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spk16: Grand Ole Opry star Darius Rucker joined the family in 2012. Here's Darius with Beers and Sunshine, live from the Grand Ole Opry stage. Well, I ain't gonna work today, just wanna sit around and play. I'm gonna hit miles off the top. We'll be right back.
spk10: Welcome to Ryman Hospitality Properties' second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Hosting the call today from Ryman Hospitality Properties are Mr. Colin Reed, Executive Chairman, Mr. Mark Firivati, President and Chief Executive Officer. Ms. Jennifer Hutchison, Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Patrick Chaffin, Chief Operating Officer, and Mr. Patrick Moore, Chief Executive Officer, Opera Entertainment Group. This call will be available for digital replay. The number is 800-756-0554, with no conference ID required. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Ms. Jennifer Hutchison. Please go ahead, ma'am.
spk23: Good morning. Thank you all for joining us today. This call may contain forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements about the company's expected financial performance. Any statements we make today that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Words such as believes or expects are intended to identify these statements, which may be affected by many factors, including those listed in the company's SEC filings and in today's release. The company's actual results may differ materially from the results we discuss or project today. We will not update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or any other reason. We will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures today. We reconcile each non-GAAP measure to the most comparable GAAP measure and exhibits to today's release. I will now turn the call over to Collin.
spk04: Thank you, Jennifer, and good morning, everyone. I want to start off this morning's earnings call by somewhat breaking from the tradition of spending time talking about the last quarter. Of course, we're very pleased with the last quarter, but it's the future that really excites us, so let me tell you why. Twenty years ago, we decided to build a hospitality brand primarily focused on the group segment. We did this because we had discovered that there were tens of thousands of large groups that rotate market to market year by year. We built world-class physical assets backed up by a people-focused culture that over time built loyalty amongst our customers. The consequence was that we gained market share, and for those investors who have been with us for this journey will know we've expanded and refined most of our hotels over the last decade as we grew demand. Financially, our performance has been substantially different from our peers. In fact, our company has significantly outperformed the FTSE NAREIT Lodging Sector Index over the last 20 years. And when you look at the average returns of the same index, whether it's on a year-to-date basis, a one-year, three-year, five-year, ten-year, we've substantially outperformed this index in each period of measurement. Now, this is not by luck. This is because we have a differentiated strategy. that enters into contracts with our large group customers and provide really exciting experiences to the leisure customers, and they in turn reward us with their loyalty, the consequence of which has resulted in lower annualized earnings volatility and higher annualized growth than our peers. So here we are, after a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, posting results that are mostly across-the-board records. and as Mark will describe, bookings and lead volumes that are really quite impressive, and revenue on the books for next year and the years following at levels that exceed historical performance. COVID decimated many families and created extraordinary damage to humanity, but in some ways it made us a stronger company. We went out of our way to nurture and care for the meeting planner, evidenced by the tremendous rebookings we achieved from the council room night. We re-engineered our organization and deployed almost $500 million in new capital while others shut up shop. We have emerged from COVID a stronger company, as our quarterly earnings illustrate. But the thing that excites me is what we can do with our businesses over the years ahead. Next week, we will be with our board, and I suspect most of the conversation will be focused on the years ahead of us. Our hotel business has and is showing strong rate growth as a consequence of the attributes of our products and the strength of demand. Forward bookings and lead volumes have us very excited, and we've been sharing with our board the many options we have to grow our business. We're working on rooms expansions of certain hotels, convention space expansion, replicating sound waves in several markets, sports bar expansions, as well as food and beverage repositioning, all at our existing hotels as we expand and refine supply to accommodate the demand we are building. So, as I said, next week we will preview these opportunities with our board, and between now and early December, we'll be refining pro formas and prioritization, and then we will share this plan in some detail at an investor day that we plan to hold sometime mid-first quarter of next year, so that we can lay out our growth plans primarily for our hotel business, but also give you a glimpse of what we expect to do with our exciting entertainment business. Now, right now, we've identified somewhere between 15 and 20 projects that we believe will materially grow profitability that we estimate that will require about $1 billion of new capital. And by the way, that number I've just explained to you excludes the plans that we're developing for the JW Marriott Hill Country. Unlike most of the hospitality REIT sector, we have a very strong record of creating value for our shareholders. And the plans that we are developing and the strategy that we have in place leads us to the conclusion that the future looks extremely exciting. Now for the quarter. As Mark and Jen will discuss, our quarter came in almost exactly as our operating plan called for, despite the shocking accident at our Colorado hotel, and we set records in many areas of our business. The quarter was highlighted by the acquisition of the JW Marrick Hill Country, which we're very excited about, and Mark will talk about that in a minute. Candidly, we've tried to buy this hotel several times over the last eight years, and we're pleased that we were able to move quickly. to facilitate this purchase. And I'd like to thank the investors and bondholders who came into our company at the time of purchase for having the confidence in us. San Antonio is a large city with incredible growth characteristics. In fact, from 2020 to 21, San Antonio experienced the largest population growth in absolute terms of any city in the United States. And during that time, the GDP of San Antonio grew at the fifth highest rate in the country. There's a lot of upside potential for this hotel, and even though the hotel is performing extremely well, and we look forward to really rhymanizing this hotel in the coming period. Over the last several days, we've gone under contract to purchase an adjacent 41 acres of real estate, that significantly helps us to be able to expand this hotel over time, and then introduce this asset into the rotational offering for our group customers. And Patrick and his high-quality team are currently building the growth thesis for this world-class asset, which we'll share with you in a few months. Now finally, let me just tell you what excites me about our entertainment business. First of all, the core business continues to get stronger, and if you exclude our new Block 21 assets, which delivered very good results in the second quarter. Adjusted EBITDA increased year-over-year by 21% on an 11% increase in revenue. The Old Red brand also delivered record results, as did the Grand Old Opry and the Ryman. From a growth perspective, we're making headway in Las Vegas with our Old Red that we're building on the Strip, but it looks like opening will occur very early in 2024, which is a modest shift in the schedule due to a permit delay that we fortunately now have completely resolved. As you all know, we also announced a long-term branding deal with Luke Combs. Luke is an extraordinary entertainer with international appeal, and we'll be converting the Wild Horse into a four-part, multi-faceted entertainment destination here in Nashville, which, when complete, will be quite different from the bars you see in this town. So here we are, our consolidated business operating at record levels, and a balance sheet that has delivered materially over the last year. For us, the dilemma is not how we grow, but what levers we pull first. And I want to just finish my section here by saying I'm extremely proud of the team we have here at Ryman and their collective professionalism and understanding of our business. And the future looks awfully, awfully exciting. So, Mark, let's talk about the second quarter.
spk06: Thanks, Colin. The company had another excellent quarter with a continuation of the great momentum we saw in the first quarter, achieving record performances in a number of areas. In addition, we are excited about the value creation opportunities that JW Marriott Hill Country presents at both the property and portfolio levels. Starting with our hotel business, we continue to see strength in the group segment as we traveled approximately 528,000 group room nights in the quarter, 3.5% more than the comparable period in 2022, and nearly a 98% recovery versus 2019 pre-pandemic levels. Across the board in both group and transient, we continue to see strong rate performance as group and transient ADR were both up 5% versus the prior year quarter, and 16.7% and 37.9% respectively compared to the second quarter of 2019. Both segments set new all-time records for ADR, driving record second quarter hospitality revenue. Outside the room spending this quarter saw continued strength with an increase of over 5% compared to the year-ago period. Despite an uncertain macro environment, we delivered hospitality-adjusted EBITDA RE of $152.7 million in the quarter, which was the second highest performance in the company's history just 1.5% behind the year-ago period. While there was a 200 basis point margin decline compared to the same period last year, this quarter's performance was solid as we faced some tough comparisons to the prior year quarter. Coming off the Omicron-impacted first quarter, the second quarter of 2022 is the highest EBITDA RE and margin quarter on record, driven in part by Omicron-related rebookings attrition and cancellation fee collections, and incentive management fee expense timing. Attrition and cancellation fees in the most recent quarter were down by almost one-third, or $5 million on a year-over-year basis, illustrating the continued return of the group customer. Likewise, as our portfolio has generated higher levels of profitability, management fee expenses increased commensurately. Our second quarter results included over $4 million more and recognized incentive management fees compared to the year-ago period. While these dynamics have a negative impact on comparable margins, they are favorable signs for the group segment in our business. We anticipate a similarly challenging year-over-year comparison in the third quarter as well, and then reaching more favorable comparisons in the fourth. In addition to these year-over-year dynamics, the Gaylord Rockies performance in the quarter was negatively impacted, by the tragic May 6th collapse of the HVA system at the hotel's indoor pool. Guest volumes, primarily in the transient segment, were impacted in the weeks following the incident, but have continued to recover. We estimate this incident impacted the Rockies' second quarter profitability by approximately $2 million, and we have an ongoing business interruption claim, which we hope to collect by year end. As we look to the remainder of the year, We're reiterating our hospitality EBITDA RE and entertainment segment EBITDA outlook with the addition of the JW Hill Country for the back half of the year, thus raising our adjusted EBITDA RE guidance for the benefit of the new property. Jennifer will detail our outlook shortly. As we look beyond 2023, we continue to see no deterioration in the key leading indicators we tracked. We're again pleased with group sales production in the quarter as we booked nearly 652,000 gross group room nights, which is up 8.4% compared to the year-ago period. If you exclude Omicron-related rebookings from the second quarter production last year, production was up approximately 17% year-over-year. We continue to prioritize ADR in our sales production, leveraging the capital investments we've made and capitalizing on the favorable supply-demand outlook for the group segments. For the second quarter, we achieved an average rate across all new group bookings of $265, an all-time high for any quarter in the company's history, up 8.7% compared to the second quarter of 2022, and 25.2% compared to the second quarter of 2019. This ongoing strength in production continues to drive our revenue on the books for future years and supports our confidence to continue investing to enhance our one-of-a-kind hotels, create stronger customer loyalty, and build an even greater competitive advantage. As of the end of the second quarter, our group rooms revenue on the books for 24 and 25 are up 9.6 and 9.8% respectively compared to the T plus one and T plus two time periods as of the second quarter of 2022. Now turning to the acquisition of the JW Marriott Hill Country, Colin gave you a brief overview of some of the fundamentals of the compelling San Antonio market. Let me add a little bit more color about this hotel and the tremendous opportunity it presents for us. Since closing the acquisition on June 30th, our asset management team has been working with Marriott to quickly integrate the property into our portfolio, to capitalize on economies of scale, improve contract terms and service levels from key vendors, and leverage our portfolio-wide above property activities in finance, revenue management, and group sales. In addition, we're working to create an initial introduction of holiday programming to drive incremental transient occupancy and outside-the-room spending for the 2023 holiday season. Due to its lead time, we will implement our full holiday programming, including ICE, in 2024. Looking out further, the expansion potential of this hotel is substantial. While already a destination property at 1,002 rooms, when you compare it to the rest of our portfolio and consider the long-term economic growth of the greater San Antonio-Austin region, the property represents an enormous opportunity to generate significant shareholder value through future capital investment. To this end, as Colin mentioned, we have signed a purchase agreement to acquire from Marriott 41 undeveloped acres immediately adjacent to the Hill Country property for $10.1 million. The purchase agreement is subject to customary closing conditions, including our due diligence efforts in the approval of Marriott's investment committee. We believe this land and the associated development rights will allow us to create a compelling master plan for an expansion of the resort in future years. We anticipate closing this transaction by the end of the third quarter. Our entertainment group's performance this quarter was again another great storyline, with our marquee Nashville assets leading the way. The consolidated entertainment segment delivered $87.1 million of revenue and $29.4 million of adjusted EBITDA, which are both records, up 27.4% and 33.4% respectively versus the year-ago period. We also announced this quarter that former Ryman board member Patrick Moore has been appointed chief executive officer of the company's Opry Entertainment Group. Patrick brings decades of experience leading brands through transformative growth, and his addition to our management team is an important step in executing our long-term strategic growth plan. We've worked with Patrick first as a consultant and most recently as a Ryman board member, and I have known him for more than 16 years. We're excited to have Patrick join us and for the leadership and strategic capabilities he brings. And with that, I'll turn it over to Jennifer to discuss our financial results in greater detail.
