cases, they're going to maybe offset other headwinds, other inflationary pressures that we have. But we want to manage to as low a growth as possible or realize savings, right? So that's kind of how we think about it holistically. And obviously, we hold ourselves to a pretty high standard with that.

Lizzie, I'd just add that reiterating the growth, the very modest growth we had, we did an exceptional job in managing our hourly labor and our theme park labor over the quarter in the face of some headwinds. We also have had a very focused effort on things like reducing claims or the introduction of technology to reduce labor costs. So all of those are bearing fruit.

I think we will continue to see those pay off in the coming quarters as well.

Got it. And then I wanted to ask about this capital allocation and leverage here. You know, you've obviously been buying back stock pretty consistently, and I appreciate 1Q is typically like a lower cash flow generation quarter, but I think you closed out with a cash balance of around $29 million. So curious just how you think about buybacks from here, you know, taking on more leverage and, you know, just where you feel comfortable longer term from that leverage standpoint.

Sure. I can help you with that question. Look, we're comfortable where the leverage ratio is now at the end of Q1. Not to say we wouldn't be comfortable with something higher or something lower, and that's something we work with our board on. But you kind of already noted it. We're kind of coming out of the trough of cash generation, just given the seasonality of our business. And on a go-forward basis, we would expect, obviously, cash to start to grow. And so that'll be the catalyst for, you know, growing the cash and continuing to fund the share repurchases. And so, you know, I think if you just step back and look over the full year, which I know you've done, you know, we continue to generate a good amount of cash each year, and I expect we'll continue to do that going forward. What we do do, just to give you some comfort, is, you know, obviously, If we ever got to a situation where our leverage was really getting up there or something, as we look at our use of cash and things like that, we're careful to take in mind the leverage ratio before making any of those decisions. But like I said, we're comfortable now, and we expect, obviously, that to improve going forward as we enter a traditionally busier time of the year.

Your next question comes from the line of James Hardiman with Citigroup.

Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Sean Wagner on for James. You had mentioned that weather should improve, particularly in the back half of the year, but also in 2Q last year, you had characterized it as among the worst weather you had seen in the second quarter. So, I mean, obviously a lot depends on how weather turns out this year, but assuming more normal weather, do you get any operating days back because of closures last year or are operating day is expected to be relatively flat this year.

Sean, I think they're going to be fairly consistent.

We might pick up a day or two, mainly in water parks that may have closed last year. A lot of times with the weather, we're able to open, but a lot of people may not come if it's been raining or it rains in the afternoon or early in the morning, whatever it may be. That that can have an impact. Um, so we'll, we'll, we'll see where that, where that shakes out, obviously, but, you know, we're, we're optimistic. Um, you know, I'm generally optimistic about weather every year. So hopefully this is the year it gets better for us. And, uh, we'll see, we did have, um, I didn't call this out. We did have fewer operating days in the first quarter, uh, since you, you mentioned that, you know, our, our, our park in California, our Sesame park, we did not open in, in January and February and really the first couple weeks of March. So we lost some operating days there. And then obviously we had some days where just given, especially the cold in Florida, where we had some days where our water park was closed.

Okay, that's fair. And I guess I think on your last call you indicated that there's some pricing headroom and ticket pricing headroom in many markets and that admissions per caps should grow over time. we did see that improve sequentially from the declines we've seen for a handful of quarters now, but wondering how we should think about that going forward. Do you have any sort of expectations on one that inflects positively, or how should we think about maybe comparisons with some of the promotions or pricing that you guys ran last year?

Sure.

So, look, I think your first comment, you know, and what I've made in the past is, Yeah, our goal and our expectation is to grow pricing over time. And we certainly recognize there's room to do that in a lot of our markets. But we're always going to defer to driving total revenue. And the good news is, as you noted, the admissions per cap has improved to where it's down less than it has been in prior quarters. So to your point, we're making progress uh on on that area and you know i expect we'll we'll continue to do that going forward but look there might be times where we we do an offer or we do something that might be at odds with per cap we're really focused on on driving total revenue but i think you know we've kind of demonstrated here uh the movement like you said the last couple of quarters has been in the right direction with admissions per cap okay thank you very much

And once again, to ask a question, press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next question is from the line of Chris Woronka with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question.

Mark, you talked, I think, in the last couple of years about how some of your marketing programs or, you know, you're trying to kind of honorize them. And I'm curious as to whether you're seeing any real tangible impacts from that yet or whether those are still more to come.

Thanks. Chris, did you say marketing program, right? Okay.

Yeah, yeah, some marketing effort. Yeah.

Yeah, okay. Sorry. I just want to make sure I heard. Look, I think, as all of you know, I mean, the – there's more ways than ever to market to people now, right? And it's changing pretty rapidly, you know, almost all the time with all the ways that people consume media and get information and all that. So certainly it's something you've got to be on top of. And as I mentioned, I think, you know, we certainly could have done things better and had some hiccups. But as we look at like how we allocate our spend, how we allocate the mix of that, where we advertise, what locations and what what kind of platform. I think there's tweaks there. And, you know, the good news is we test and learn and we try to optimize going forward. So we're going to continue to do that. We've had a lot of discussions around kind of this area in the recent weeks and months. So we're, you know, confident in the plan going forward, but obviously aware that things are always changing, right? So we're trying to stay ahead of it. Okay.

I appreciate that.

And then, Mark, on the land sales, I know you won't have much to say yet, but the question would be, you know, for the potential buyers you're looking at, how important is their use of – if these are land parcels near your parks, how important is their kind of intended usage? And, you know, is there a chance that what they would do is either complementary or perhaps non-complementary to the park, the surrounding park?

Thanks. Sure.

So I think, you know, as far as like, you know, I think you're maybe alluding to like a hotel or entertainment district or housing, whatever it may be, some of the things that we've mentioned in the past. I mean, obviously, our goal is to find something that, you know, would complement our offering in the sense that people stay longer at our park, people come here for more days, whatever it may be, kind of what you see, you know, everybody else in the business doing with their hotels, right? It's meant to complement the spend and the stay by our guests. So that's what we would look for, obviously. And there's probably different ways you could you could execute on that. But certainly, I think it would be a component of how we could benefit from that land being used to benefit our parks as well.

Great, thanks.

With no further questions in queue, I will now hand the call back over to Mark Swanson for closing remarks.

Yeah, thank you, Tina. On behalf of Jim and the rest of the management team here at United Parks Resorts, I want to thank you for joining us this morning. As you heard today, we are confident in our long-term strategy, which we believe will drive improved operating financial results and long-term value for stakeholders. We invite everyone to join us at our parks this summer to experience the energy and excitement we are offering.

Thank you, and we look forward to speaking again next quarter.

Thank you again for joining us today. This does conclude today's presentation. You may now disconnect.