Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Inc.

Please stand by your meeting is about to begin. Good morning everyone. Welcome to the Wyndham Hotels and Resorts fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings conference call. At this time all participants have been placed on a listen only mode and the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. If you would like to ask a question at that time please press star 1 on your telephone. If at any point your question has been answered you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star 2. Lastly, if you should require operator assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Matt Capuzzi, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. With me today are Jeff Vellotti, our CEO, and Kurt Albert, our interim CFO. Before we get started, I want to remind you that our remarks today will contain forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risk factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. These risk factors are discussed in detail in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and any subsequent reports filed with the SEC. We'll also be referring to a number of non-GAAP measures, corresponding GAAP measures and a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to GAAP metrics, are provided in our earnings release and investor presentation, which are available on our investor relations website at investor.windomhotels.com. We are providing certain measures discussing future impact on a non-GAAP basis only because without unreasonable efforts, we are unable to provide the comparable GAAP metric. In addition, last evening, we posted an investor presentation containing supplemental information on our investor relations website. we may continue to provide supplemental information on our website and on our social media channels in the future. Accordingly, we encourage investors to monitor our website and our social media channels in addition to our press releases, filing submitted with the SEC, and any public conference calls or webcasts. With that, I will turn the call over to Jeff. Jeff?

Thanks, Matt. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. We closed out a challenging year on a very strong note, delivering net room growth of 4% and full year comparable adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS growth of 4% and 6% respectively, all in line with the outlook that we shared back in October. Against this backdrop, we opened a record 72,000 rooms, the largest number of organic room additions in Wyndham's history, and 13% more than last year. We also signed 870 deals, which was 18% more than 2024's all-time high, further increasing our global development pipeline by 3% to nearly 260,000 rooms and more than 2,200 hotels. We drove a 15% increase in ancillary fee streams, and our highly cash generative business model produced $433 million in adjusted free cash flow, enabling us to return $393 million to our shareholders. Across the board, where we could control the outcome, our teams delivered in 2025. Our record number of new signings and openings are increasing Wyndham's long-term economics by securing franchise agreements that drive higher average royalty revenue. Our record development pipeline is now carrying an average fee par premium of 30% domestically and nearly 20% internationally compared to our existing system, which will enhance our future growth. Domestically, system growth was driven by strong conversion activity, including the Balfour Miami Beach. a luxurious registry collection art deco hotel on Ocean Drive, and the Barley House, an upscale trademark collection boutique hotel on the marina in the heart of Fort Lauderdale, along with so many high-quality new construction prototype additions like the new Wyndham Garden in Anna, Texas, the La Quinta by Wyndham in Jackson, Tennessee, and the new Microtel by Wyndham, Tooele in the great state of Utah. Separately, developer excitement for our Echo Suites brand continues to build with half a dozen Q4 openings in Round Rock in Pasadena, Texas, Peoria, Arizona, Springfield, Missouri, Conyers, Georgia, and Naples, Florida. We closed 2025 with 18 Echo Suites now operating and with RevPar and operating margins ramping in line with expectations. New hotels continue to break ground and development timelines are faster than ever as construction costs moderate. Following our introduction of Dazzler Select by Wyndham in the economy conversion lifestyle space back in October, we added another three highly rated Dazzler Select conversions, allowing hotel owners to preserve their property's individuality while leveraging the power of our global distribution, loyalty, technology, and marketing platforms. And after a highly competitive RFP amongst our lodging peers, we were thrilled to be selected by the Choctaw Nation in the fourth quarter to add the spectacular AAA four-diamond Choctaw Casino and Resort in Durant, Oklahoma to our Wyndham Grand brand, along with the upscale resort additions of the Choctaw Landing Hochatown, the Choctaw Pecola Resort, and the Choctaw Grant to our trademark collection brand. This affiliate relationship adds 2,000 upscale rooms, over 40 restaurants, bars, and lounges, full-service pools and spas, and over 100,000 square feet of state-of-the-art conference and event space for our global sales teams to sell, all within easy reach of DFW International, a getaway that our over 120 million Wyndham Rewards members will want to book, earn, and redeem at, reinforcing why Wyndham Rewards continues to be the number one loyalty program in the industry. The affiliated rooms from these Choctaw resorts join us at an opportune time for our Wyndham Rewards members, as we'll be saying goodbye in the first quarter to approximately 3,000 legacy affiliated rooms. the bulk of which were sourced from travel and leisure, and related to the closure of a handful of Wyndham vacation resorts that they have previously reported, along with rooms previously managed by Vacasa, which are being sold by Casa Go to its franchisees. While these terminations will not impact our ability to drive net room growth on a full year basis, they will create headwinds in the first quarter from a timing perspective. We continue to work on, Adding more aspirational upscale hotels and resorts, which expand opportunities for Wyndham Rewards members to earn and redeem, to status match and to transfer benefits. Increasing Wyndham Rewards membership enrollments, which grew 13% in Q4. Growing the share of direct Wyndham Rewards occupancy that our franchisees enjoy, which grew to a record 54% domestically this quarter. and identifying new customer markets to drive credit card sales, blue thread marketing, and other ancillary revenue opportunities. Internationally, we increased net rooms by 9%. EMEA grew rooms by 8% with spectacular new conversions like the Wyndham Corfu, an elegant beachfront retreat on the Ionian Sea in Greece, along with several new construction additions like the Ramada Arnavutkaya in Turkey a country in which we now have 130 direct franchise hotels open with over 40 more in our development pipeline. Latin America and the Caribbean increased net rooms by 5% with new conversions like the oceanfront, all-inclusive Casa Marina Sosua, a new trademark collection hotel in the Dominican Republic, along with new construction openings like the Wyndham