spk23: Thank you, Mark. In the second quarter, the company generated total revenue of $504.8 million and net income to common shareholders of $66.5 million, or $1.15 per fully diluted share. Note as usual that our fully diluted share count in the quarter reflects the put rights held by Ateros as part of their Opry Entertainment Group investment. Although those rights are not yet exercisable and we retain the option to settle any exercise of these rights in cash, Any exercise of these put rights would also result in Atteros' 30% ownership in OEG reverting back to Ryman. Additionally, this quarter, we completed a successful oversubscribed equity capital raise in June associated with our acquisition of the JW San Antonio Hill Country property. We issued a total of 4.4 million shares in the quarter, which is reflected in our weighted average shares outstanding for the quarter and year-to-date. Total consolidated adjusted EBITDA RE for the second quarter was $174.7 million, which is an all-time record, and led by continued strength in both our hospitality and entertainment segments. With the JW Hill Country acquisition occurring on June 30th, our second quarter balance sheet fully reflects the acquisition and the related financing transactions, and future operating results starting next quarter will be fully reflected in our income statements. As Mark mentioned, our businesses are performing well with strength and momentum moving forward. As such, we are reiterating our full year guidance for our same store businesses and updating our consolidated full year guidance for the addition of the San Antonio Hill Country property in the back half of the year. As a result, we are guiding consolidated adjusted EBITDA RE of $659 million to $704 million or an increase of $28 million at the midpoint compared to our previous guidance. We are also increasing our guidance for adjusted funds from operations, or AFFO, for the year to a range of $437 to $466 million, which is an increase of $12 million at the midpoint. You can see our full guidance changes and reconciliation in the earnings release. Turning to our balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $508.3 million of unrestricted cash on hand, and our $700 million revolver remained undrawn. Opry Entertainment Group's $65 million revolver had a balance of $7 million outstanding, which is unchanged from last quarter. The combined capacity of our revolving credit facilities and cash on hand gives us total liquidity of approximately $1.25 billion after deducting $14 million of outstanding letters of credit. We retained an additional $105.6 million of restricted cash available for our FF&E projects and other maintenance. On a trailing 12-month basis, our net leverage ratio of total consolidated net debt to adjusted EBITDA RE stood at about 5.5 times, which is a modest increase from last quarter but includes our recently completed high-yield note offering without including any EBITDA contribution from the JW Hill Country. Adjusting for the EBITDA contribution of J.W. Hill Country, we are closer to four times. We completed meaningful capital markets transactions in the second quarter to fund the acquisition of J.W. Hill Country, as well as to extend the maturity of our credit facility and refinance our term loan B. The J.W. Hill Country acquisition was funded through the equity offering of 4.4 million shares of common stock, par value of one cent per share, at a price to the public of $93.23. as well as the private placement of $400 million of aggregate principal amount of seven and a quarter senior notes, which are due 2028. Both of these transactions were very well received by the market and were upsized in both cases to satisfy strong demand for our securities. On our credit facility refinancing, we successfully extended our revolver maturity to 2027 and term loan B maturity to 2030, and eliminated the previous mortgage collateral requirements. In addition, we reset our term loan B to $500 million, providing us an additional $130 million of liquidity. In terms of interest rate exposure, as a quarter end, approximately 80% of our outstanding debt was at fixed rates, either directly or with the benefit of swaps. As we've discussed previously, we exercised the first of our three one-year extensions on the Gaylord-Rockies term loan, pushing out that maturity to July 2, 2024. and we reset our interest rate swap to cover that period. With the further actions we've taken this quarter to finance the JW Hill Country acquisition, as well as manage our debt maturity schedule, our balance sheet and liquidity continue to be in excellent shape to support the capital deployment opportunities available to us and the continued growth of our business. And it remains our intention to pay 100% of our re-taxable income through dividends. And with that, I'll turn it back over to Colin.
spk04: Thanks, Jen. Travis, let's open the call up for questions, please.
spk10: Yes, sir. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press the star and 1 on your touchstone phone. You may remove yourself from the queue at any time by pressing star 2. Once again, that is star 1 to ask a question. We will pause for a moment to allow questions to queue.
spk20: Our first question comes from Bill Crowe, Raymond James.
spk14: Good morning, thanks. Two questions for me, Alan or Mark. Just curious, Las Vegas has always been a pretty good group market, but Marriott's new deal seems like it might change the equation, make it even stronger. I'm wondering how you think that might impact the rotational groups and the pace of when they come to your properties.
spk06: Yeah, I don't know that it really changes the pace of when they come to our properties. As we've looked at research over the years, about half of groups want to go to Vegas and about half don't. I think the opportunity that it really presents for us is that Marriott will now have you know, a substantial presence there from a Bonvoy perspective. And what that essentially does for us is opens up, I think, more opportunities for us to capture those large groups, either into Denver or into other hotels as part of our rotational pattern.
spk04: The other part of it, Bill, is that, you know, Marriott will have access to that massive gaming market leisure customer that actually spends time in other markets other than Las Vegas. And so I think we have an opportunity of getting leisure demand into some of our great hotels as well. So I think Mark is right. Ultimately, there'll be benefits from the group side, but also I think there is some leisure uplift here as well.
spk14: Thanks. And Colin, you mentioned the potential for a billion dollars of capital projects going forward. I'm just thinking about how that might be financed and whether that might be dependent upon monetization of Opry Entertainment Groups.
spk04: No, it is certainly not. What has happened here, Bill, and Jennifer alluded to this, is that, you know, COVID cost our company, when you sort of estimate it round numbers, about a billion dollars. And, you know, our leverage levels, like a lot of the other hotel companies, have shut down, you know, went up into the mid-60s, pushing sevens. But because of the strength of our business and our cash flows, our leverage levels have gone off a cliff. I mean, as Jennifer alluded, when you normalize for the hill country and you look at the new debt that we have, we're trading at about four times. And so when we look at, and Mark alluded to, 2024, we're looking at group growth. bookings on the books up substantially from historical paces, and the same for the year after that. As we lay out our long-range plan, and this is, again, something we'll be showing to our board next week, we can essentially finance these capital projects from our balance sheet. And by the way, this assumes that our dividends over the next two to three to four years are going to have to increase fairly substantially because of our re-taxable income. So this is a very exciting situation that we've got ourselves into here by literally building a brand that in the eyes of these group customers and the leisure customers is differentiated. And so... you know, we expect to be able to, you know, generate really good quality, you know, high returning growth here over the next three to four years. And by the way, you know, our proformas, you know, have, even though we're going to deploy a billion dollars of capital because of the way the because of the way our assumptions work on what this capital does to the underlying EBITDA of the business, our leverage levels don't go up through this period of time. They actually decline. So this is a very exciting situation we've got ourselves into.
spk06: Yeah, and at the midpoint of our guidance, our consolidated adjusted EBITDA has increased almost 34% over 2019. Yeah. So over the last three years, this business has grown
spk04: Yeah, and that includes our entertainment business numbers. But to that point, Bill, this is an important thing that Mark has just referenced. You guys sit around and you take apart all of these other companies that talk about their earnings. But if you just look at our company, if you take the midpoint of our guidance for this year, for a total rev par, that number is about $443. And this excludes the Hill Country. And this reflects growth over 19 of 15% and growth of 9.5% over last year. If you look at the EBITDA RE for the same store guidance for the year at the midpoint, which again excludes the Hill Country, which is $585 million, this shows growth of 21% over 19, growth in EBITDA, 21% over 19, and 14% over last year. Most of our competitors that you guys write about are sort of flat to down. And it's because of this strategy that we have built and the contracts that we have in place, this is what our business looks like. And we're very, very excited about it.
spk13: Yep. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you both.
spk10: Thank you. Our next question comes from Smitty's Rose, the city.
spk07: Hi, thanks. Just to follow up on that, I just wanted to be clear. You're talking about investing a billion dollars in over a three to four year period and you see your leverage not going above four times and in fact maybe declining over that same timeframe?
spk04: It will be within that three and a half to four and a half times through that period. Depending upon the cadence.
spk12: Yeah, time period for the spend is probably closer to five years.
spk04: Five years, yeah. Right. But again, it depends on the cadence, right? It depends on how quickly you know, we lay these projects over each other.
spk07: Okay. And then can you talk a little bit about just kind of the scope of investment you might envision at the JW, which sounds like that would be separate in a way from what you're planning at your legacy properties?
spk03: Yeah, Mark, you want to take that?
spk06: Yeah, I mean, I would say that from a From a Hill Country perspective, initially our investments are really around where we see opportunities to quickly impact the business there. We're looking at, you know, food and beverage, you know, room renovations, and the potential to take space, commercial space that's currently underutilized and not producing revenue and making it more efficient and delivering more options to the consumers. Longer term, we think there's opportunities to grow rooms, increase meeting space, as well as potentially increase the leisure amenities there. To be honest with you, Smig, it's a little bit early for us to really lay out precisely what we think the right mix of that is. We're just really getting into that hotel and understanding its operations, and the consumer feedback.
spk04: Do you mind if I weigh in on that just for a second? Go for it. So, Smeets, if you look at our Texan, a Gaylord Texan hotel, it is by far the most successful convention resort in the state of Texas. When we opened that baby up, we hoped that we were going to get somewhere between $45 and $50 million of EBITDA. We've expanded that hotel several times now. And that hotel this year is going to do somewhere in and around $120 million. And we sort of see San Antonio and that hotel in San Antonio as having the same DNA, that over time, that this hotel can literally become the second best convention resort in the state of Texas. And so we're very excited about this hotel, and that's why we tried to buy it four or five times over over the last eight years.
spk07: Great. And can I just ask you one? First of all, I appreciate you guys breaking out the cancellation fee. I think that's, you know, a nice incremental disclosure. It looked like cancellation room nights was up quite a bit in the second quarter. I realize it's down a lot through the six months, but I'm just wondering if you could sort of explain that a little bit. It was up 87%. It was like cancellation.
spk09: Hey, this is Patrick. Yeah, it was up a little bit. There were about five or six groups that canceled for future periods, a little bit larger than normal. But as we looked at the specific conditions around each one of them, there was no cause for concern. There was nothing that pointed to macroeconomic trends or anything like that. It was just the lumpiness of how cancellations come in now and then. And so a little bit larger, but we dug into that and don't have any cause for concern based on what we saw.
spk10: Okay.
spk07: Thank you.
spk10: Our next question comes from Patrick Scholes, Truist Securities.
spk29: Hi. Good morning, everyone.
spk08: Sorry if I missed this earlier, but I believe you said you're pacing plus 9.9% for 2024 and around 9 for 2025. Looking through the transcript last quarter, I didn't see that you had discussed that. Did those numbers improve since your last earnings call over the last three months, or where were they?
spk02: You want to take it, Matt?
spk09: Yeah. So, Patrick, good morning. Our numbers continue to improve. I mean, if you look at group revenue pace, total room revenue for 2024, It's actually up, you know, just to give you another data point, up 22% over 2019. And, you know, that's both on the room nights and the rate as well. And that continues to improve. In fact, we just closed July and had some really solid bookings at a couple of the hotels just for the end of the year, fourth of the year, and the T plus one. So that continues to improve and gives us a lot of confidence as we head into 2024. Additionally, on top of that, our mix continues to move in a very positive direction. We have a higher mix of corporate business on the books for 2024, where we stand right now, an improvement over where we are for 2023. So a lot of reasons to feel really good about where we're heading for 2024. Okay. Thank you.
spk08: And then on your leisure business, you know, certainly from other hotel rates and vacation ownership companies and the like here, obviously seeing pressure in the summer and back half of the year. You know, I think about, tell me if I'm wrong here, but I think about leisure for you folks. It's more country music and holiday ice events, which is probably not something, you know, that can easily transfer to going to Europe. How do you, so probably not apples to apples with lost, you know, a ski resort or beach resort. You know, how do you think about, you know, the leisure business as it relates to those pressures?
spk04: Right. Let me start, Patrick, and then you... I just want to do the 50,000 feet part of this. One of the things that we did years ago was that when we built these hotels and added to these hotels, we put in really world-class leisure facilities into these assets. And we've continued to embellish the leisure attributes of these hotels over the last three or four years. Yes, country music and the demands that we're seeing here in Nashville affects Opryland, but country music really doesn't have an impact when you look at Texan, Aurora, Washington, and the Palms. But when you have a quality asset, it just does pretty well. And putting things like sound waves into into Nashville has had an enormous impact on leisure. But we do a lot of programming here too, Patrick. Patrick Chaffin, why don't you just talk about the demand that we induce because of the specialized programs that we put in place for leisure?
spk09: Yeah, absolutely. Just to build on what Colin's already saying, and Patrick, to your point, because I think you're anticipating this, our fourth quarter holiday traveler is really more of a local regional traveler. And So, you know, we absolutely saw a little bit of summer softening in the leisure business. I would say a lot of that, though, was tied into the pool complex incident at Gilbert Rockies, which obviously put a damper on the transient production into that hotel. And we agree that we think there's been some international travel that's gone out of the states, but not necessarily seeing the same level coming back into the states. So that impacted the summer, but as we move towards the holidays, folks are looking for a local regional solution for families to get together. And as we've talked about many times, the programs we've put in place, especially with ICE coming back last year and returning again this year, provides that solution. And so we're hopeful that the summer softening we saw will not continue into the fourth quarter and that the local regional traveler will still be very strong for the fourth quarter of this year.
spk06: Patrick, you're correct. The The structural trip occasion is different for our hotels versus going to Europe or going somewhere for a week or two weeks. These are short regional stays, family staycations, getaways. They're really not substitutable with a trip to Europe.
spk08: Yep, I understood. And then for your, maybe you have said this in the past, but for your acquisition in Texas, are you planning to put it,
spk09: put in the holiday events like ice at that hotel yes we're going to do in a phased approach because we acquired the property on June 30th we do not believe there's time for us to get the property completely ready for an ice type programming offering but we are going to be offering some holiday programming and step up as we move from 23 into 24 we anticipate that by holiday of 2024 We'll have ice and the tent and everything all set up. So we're going to give them a little taste of what we're going to be bringing in 24 this year, and then in 24, the full complement.
spk08: Okay. And then any other of the entertainment segments, programs that you would introduce at that hotel besides ice?
spk09: That's back to Mark's point earlier. That is something that we're studying and looking at and trying to understand what fits best in that market and in that hotel environment. given the customer base and the opportunities around it.
spk08: Okay. Gotcha. Thank you for the color. I'm all set.
spk10: Thanks, Patrick. Our next question comes from Chris Oronca, Deutsche Bank.
spk15: Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for all the details so far. So maybe we could go back to a minute. Colin, your intro comments talked about rhymanizing the JW, which I think is a great term. You guys could probably trademark it. But the question is, if we were to bucket these at a high level, how much of this is kind of getting a different kind of group in there versus operational changes, efficiencies versus new revenue streams? I know that's a That's a lot of buckets, but maybe some high-level thoughts on, you know, what's the level of difficulty of getting this to the perfect level? The short answer is yes.
spk04: The short answer is yes, all of the above. Patrick, do you want to, you know, just some of the process stuff that we've been working with Marriott on, which is, you know, all good, and then, you know, how we think about the inducing of new demand into their markets?
spk09: Absolutely. Mark kind of touched on this already. The initial focus right now is on getting new vendor contracts in there so we can really take advantage of a very similar portfolio and get the economies of scale into whether it be parking contracts, retail contracts, whatever it might be, Wi-Fi, audiovisual contracts, et cetera. And then as we just talked about with Patrick a moment ago, then introducing the holiday programming this year and stepping it up in 2024. Mark alluded to converting space into more revenue generating or getting higher yield out of the spaces that are there today. We think there's sizable ADR opportunities. But to your question specifically, once we get beyond those initial, you know, six to 18-month short-term opportunities, it's really studying the property and asking ourselves to what level do we want to rhymanize or bring it towards a Gaylord. The property has tremendous leisure capabilities, and we want to continue to respect that because it drives a tremendous amount of leisure business. But we do believe that, you know, and with the acquisition of this 41 acres, we do believe there's some opportunities for us to look at growing the pool additionally from where it is today, as well as potentially some meeting space and additional rooms. And so we've already had architects visiting the property, and then my team is digging in with the property to start asking ourselves, to what level do we think it would make sense to potentially grow this property long-term? So that'll be ongoing, and we'll be talking about that more in the future, but a lot of short-term things that we're going after, and then longer-term, figuring out how to maintain the integrity of what this JW has been able to do, but also bring some strength to it from what we know how to do on the group side.