Natal Pitongi Beach, on the sands of Pitongi Beach in Brazil's idyllic northeastern tourist destination. In Southeast Asia and the Pacific Rim, we grew net rooms by 11%, with upscale conversions like the Evolo Wallumalu, an upscale Wyndham Hotel located on the heritage-listed Finger Wharf in downtown Sydney Harbor, along with several exceptional new construction additions like the oceanfront Wyndham Gosung, South Korea. And finally, in mainland China, we again grew our direct franchising system double digits by an impressive 14%, expanding our footprint across the country with conversions like our 136th Days Inn Hotel in Changsha, and so many new construction additions like our 20th Hawthorne Suites in Xi'an, and our 31st microtel by Wyndham in Enshi Jianshi, along with dozens of other luxurious new openings like the Wyndham Leshan in Sichuan province. Fourth quarter global rev par declined 6% in constant currency, with domestic rev par down about six points, excluding hurricane impacts in 2024. And international rev par declined one point, While we continue to see strength in several important Midwest and industrial states for us, like Missouri, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma, where we're seeing increasing infrastructure demand being contracted, it was more than offset by continued softness in our three largest states, Texas, California, and Florida, which account for one quarter of our U.S. room count, and which, excluding hurricane impacts, declined 11%. Importantly, booking windows and cancellation rates both improved versus fourth quarter 2024. And on a full year basis, U.S. REVPAR declined 4%, which was in line with our expectations. In a moment, Kurt will walk you through our expectations for the full year. Excluding hurricane impacts, the decline of 6% we saw in Q4 improved to down 4% in January and has further improved thus far in February. Leisure and corporate bookings are beginning to pick up as reflected in our booking backlog. And as we approach the month of March, we'll lap the beginning of when our REVPAR significantly decelerated in 2025 and when our domestic comps become meaningfully easier. Internationally in the fourth quarter, we continue to see solid growth across our EMEA region with REVPAR up 7%. driven by considerable strength in Southern Europe and across the Middle East. Our Latin America region also delivered impressive REVPAR growth of 6%, an 11-point sequential improvement from the third quarter, reflecting strong leisure demand and pricing power from our more upscale brands across the Caribbean. Performance in Asia continues to lag the rest of our international regions. Southeast Asia and the Pacific Rim was down 2%, primarily due to weakness in Korea, and China was down 10% with continued ADR declines in their deflationary economy. We once again delivered outstanding growth in our ancillary revenues. New strategic partnerships and affiliations, new technology initiatives, and continued momentum in our co-branded credit card program fueled a 19% growth in fourth quarter ancillary fees, bringing full year growth to 15%. slightly ahead of our expectations from the beginning of the year. After its launch in October, Wyndham Rewards Insider, our travel rewards annual subscription program, saw its month-over-month paid membership double in November and then again double in December as our teams worked to fully integrate Wyndham Rewards Insider into our booking paths and digital platforms. We also recently signed an agreement with MasterCard to create our first international co-branded credit card in Canada, which is expected to launch later this year. Like all of our US offerings, we will be including both no fee and premium card options. This is an exciting growth opportunity for us, not only designed to bring more members into the Wyndham Rewards ecosystem and drive incremental ancillary revenues in Canada, but also serving as a blueprint as we plan for expansion of our credit card platform into additional new international markets. On our third quarter call, we highlighted the success of our AI initiatives with nearly 350 agentic AI agents handling millions of guest calls and reservation requests, driving hundreds of basis points of additional direct bookings and generating incremental revenue while reducing on property labor costs for our franchisees. With a track record of proven results, we're accelerating our agentic AI capabilities on the data foundation that set our transformation in motion. Through our partnership with Salesforce, we created a first-of-its-kind guest 360 data product, establishing a scalable AI factory that enables us to rapidly design and deliver advanced solutions that deepen engagement with both our guests and franchisees in ways we never imagined possible. We continue to work with public LLMs including Google AI mode and ChatGPT to establish direct connections of our hotel data to eliminate the need for these models to scrape our sites. For example, in November, Google selected Wyndham as one of a handful of partners to take part in an agentic booking experience on AI mode and search. Soon, guests will be able to discover Wyndham properties through natural conversational interactions while our connected systems enable seamless direct bookings within AI mode. And we're very excited to share that we successfully connected to Anthropics Cloud, the family of LLMs known for its emphasis on safety and human-like reasoning with over 30 million monthly active users. It's an early glimpse of how AI native distribution will reshape the way guests find and book our hotels, which helps us rapidly improve the guest experience and increase direct booking capture. Before I wrap up, as you saw in our release last night, we recorded non-cash charges in our fourth quarter results related to the recent insolvency filings of a large European franchisee, Revo Hospitality Group. While our balance sheet exposure to Revo was secured by certain collateral and guarantees, the scope of these filings has unfavorably impacted the value of our security and our expected recovery. We've engaged an experienced team of advisors to assist us during this complex process. And Kurt will walk through the impacts to our financial statements and reporting metrics in a moment. We want to extend our heartfelt appreciation to our team members around the world. Our resilience in 2025 would not have been possible without their dedication and their support. Their commitment to our economy culture and to delivering the very best value to owners and guests in the face of what was considerable global RevPAR challenges remains the key to our continued success as the world's largest hotel franchisor. On behalf of our entire team, we would also like to recognize Alexandra Young, who joined our board of directors in November. Alex is an accomplished leader who is recognized as an expert in global portfolio management and international investment, and her expertise spans multiple sectors, including hospitality and real estate. She serves on our corporate governance and audit committees, bringing valuable expertise to our board. And finally, we'd like to welcome Kurt Albert, our interim CFO, who continues to lead our global finance organization while we complete our comprehensive search for a permanent CFO, which we expect to conclude in the coming weeks. And with that, I'll now turn the call over to Kurt.