spk04: It's a very successful hotel, Pat. You may want to just touch as well on our thoughts about the overhauling of food and beverage in that hotel as well, because we think there's great potential there as well.
spk09: Yeah, I mean, you've heard us talking about this over the past 18 to 24 months in the Gaylord Hotels brand. We see food and beverage as an area that continues to emerge as more and more of a differentiator. And we want our attendees and leisure guests to be leaving the hotel saying they had a culinary experience, not just that they got fed. And so we continue to refine what we're doing on the banqueting side. And like the Gaylords, we think the JW Hill Country has some potential upside in the type of offering they have on the food and beverage restaurant perspective, the number of seats they have, and just the innovation and creativity around those concepts. We're going to be digging into that. We think there's substantial opportunity there.
spk15: Okay. Very helpful. Appreciate all the all the color there. And then as a follow-up, you know, a lot of talk about expansion, right? And I think a lot of people first go to, to Rockies and then they think about the JW now, but I was hoping to kind of go back to Nashville and it may seem like a silly question because you've got 2,900 rooms and more, if we include the, the end across the street. But I know at one time you had talked about doing a, you know, a different kind of hotel, a family-oriented or luxury hotel, something like that. So any thoughts on just the Opryland itself? Is that possible for expansion at some point?
spk04: The answer to the question is yes. And, again, here's the reason why. We don't expand because we wake up one day and think, you know what, it would be nice to expand. We expand because we induce demand. And then when we cannot fulfill that demand, that's what triggers it. And so we were ready to pull the plug on an expansion, which was going to be your rooms expansion and meeting space expansion back in 2019. Because as we were looking into 20 before COVID, this hotel with, as you quite rightly say, almost 3,000 rooms was our performance for that year for 20. had us operating over 80% in occupancy. And so very efficient deployment of capital to generate really, really good returns. Now, as our business is building back, and the other thing that's going on here, of course, in Nashville, is the halo of the city is getting stronger and stronger. The group segment overall in Nashville is, is growing, but leisure is really growing. So the answer to your question is yes, we're looking at this. We're looking at complete re-overhaul on food and beverage in this hotel, major investments on food and beverage, major investment on potentially a big sports bar here, and we're also looking at potentially expanding both rooms and group space.
spk06: Chris, if you look across our portfolio, we're extremely fortunate in that we are in markets where those markets are continuing to grow economically, and they're business-friendly, frankly, whether it's Texas or whether it's Nashville, Orlando, Denver. These are all markets that long-term appear to be very, very strong group and leisure markets.
spk09: Let me just put a fine point on Opryland, Chris, because we are very excited about what we can do there. Opryland's coming up on 50 years here pretty soon as far as how long it's existed. And when Opryland was built and the first few expansions it went through, the focus was and the needs of the customer was more towards exhibit halls. And Opryland has done a phenomenal, phenomenal job with the space that they have, but they've been at somewhat of a disadvantage in terms of premium carpeted space per guest room that's available to the meeting planner. And so as we look at the opportunities, we think there's an opportunity to rebalance the type of groups going into this hotel by adding potentially more carpeted space and giving Opryland a little bit more of a more level playing field with its sister hotels. And we think that creates substantial upside for the hotel.
spk15: Okay. Outstanding. Very helpful. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Chris.
spk04: Our next question comes from, go ahead. Yeah, Travis, we'll do a couple more questions, and then we'll shut it down and let people get on with their life.
spk10: Our next question comes from Dory Keston, Wells Fargo.
spk22: Thanks. Good morning. Can you talk about the Q2 bookings that you had, the $650 million bookings?
spk21: Is there anything notable between corporate associations or either on demand or rate?
spk09: Hey, Dory, it's Patrick. Good to hear from you. Yeah, the Q2 bookings, there's a couple of things that stand out to me. Number one, to your point, the rate, we saw really, really strong bookings in terms of rate. And again, like I was alluding to earlier, really, really strong growth on the corporate sector. One of the things that is most encouraging to me is the Over the past 18 months or so, we've been talking a lot about the growth in the funnel, in the lead volume funnel for the current in-the-year, for-the-year business, as well as T plus one, T plus two, and T plus three. We are starting to see a lot of substantial growth in the funnel for T plus four and beyond. The reason that's encouraging to us is we were definitely meeting our short-term needs, but because of the amount of rebookings that we did, we had concern that maybe we had skipped booking cycle with some of the association groups that book out further. And we're now seeing that longer range booking window really start to fill back up from a funnel perspective. And so we're really pleased with the bookings that we had and the rate and the mix of business, but we're even more excited by the fact that the funnel is really filling back up for that long-term business. And it just gives us more confidence that as we talk about these CapEx investments, we're getting more and more visibility and greater opportunities to really fill up the book of business for the future.
spk22: Okay. And then I guess one more thing on ice and I apologize if I missed this historically, have you found that your ice guests is a repeat guest from the summer?
spk09: Um, from a summertime perspective, the local traveler, I would say yes, because you have, you know, a great example is a lot of the guests that are coming to Opryland, to go to SoundWaves are then returning to come back and do the holiday programming and ice around Christmas time. The regional traveler, it's more of a one-time-a-year type tradition for them because there's just not a whole lot of options for them at the holidays. So I would say the local traveler is a repeat customer. The regional traveler is more of a once-a-time, come in, bring the whole family. This is where they all gather for the holidays.
spk25: Okay. Thank you.
spk20: All right, Travis, one more question, please.
spk10: Yes, sir. Our final question comes from Sean Kelly, Bank of America.
spk26: Hi, good morning, everyone. Thanks for putting me on here. So, Colin, Patrick, just maybe first off, as we think about the development plans or the CapEx side and the billion dollars that you laid out, Colin, I mean, do we have any more precision around kind of ground breaks, particularly the Rockies? You know, just trying to think through the timing here and the cadence, because I know those have been on the radar screen for a while. Is now the right time to start to get there, given where the portfolio is at in its recovery? And is that something we're going to get more explicit color on at some point in the near medium term?
spk04: Yeah. Yes, good question. The answer is we're going through that process with our board first, which Mark and I, as I said, he and I will be starting that process on next Thursday morning with our board of directors. Patrick and his team have been working their tails off over the last six months, literally looking at, as I said, somewhere between 15 and 20 projects. And by the way, This does not include the regular scheduled room refurbs. The billion basically is rough order of magnitude, are really new projects that we're looking at. But the process is, the way we want to go through this is over the next two, three months, refine that plan with our board, get confident with each of the markets that we're going to deploy capital in, build the cadence of that. And then Mark and Jen have been figuring out a time for us to do a really high quality IR investor day in Nashville. And we're thinking, we were trying to get it done before the holidays, but with everything that we've got scheduled, that's going to be impossible. But I think Jen and Mark, you're thinking now sort of late January, early February type And what we will be doing then, I think, Sean, is laying out these are the projects that we really like. These are the markets that we will be deploying capital in. And this will be the order of play. And I suspect, though, between now and that investor relation day, IR day, we may pull the trigger on one or two of these, Patrick, that are really high priority for us.
spk09: Yeah. And, you know, just to your question, we continue to be very interested in the long-term plans for expansion at Rockies. I would remind you that we're in the midst of some pretty substantial investment right now. The Grand Lodge, or, you know, what you'd call an atrium at one of our other hotels, is currently under full renovation, and it's going to completely transform that area. into really the hub of the hotel, as well as the addition of a new group pavilion outside. So from a cadence perspective, I really can't get going on the expansion until we got some of these other projects done. So we remain very interested in that, but we're just trying to make sure that we go about it in an appropriate process.
spk04: Yeah, I think as you talked about the Rocky Shone, but I think, you know, Mark, our Our appetite at that hotel has only sort of strengthened over the last year or two. It hasn't waned at all. COVID hasn't sort of given us any thoughts of should we de-emphasize room expansions. We're very excited about the Rockies.
spk06: When you look at the rebooking characteristics of that coming out of COVID, it was the strongest in the brand.
spk04: Yeah, well over 75%, right? Yeah, that's very good.
spk26: Sean, any other questions? Yeah, just one more on Mark. Sorry, I didn't mean to leave your name out of there on my first list. But yeah, just big picture, and this is not meant to sound greedy or unthankful, because I actually think the Hill Country asset is a fantastic addition. But your very high-level question to maybe wrap up would be, are there more Hill countries out there? I mean, clearly this is something you've underwritten time and again, but yet for probably many of us in the investment community, it's always still a little bit of like an aha, like it's kind of hidden in plain sight. So without naming names, because obviously that does no one a benefit, but Do you think there are more opportunities of similar scope and scale, $500 million plus big assets that could be impactful to the portfolio that look or feel like this? Because it does feel, to me at least, absolutely spot on for probably what you're looking to do for the portfolio.
spk06: Yeah, I mean, I think the general answer to the question is yes, but it is a short list. And to your point, you know, our... Our focus around acquisitions has been we want to buy things that check every box for us. We have a very specific focus strategy, as Colin outlined at the beginning of the call. Any hotels that we bring into our portfolio, we want them to be consistent with that strategy and ultimately be able to drive value not only at that property level, but also be able to drive value across the portfolio.
spk28: That's the critical thing for us. Absolutely.
spk04: Thank you very much. Thanks, Sean. Okay, Travis, thank you. And for the investors that have been on this morning, thank you for your time and effort. If you have any other questions, you know how to get a hold of us here. And upward and onward, we've – We've got an exciting company on our hands and expect to create tons of value here over the years ahead. So thank you, everyone.
spk10: This does conclude today's program. Thank you for your participation.
spk20: You may disconnect at any time.
spk17: Love him hard and bless your heart. You need someone to listen. That's why I leave a light on me in the kitchen. Pancakes just taste better after midnight. You make friends always be colorblind. Your freckles make you pretty. There's more to life than being skinny. Do you feel fat? It's mostly in your mind. So honey, trust yourself.
spk18: You better love yourself. you Thank you.
spk00: Thank you.
spk10: Welcome to Ryman Hospitality Properties' second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Hosting the call today from Ryman Hospitality Properties are Mr. Colin Reed, Executive Chairman, Mr. Mark Firivati, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Jennifer Hutchison, Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Patrick Chaffin, Chief Operating Officer, and Mr. Patrick Moore, Chief Executive Officer, Opera Entertainment Group. This call will be available for digital replay. The number is 800-756-0554 with no conference ID required. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Ms. Jennifer Hutchison. Please go ahead, ma'am.
spk23: Good morning. Thank you all for joining us today. This call may contain forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements about the company's expected financial performance. Any statements we make today that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Words such as believes or expects are intended to identify these statements, which may be affected by many factors, including those listed in the company's SEC filings and in today's release. The company's actual results may differ materially from the results we discuss or project today. We will not update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or any other reason. We will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures today. We reconcile each non-GAAP measure to the most comparable GAAP measure and exhibits to today's release. I will now turn the call over to Collin.
spk04: Thank you, Jennifer, and good morning, everyone. I want to start off this morning's earnings call by somewhat breaking from the tradition of spending time talking about the last quarter. Of course, we're very pleased with the last quarter, but it's the future that really excites us, so let me tell you why. Twenty years ago, we decided to build a hospitality brand primarily focused on the group segment. We did this because we had discovered that there were tens of thousands of large groups that rotate market to market year by year. We built world-class physical assets backed up by a people-focused culture that over time built loyalty amongst our customers. The consequence was that we gained market share, and for those investors who have been with us for this journey will know we've expanded and refined most of our hotels over the last decade as we grew demand. Financially, our performance has been substantially different from our peers. In fact, our company has significantly outperformed the FTSE NAREIT Lodging Sector Index over the last 20 years. And when you look at the average returns of the same index, whether it's on a year-to-date basis, a one-year, three-year, five-year, ten-year, we've substantially outperformed this index in each period of measurement. Now, this is not by luck. This is because we have a differentiated strategy. that enters into contracts with our large group customers and provide really exciting experiences to the leisure customers, and they in turn reward us with their loyalty, the consequence of which has resulted in lower annualized earnings volatility and higher annualized growth than our peers. So here we are, after a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, posting results that are mostly across-the-board records. And as Mark will describe, bookings and lead volumes that are really quite impressive, and revenue on the books for next year and the years following at levels that exceed historical performance. COVID decimated many families and created extraordinary damage to humanity. But in some ways, it made us a stronger company. We went out of our way to nurture and care for the meeting planner, evidenced by the tremendous rebookings we achieved from the council room night. We re-engineered our organization and deployed almost $500 million in new capital while others shut up shop. We have emerged from COVID a stronger company, as our quarterly earnings illustrate. But the thing that excites me is what we can do with our businesses over the years ahead. Next week, we will be with our board, and I suspect most of the conversation will be focused on the years ahead of us. Our hotel business has and is showing strong rate growth as a consequence of the attributes of our products and the strength of demand. Forward bookings and lead volumes have us very excited, and we'll be sharing with our board the many options we have to grow our business. We're working on rooms expansions of certain hotels, convention space expansion, replicating sound waves in several markets, sports bar expansions, as well as food and beverage repositioning, all at our existing hotels as we expand and refine supply to accommodate the demand we are building. So as I said, next week we will preview these opportunities with our board. And between now and early December, we'll be refining pro formas and prioritization. And then we will share this plan in some detail at an investor day that we plan to hold sometime mid-first quarter of next year, so that we can lay out our growth plans primarily for our hotel business, but also give you a glimpse of what we expect to do with our exciting entertainment business. Now, right now, we've identified somewhere between 15 and 20 projects that we believe will materially grow profitability that we estimate that will require about $1 billion of new capital. And by the way, that number I've just explained to you excludes the plans that we're developing for the JW Marriott Hill Country. Unlike most of the hospitality REIT sector, we have a very strong record of creating value for our shareholders. And the plans that we are developing and the strategy that we have in place leads us to the conclusion that the future looks extremely exciting. Now for the quarter. As Mark and Jen will discuss, our quarter came in almost exactly as our operating plan called for, despite the shocking accident at our Colorado hotel. And we set records in many areas of our business. The quarter was highlighted by the acquisition of the JW Marrick Hill Country, which we're very excited about. And Mark will talk about that in a minute. Candidly, we've tried to buy this hotel several times over the last eight years, and we're pleased that we were able to move quickly. to facilitate this purchase. And I'd like to thank the investors and bondholders who came into our company at the time of purchase for having the confidence in us. San Antonio is a large city with incredible growth characteristics. In fact, from 2020 to 21, San Antonio experienced the largest population growth in absolute terms of any city in the United States. And during that time, the GDP of San Antonio grew at the fifth highest rate in the country. There's a lot of upside potential for this hotel, and even though the hotel is performing extremely well, and we look forward to really rhymanizing this hotel in the coming period. Over the last several days, we've gone under contract to purchase an adjacent 41 acres of real estate, that significantly helps us to be able to expand this hotel over time, and then introduce this asset into the rotational offering for our group customers. And Patrick and his high-quality team are currently building the growth thesis for this world-class asset, which we'll share with you in a few months. Now finally, let me just tell you what excites me about our entertainment business. First of all, the core business continues to get stronger, and if you exclude our new Block 21 assets, which delivered very good results in the second quarter. Adjusted EBITDA increased year-over-year by 21% on an 11% increase in revenue. The All Red brand also delivered record results, as did the Grand Ole Opry and the Ryman. From a growth perspective, we're making headway in Las Vegas with our All Red that we're building on the Strip, but it looks like opening will occur very early in 2024, which is a modest shift in the schedule due to a permit delay that we fortunately now have completely resolved. As you all know, we also announced a long-term branding deal with Luke Combs. Luke is an extraordinary entertainer with international appeal, and we'll be converting the Wild Horse into a four-part, multi-faceted entertainment destination here in Nashville, which, when complete, will be quite different from the bars you see in this town. So here we are, our consolidated business operating at record levels, and a balance sheet that has delivered materially over the last year. For us, the dilemma is not how we grow, but what levers we pull first. And I want to just finish my section here by saying I'm extremely proud of the team we have here at Ryman and their collective professionalism and understanding of our business. And the future looks awfully, awfully exciting. So, Mark, let's talk about the second quarter.
spk06: Thanks, Colin. The company had another excellent quarter with a continuation of the great momentum we saw in the first quarter, achieving record performances in a number of areas. In addition, we are excited about the value creation opportunities that JW Marriott Hill Country presents at both the property and portfolio levels. Starting with our hotel business, we continue to see strength in the group segment as we traveled approximately 528,000 group room nights in the quarter, 3.5% more than the comparable period in 2022, and nearly a 98% recovery versus 2019 pre-pandemic levels. Across the board in both group and transient, we continue to see strong rate performance as group and transient ADR were both up 5% versus the prior year quarter, and 16.7% and 37.9% respectively compared to the second quarter of 2019. Both segments set new all-time records for ADR, driving record second quarter hospitality revenue. Outside the room spending this quarter saw continued strength with an increase of over 5% compared to the year-ago period. Despite an uncertain macro environment, we delivered hospitality adjusted EBITDA RE of $152.7 million in the quarter, which was the second highest performance in the company's history just 1.5% behind the year-ago period. While there was a 200 basis point margin decline compared to the same period last year, this quarter's performance was solid as we faced some tough comparisons to the prior year quarter. Coming off the Omicron-impacted first quarter, the second quarter of 2022 is the highest EBITDA RE and margin quarter on record, driven in part by Omicron-related rebookings attrition and cancellation fee collections, and incentive management fee expense timing. Attrition and cancellation fees in the most recent quarter were down by almost one-third, or $5 million on a year-over-year basis, illustrating the continued return of the group customer. Likewise, as our portfolio has generated higher levels of profitability, management fee expenses increased commensurately. Our second quarter results included over $4 million more and recognized incentive management fees compared to the year-ago period. While these dynamics have a negative impact on comparable margins, they are favorable signs for the group segment in our business. We anticipate a similarly challenging year-over-year comparison in the third quarter as well, and then reaching more favorable comparisons in the fourth. In addition to these year-over-year dynamics, the Gaylord Rockies performance in the quarter was negatively impacted, by the tragic May 6th collapse of the HVA system at the hotel's indoor pool. Guest volumes, primarily in the transient segment, were impacted in the weeks following the incident, but have continued to recover. We estimate this incident impacted the Rockies' second quarter profitability by approximately $2 million, and we have an ongoing business interruption claim, which we hope to collect by year end. As we look to the remainder of the year, We're reiterating our hospitality EBITDA RE and entertainment segment EBITDA outlook with the addition of the JW Hill Country for the back half of the year, thus raising our adjusted EBITDA RE guidance for the benefit of the new property. Jennifer will detail our outlook shortly. As we look beyond 2023, we continue to see no deterioration in the key leading indicators we tracked. We're again pleased with group sales production in the quarter as we booked nearly 652,000 gross group room nights, which is up 8.4% compared to the year-ago period. If you exclude Omicron-related rebookings from the second quarter production last year, production was up approximately 17% year-over-year. We continue to prioritize ADR in our sales production, leveraging the capital investments we've made and capitalizing on the favorable supply-demand outlook for the group segments. For the second quarter, we achieved an average rate across all new group bookings of $265, an all-time high for any quarter in the company's history, up 8.7% compared to the second quarter of 2022, and 25.2% compared to the second quarter of 2019. This ongoing strength in production continues to drive our revenue on the books for future years and supports our confidence to continue investing to enhance our one-of-a-kind hotels, create stronger customer loyalty, and build an even greater competitive advantage. As of the end of the second quarter, our group rooms revenue on the books for 24 and 25 are up 9.6 and 9.8% respectively compared to the T plus one and T plus two time periods as of the second quarter of 2022. Now turning to the acquisition of the JW Marriott Hill Country, Colin gave you a brief overview of some of the fundamentals of the compelling San Antonio market. Let me add a little bit more color about this hotel and the tremendous opportunity it presents for us. Since closing the acquisition on June 30th, our asset management team has been working with Marriott to quickly integrate the property into our portfolio, to capitalize on economies of scale, improve contract terms and service levels from key vendors, and leverage our portfolio-wide above property activities in finance, revenue management, and group sales. In addition, we're working to create an initial introduction of holiday programming to drive incremental transient occupancy and outside-the-room spending for the 2023 holiday season. Due to its lead time, we will implement our full holiday programming, including ICE, in 2024. Looking out further, the expansion potential of this hotel is substantial. While already a destination property of 1,002 rooms, when you compare it to the rest of our portfolio and consider the long-term economic growth of the greater San Antonio-Austin region, the property represents an enormous opportunity to generate significant shareholder value through future capital investment. To this end, as Colin mentioned, we have signed a purchase agreement to acquire from Marriott 41 undeveloped acres immediately adjacent to the Hill Country property for $10.1 million. The purchase agreement is subject to customary closing conditions, including our due diligence efforts in the approval of Marriott's investment committee. We believe this land and the associated development rights will allow us to create a compelling master plan for an expansion of the resort in future years. We anticipate closing this transaction by the end of the third quarter. Our entertainment group's performance this quarter was again another great storyline, with our marquee Nashville assets leading the way. The consolidated entertainment segment delivered $87.1 million of revenue and $29.4 million of adjusted EBITDA, which are both records, up 27.4% and 33.4% respectively versus the year-ago period. We also announced this quarter that former Ryman board member Patrick Moore has been appointed chief executive officer of the company's Opry Entertainment Group. Patrick brings decades of experience leading brands through transformative growth, and his addition to our management team is an important step in executing our long-term strategic growth plan. We've worked with Patrick first as a consultant and most recently as a Ryman board member, and I have known him for more than 16 years. We're excited to have Patrick join us and for the leadership and strategic capabilities he brings. And with that, I'll turn it over to Jennifer to discuss our financial results in greater detail.
spk23: Thank you, Mark. In the second quarter, the company generated total revenue of $504.8 million and net income to common shareholders of $66.5 million, or $1.15 per fully diluted share. Note as usual that our fully diluted share count in the quarter reflects the put rights held by Ateros as part of their Opry Entertainment Group investment. Although those rights are not yet exercisable and we retain the option to settle any exercise of these rights in cash, Any exercise of these put rights would also result in Ateros' 30% ownership in OEG reverting back to Ryman. Additionally, this quarter, we completed a successful oversubscribed equity capital raise in June associated with our acquisition of the JW San Antonio Hill Country property. We issued a total of 4.4 million shares in the quarter, which is reflected in our weighted average shares outstanding for the quarter and year-to-date. Total consolidated adjusted EBITDA RE for the second quarter was $174.7 million, which is an all-time record, and led by continued strength in both our hospitality and entertainment segments. With the JW Hill Country acquisition occurring on June 30th, our second quarter balance sheet fully reflects the acquisition and the related financing transactions, and future operating results starting next quarter will be fully reflected in our income statement. As Mark mentioned, our businesses are performing well with strength and momentum moving forward. As such, we are reiterating our full year guidance for our same store businesses and updating our consolidated full year guidance for the addition of the San Antonio Hill Country property in the back half of the year. As a result, we are guiding consolidated adjusted EBITDA RE of $659 million to $704 million or an increase of $28 million at the midpoint compared to our previous guidance. We are also increasing our guidance for adjusted funds from operations, or AFFO, for the year to a range of $437 to $466 million, which is an increase of $12 million at the midpoint. You can see our full guidance changes and reconciliation in the earnings release. Turning to our balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $508.3 million of unrestricted cash on hand, and our $700 million revolver remained undrawn. Opry Entertainment Group's $65 million revolver had a balance of $7 million outstanding, which is unchanged from last quarter. The combined capacity of our revolving credit facilities and cash on hand gives us total liquidity of approximately $1.25 billion after deducting $14 million of outstanding letters of credit. We retained an additional $105.6 million of restricted cash available for our FF&E projects and other maintenance. On a trailing 12-month basis, our net leverage ratio of total consolidated net debt to adjusted EBITDA RE stood at about 5.5 times, which is a modest increase from last quarter but includes our recently completed high-yield note offering without including any EBITDA contribution from the JW Hill Country. Adjusting for the EBITDA contribution of J.W. Hill Country, we are closer to four times. We completed meaningful capital markets transactions in the second quarter to fund the acquisition of J.W. Hill Country, as well as to extend the maturity of our credit facility and refinance our term loan B. The J.W. Hill Country acquisition was funded through the equity offering of 4.4 million shares of common stock, par value of one cent per share, at a price to the public of $93.23. as well as the private placement of $400 million of aggregate principal amount of seven and a quarter senior notes, which are due 2028. Both of these transactions were very well received by the market and were upsized in both cases to satisfy strong demand for our securities. On our credit facility refinancing, we successfully extended our revolver maturity to 2027 and term loan B maturity to 2030, and eliminated the previous mortgage collateral requirements. In addition, we reset our term loan B to $500 million, providing us an additional $130 million of liquidity. In terms of interest rate exposure, as a quarter end, approximately 80% of our outstanding debt was at fixed rates, either directly or with the benefit of swaps. As we've discussed previously, we exercised the first of our three one-year extensions on the Gaylord-Rafi's term loan, pushing out that maturity to July 2, 2024. and we reset our interest rate swap to cover that period. With the further actions we've taken this quarter to finance the JW Hill Country acquisition, as well as manage our debt maturity schedule, our balance sheet and liquidity continue to be in excellent shape to support the capital deployment opportunities available to us and the continued growth of our business. And it remains our intention to pay 100% of our retaxable income through dividends. And with that, I'll turn it back over to Colin.
spk04: Thanks, Jen. Travis, let's open the call up for questions, please.
spk10: Yes, sir. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press the star and 1 on your touchstone phone. You may remove yourself from the queue at any time by pressing star 2. Once again, that is star 1 to ask a question. We will pause for a moment to allow questions to queue.
spk20: Our first question comes from Bill Crow, Raymond James.
spk14: Good morning, thanks. Two questions for me, Alan or Mark. Just curious, Las Vegas has always been a pretty good group market, but Marriott's new deal seems like it might change the equation, make it even stronger. I'm wondering how you think that might impact the rotational groups
spk20: and the pace of when they come to your properties.
spk06: Yeah, I don't know that it really changes the pace of when they come to our properties. As we've looked at research over the years, about half of groups want to go to Vegas and about half don't. I think the opportunity that it really presents for us is that Marriott will now have you know, a substantial presence there from a Bonvoy perspective. And what that essentially does for us is opens up, I think, more opportunities for us to capture those large groups, either into Denver or into other hotels as part of our rotational pattern.
spk04: The other part of it, Bill, is that, you know, Marriott will have access to that massive gaming market leisure customer that actually spends time in other markets other than Las Vegas. And so I think we have an opportunity of getting leisure demand into some of our great hotels as well. So I think Mark is right. Ultimately, there'll be benefits from the group side, but also I think there is some leisure uplift here as well.
spk14: Thanks. And Colin, you mentioned the potential for a billion dollars of capital projects going forward. I'm just thinking about how that might be financed and whether that might be dependent upon monetization of Opry Entertainment Groups.
spk04: No, it is certainly not. What has happened here, Bill, and Jennifer alluded to this, is that, you know, COVID cost our company, when you sort of estimate it, round numbers, about a billion dollars. And, you know, our leverage levels, like a lot of the other hotel companies, have shut down, you know, went up into the mid-60s, pushing 7s. But because of the strength of our business and our cash flows, our leverage levels have gone off a cliff. I mean, as Jennifer alluded, when you normalize for the hill country and you look at the new debt that we have, we're trading at about four times. And so when we look at, and Mark alluded to, 2024, we're looking at group growth. bookings on the books up substantially from historical paces, and the same for the year after that. As we lay out our long-range plan, and this is, again, something we'll be showing to our board next week, we can essentially finance these capital projects from our balance sheet. And by the way, this assumes that our dividends over the next two to three to four years are gonna have to increase fairly substantially because of our re-taxable income. So this is a very exciting situation that we've got ourselves into here by literally building a brand that in the eyes of these group customers and the leisure customers is differentiated. And so you know, we expect to be able to, you know, generate really good quality, you know, high returning growth here over the next three to four years. And by the way, you know, our proformas, you know, have, even though we're going to deploy a billion dollars of capital because of the way the because of the way our assumptions work on what this capital does to the underlying EBITDA of the business, our leverage levels don't go up through this period of time. They actually decline. So this is a very exciting situation we've got ourselves into.
spk06: Yeah, and at the midpoint of our guidance, our consolidated adjusted EBITDA has increased almost 34% over 2019. Yeah. So over the last three years, this business has grown
spk04: Yeah, and that includes our entertainment business numbers. But to that point, Bill, this is an important thing that Mark has just referenced. You guys sit around and you take apart all of these other companies that talk about their earnings. But if you just look at our company, if you take the midpoint of our guidance for this year, for a total rev par, that number is about $443. And this excludes the Hill Country. And this reflects growth over 19 of 15% and growth of 9.5% over last year. If you look at the EBITDA RE for the same store guidance for the year at the midpoint, which again excludes the Hill Country, which is $585 million, this shows growth of 21% over 19, growth in EBITDA, 21% over 19, and 14% over last year. Most of our competitors that you guys write about are sort of flat to down. And it's because of this strategy that we have built and the contracts that we have in place, this is what our business looks like. And we're very, very excited about it.
spk13: Yep. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you both.
spk10: Thank you. Our next question comes from Smitty's Rose, the city.
spk07: Hi, thanks. Just to follow up on that, I just wanted to be clear. You're talking about investing a billion dollars over a three- to four-year period, and you – you see your leverage not going above four times and in fact maybe declining over that same timeframe?
spk04: It will be within that three and a half to four and a half times through that period. Depending upon the cadence.
spk12: Yeah, time period for the spend is probably closer to five years.
spk04: Five years, yeah. Right. But again, it depends on the cadence, right? It depends on how quickly we lay these projects down.
spk07: over each other okay and then um can you talk a little bit about just kind of the scope of investment you might envision at the jw which sounds like that would be separate in a way from what you're planning at your legacy properties yeah mark you want to take that yeah i mean i would say that from a
spk06: From a Hill Country perspective, initially our investments are really around where we see opportunities to quickly impact the business there. We're looking at, you know, food and beverage, you know, room renovations, and the potential to take space, commercial space that's currently underutilized and not producing revenue and making it more efficient and delivering more options to the consumers. Longer term, we think there's opportunities to grow rooms, increase meeting space, as well as potentially increase the leisure amenities there. To be honest with you, Smee, it's a little bit early for us to really lay out precisely what we think the right mix of that is. We're just really getting into that hotel and understanding its operations, and the consumer feedback.
spk04: Do you mind if I weigh in on that just for a second? No, go ahead. So, Smeeds, if you look at our Texan, a Gaylord Texan hotel, it is by far the most successful convention resort in the state of Texas. When we opened that baby up, we hoped that we were going to get somewhere between $45 and $50 million of EBITDA. We've expanded that hotel several times now. And that hotel this year is going to do somewhere in and around $120 million. And we sort of see San Antonio and that hotel in San Antonio as having the same DNA, that over time, that this hotel can literally become the second best convention resort in the state of Texas. And so we're very excited about this hotel, and that's why we tried to buy it four or five times over over the last eight years.
spk07: Great. And can I just ask you one? First of all, I appreciate you guys breaking out the cancellation fee. I think that's, you know, a nice incremental disclosure. It looked like cancellation room nights was up quite a bit in the second quarter. I realize it's down a lot through the six months, but I'm just wondering if you could sort of explain that a little bit. It was up 87%. It looks like cancellations.
spk09: Hey, SMAIDS. It's Patrick. Yeah, it was up a little bit. There were about five or six groups that canceled for future periods, a little bit larger than normal. But as we looked at the specific conditions around each one of them, there was no cause for concern. There was nothing that pointed to macroeconomic trends or anything like that. It was just the lumpiness of how cancellations come in now and then, and so a little bit larger. But we dug into that and don't have any cause for concern based on what we saw.
spk07: Okay. Thank you.
spk10: Our next question comes from Patrick Scholes, Truist Securities.
spk29: Hi. Good morning, everyone.
spk08: Sorry if I missed this earlier, but I believe you said you're pacing plus 9.9% for 2024 and around 9% for 2025. Looking through the transcript last quarter, I didn't see that you had discussed that. Did those numbers improve since your last earnings call over the last three months, or where were they?
spk02: You want to take it, Matt?
spk09: Yeah. So, Patrick, good morning. Our numbers continue to improve. I mean, if you look at group revenue pace, total room revenue for 2024, It's actually up, you know, just to give you another data point, up 22% over 2019. And, you know, that's both on the room nights and the rate as well. And that continues to improve. In fact, we just closed July and had some really solid bookings at a couple of the hotels just for the end of the year, fourth of the year, and the T plus one. So that continues to improve and gives us a lot of confidence as we head into 2024. Additionally, on top of that, our mix continues to move in a very positive direction. We have a higher mix of corporate business on the books for 2024, where we stand right now, an improvement over where we are for 2023. So a lot of reasons to feel really good about where we're heading for 2024. Okay. Thank you.
spk08: And then on your leisure business, you know, certainly from other hotel rates and vacation ownership companies and the like here, obviously seeing pressure in the summer and back half of the year. You know, I think about, tell me if I'm wrong here, but I think about leisure for you folks. It's more country music and holiday ice events, which is probably not something, you know, that can easily transfer to going to Europe. How do you, so probably not apples to apples with lost, you know, a ski resort or beach resort. You know, how do you think about, you know, the leisure business as it relates to those pressures?
spk04: Right. Let me start, Patrick, and then you... I just want to do the 50,000 feet part of this. One of the things that we did years ago was that when we built these hotels and added to these hotels, we put in really world-class leisure facilities into these assets. And we've continued to embellish the leisure attributes of these hotels over the last three or four years. Yes, country music and the demands that we're seeing here in Nashville affects Opryland, but country music really doesn't have an impact when you look at Texan, Aurora, Washington, and the Palms. But when you have a quality asset, it just does pretty well. And putting things like sound waves into into Nashville has had an enormous impact on leisure. But we do a lot of programming here too, Patrick. Patrick Chaffin, why don't you just talk about the demand that we induce because of the specialized programs that we put in place for leisure?
spk09: Yeah, absolutely. Just to build on what Colin's already saying, and Patrick, to your point, because I think you're anticipating this, our fourth quarter holiday traveler is really more of a local regional traveler. And So, you know, we absolutely saw a little bit of summer softening in the leisure business. I would say a lot of that, though, was tied into the pool complex incident at Gilbert Rockies, which obviously put a damper on the transient production into that hotel. And we agree that we think there's been some international travel that's gone out of the states but not necessarily seen the same level coming back into the states. So that impacted the summer, but as we move towards the holidays, folks are looking for a local regional solution for families to get together. And as we've talked about many times, the programs we've put in place, especially with ICE coming back last year and returning again this year, provides that solution. And so we're hopeful that the summer softening we saw will not continue into the fourth quarter and that the local regional traveler will still be very strong for the fourth quarter of this year.
spk06: Patrick, you're correct. The The structural trip occasion is different for our hotels versus going to Europe or going somewhere for a week or two weeks. These are short regional stays, family staycations, getaways. They're really not substitutable with a trip to Europe.
spk08: Yep, I understood. And then for your, maybe you have said this in the past, but for your acquisition in Texas, are you planning to put it,
spk09: put in the holiday events like ice at that hotel yes we're going to do in a phased approach because we acquired the property on June 30th we do not believe there's time for us to get the property completely ready for an ice type programming offering but we are going to be offering some holiday programming and step up as we move from 23 into 24 we anticipate that by holiday of 2024 We'll have ice and the tent and everything all set up. So we're going to give them a little taste of what we're going to be bringing in 24 this year, and then in 24, the full complement.
spk08: Okay. And then any other of the entertainment segments, programs that you would introduce at that hotel besides ice?
spk09: That's back to Mark's point earlier. That is something that we're studying and looking at and trying to understand what fits best in that market and in that hotel environment. given the customer base and the opportunities around it.
spk08: Okay. Gotcha. Thank you for the caller. I'm all set.
spk28: Thanks, Patrick.
spk10: Our next question comes from Chris Oronca, Deutsche Bank.
spk15: Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for all the details so far. So maybe we could go back to a minute. Colin, your intro comments talked about rhymanizing the JW, which I think is a great term. You guys could probably trademark it. But the question is, if we were to bucket these at a high level, how much of this is kind of getting a different kind of group in there versus operational changes, efficiencies versus new revenue streams? I know that's a That's a lot of buckets, but maybe some high-level thoughts on, you know, what's the level of difficulty of getting this to the perfect level? The short answer is yes.
spk04: The short answer is yes, all of the above. Patrick, do you want to, you know, just some of the process stuff that we've been working with Married on, which is, you know, all good, and then, you know, how we think about the inducing of new demand into their markets?
spk09: Absolutely. Mark kind of touched on this already. The initial focus right now is on getting new vendor contracts in there so we can really take advantage of a very similar portfolio and get the economies of scale into whether it be parking contracts, retail contracts, whatever it might be, Wi-Fi, audiovisual contracts, et cetera. And then as we just talked about with Patrick a moment ago, then introducing the holiday programming this year and stepping it up in 2024. Mark alluded to converting space into more revenue generating or getting higher yield out of the spaces that are there today. We think there's sizable ADR opportunities. But to your question specifically, once we get beyond those initial, you know, six to 18-month short-term opportunities, it's really studying the property and asking ourselves to what level do we want to rhymanize or bring it towards a Gaylord. The property has tremendous leisure capabilities, and we want to continue to respect that because it drives a tremendous amount of leisure business. But we do believe that, you know, and with the acquisition of this 41 acres, we do believe there's some opportunities for us to look at growing the pool additionally from where it is today, as well as potentially some meeting space and additional rooms. And so we've already had architects visiting the property, and then my team is digging in with the property to start asking ourselves, to what level do we think it would make sense to potentially grow this property long-term? So that'll be ongoing, and we'll be talking about that more in the future, but a lot of short-term things that we're going after, and then longer-term, figuring out how to maintain the integrity of what this JW has been able to do, but also bring some strength to it from what we know how to do on the group side.
spk04: It's a very successful hotel, Pat. You may want to just touch as well on that, and I have thoughts about the overhauling of food and beverage in that hotel as well, because we think there's great potential there as well.
spk09: Yeah, I mean, you've heard us talking about this over the past 18 to 24 months in the Gaylord Hotels brand. We see food and beverage as an area that continues to emerge as more and more of a differentiator. And we want our attendees and leisure guests to be leaving the hotel saying they had a culinary experience, not just that they got fed. And so we continue to refine what we're doing on the banqueting side. And like the Gaylords, we think the J.W. Hill Country has some potential upside in the type of offering they have on the food and beverage restaurant perspective, the number of seats they have, and just the innovation and creativity around those concepts. We're going to be digging into that. We think there's substantial opportunity there.
spk15: Okay. Very helpful. Appreciate all the all the color there. And then as a follow-up, you know, a lot of talk about expansion, right? And I think a lot of people first go to the Rockies and then they think about the JW now, but I was hoping to kind of go back to Nashville and it may seem like a silly question because you've got 2,900 rooms and more, if we include the, the end across the street. But I know at one time you had talked about doing a, you know, a different kind of hotel and, a family or family-oriented or a luxury hotel, something like that. So any thoughts on just the Opryland itself? Is that possible for expansion at some point?
spk04: The answer to the question is yes. And again, here's the reason why. We don't expand because we wake up one day and think, you know what, it'd be nice to expand. We expand because we induce demand And then when we cannot fulfill that demand, that's what triggers it. And so we were ready to pull the plug on an expansion, which was going to be your rooms expansion and meeting space expansion back in 2019. Because as we were looking into 20 before COVID, this hotel with, as you quite rightly say, almost 3,000 rooms was our performance for that year for 20. had us operating over 80% in occupancy. And so very efficient deployment of capital to generate really, really good returns. Now, as our business is building back, and the other thing that's going on here, of course, in Nashville, is the halo of the city is getting stronger and stronger. The group segment overall in Nashville is, is growing, but leisure is really growing. So the answer to your question is yes, we're looking at this. We're looking at complete re-overhaul on food and beverage in this hotel, major investments on food and beverage, major investment on potentially a big sports bar here, and we're also looking at potentially expanding both rooms and group space.
spk06: Chris, if you look across our portfolio, we're extremely fortunate in that we are in markets where those markets are continuing to grow economically, and they're business-friendly, frankly, whether it's Texas or whether it's Nashville, Orlando, Denver. These are all markets that long-term appear to be very, very strong group and leisure markets.
spk09: Let me just put a fine point on Opryland, Chris, because we are very excited about what we can do there. Opryland's coming up on 50 years here pretty soon as far as how long it's existed. And when Opryland was built and the first few expansions it went through, the focus was and the needs of the customer was more towards exhibit halls. And Opryland has done a phenomenal, phenomenal job with the space that they have, but they've been at somewhat of a disadvantage in terms of premium carpeted space per guest room that's available to the meeting planner. And so as we look at the opportunities, we think there's an opportunity to rebalance the type of groups going into this hotel by adding potentially more carpeted space and giving Opryland a little bit more of a more level playing field with its sister hotels. And we think that creates substantial upside for the hotel.
spk15: Okay. Outstanding. Very helpful. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Chris.
spk11: Our next question comes from, go ahead.
spk04: Yeah, Travis, we'll do a couple more questions, and then we'll shut it down and let people get on with their life.
spk10: Our next question comes from Dory Keston, Wells Fargo.
spk22: Thanks. Good morning. Can you talk about the Q2 bookings that you had, the $650 million bookings?
spk21: Is there anything notable between corporate associations, Smurf, either on demand or rate?
spk09: Hey, Dory, it's Patrick. Good to hear from you. Yeah, the Q2 bookings, there's a couple of things that stand out to me. Number one, to your point, the rate. We saw really, really strong bookings in terms of rate. And again, like I was alluding to earlier, really, really strong growth on the corporate sector. One of the things that is most encouraging to me is the Over the past 18 months or so, we've been talking a lot about the growth in the funnel, in the lead volume funnel for the current in-the-year, for-the-year business, as well as T plus one, T plus two, and T plus three. We are starting to see a lot of substantial growth in the funnel for T plus four and beyond. The reason that's encouraging to us is we were definitely meeting our short-term needs, but because of the amount of rebookings that we did, we had concern that maybe we had skipped booking cycle with some of the association groups that book out further. And we're now seeing that longer range booking window really start to fill back up from a funnel perspective. And so we're really pleased with the bookings that we had and the rate and the mix of business, but we're even more excited by the fact that the funnel is really filling back up for that long-term business. And it just gives us more confidence that as we talk about these CapEx investments, we're getting more and more visibility and greater opportunities to really fill up the book of business for the future.
spk22: Okay. And then I guess one more thing on ice, and I apologize if I missed this. Historically, have you found that your ice guest is a repeat guest from the summer?
spk09: From a summertime perspective, the local traveler, I would say yes, because you have, you know, a great example is a lot of the guests that are coming to Opryland are to go to Sound Waves are then returning to come back and do the holiday programming and ice around Christmas time. The regional traveler, it's more of a one-time-a-year type tradition for them because there's just not a whole lot of options for them at the holidays. So I would say the local traveler is a repeat customer. The regional traveler is more of a once-a-time, come in, bring the whole family. This is where they all gather for the holidays.
spk25: Okay. Thank you.
spk20: All right, Travis, one more question, please.
spk10: Yes, sir. Our final question comes from Sean Kelly, Bank of America.
spk26: Hi, good morning, everyone. Thanks for putting me on here. So, Colin, Patrick, just maybe first off, as we think about the development plans or the CapEx side and the billion dollars that you laid out, Colin, I mean, do we have any more precision around kind of ground breaks, particularly the Rockies? You know, just trying to think through the timing here and the cadence, because I know those have been on the radar screen for a while. Is now the right time to start to get there, given where the portfolio is at in its recovery? And is that something we're going to get more explicit color on at some point in the near-medium term?
spk04: Yes. Yes, good question. The answer is we're going through that process with our board first, which Mark and I, as I said, he and I will be starting that process on next Thursday morning with our board of directors. Patrick and his team have been working their tails off over the last six months, literally looking at, as I said, somewhere between 15 and 20 projects. And by the way, This does not include the regular scheduled room referrals. The billion basically is rough order of magnitude, are really new projects that we're looking at. But the process is, the way we want to go through this is over the next two, three months, refine that plan with our board, get confident with each of the markets that we're going to deploy capital in, build the cadence of that. And then Mark and Jen have been figuring out a time for us to do a really high quality IR investor day in Nashville. And we're thinking, we were trying to get it done before the holidays, but with everything that we've got scheduled, that's going to be impossible. But I think Jen and Mark, you're thinking now sort of late January, early February type And what we will be doing then, I think, Sean, is laying out these are the projects that we really like. These are the markets that we will be deploying capital in. And this will be the order of play. And I suspect, though, between now and that investor relation day, IR day, We may pull the trigger on one or two of these, Patrick, that are really high priority for us.
spk09: Yeah, and just to your question, we continue to be very interested in the long-term plans for expansion at Rockies. I would remind you that we're in the midst of some pretty substantial investment right now. The Grand Lodge, or what you'd call an atrium at one of our other hotels, is currently under full renovation and it's going to completely transform that area into really the hub of the hotel as well as the addition of a new group pavilion outside so from a cadence perspective i really can't get going uh on the expansion until we got some of these other projects done so we remain very interested in that but we're just trying to make sure that we go about it in an appropriate uh process yeah i think as you you you talked about the rocky show but i think you know mark
spk04: Our appetite at that hotel has only sort of strengthened over the last year or two. It hasn't waned at all. COVID hasn't sort of given us any thoughts of should we de-emphasize room expansions. We're very excited about the Rockies.
spk06: When you look at the rebooking characteristics of that coming out of COVID, it was the strongest in the brand.
spk04: Yeah, well over 75%, right? Yeah, that's very good.
spk26: Sean, any other questions? Yeah, just one more on Mark. Sorry, I didn't mean to leave your name out of there on my first list. But big – yeah, just big picture, and this is not meant to sound greedy or unthankful because I actually think the Hill Country asset is a fantastic addition. But your very high-level question to maybe wrap up would be, are there more Hill countries out there? I mean, clearly this is something you've underwritten time and again, but yet for probably many of us in the investment community, it's always still a little bit of like an aha, like it's kind of hidden in plain sight. So without naming names, because obviously that does no one a benefit, but Do you think there are more opportunities of similar scope and scale, $500 million plus big assets that could be impactful to the portfolio that look or feel like this? Because it does feel, to me at least, absolutely spot on for probably what you're looking to do for the portfolio.
spk06: Yeah, I mean, I think the general answer to the question is yes, but it is a short list. And to your point, you know, our... Our focus around acquisitions has been we want to buy things that check every box for us. We have a very specific focus strategy, as Colin outlined at the beginning of the call. Any hotels that we bring into our portfolio, we want them to be consistent with that strategy and ultimately be able to drive value not only at that property level, but also be able to drive value across the portfolio.
spk28: That's the critical thing for us. Absolutely.
spk04: Thank you very much. Thanks, Sean. Okay, Travis, thank you. And for the investors that have been on this morning, thank you for your time and effort. If you have any other questions, you know how to get a hold of us here. And upward and onward, we've – We've got an exciting company on our hands and expect to create tons of value here over the years ahead. So thank you, everyone.
spk10: This does conclude today's program. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.
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