Anthony Capuano
Analyst · Bank of America
Thanks, Jackie, and good morning, everyone. We reported excellent first quarter performance this morning with RevPAR and financial results above the top end of our guidance ranges. Development activity remained robust with record first quarter global signings and net rooms growth of 4.5% over the trailing 12 months through March. First quarter global RevPAR rose 4.2%. RevPAR in the U.S. and Canada region rose 4%. Luxury and resort hotels continued to lead in the region, though strength was broad-based across segments and chain scales. While luxury RevPAR rose nearly 7%, select service RevPAR increased 3.5%, a meaningful improvement from the fourth quarter when select service was down more than 1% year-over-year. While the conflict in the Middle East weighed on results in March, first quarter international RevPAR increased 4.6%. First quarter RevPAR in APAC rose over 7%, driven by strong ADR growth and an increase in demand from Chinese guests. Beginning in March, Middle East travel corridor disruption started to impact select APAC markets, including India and the Maldives. In Greater China, our hotels continued to gain market share and stronger leisure demand drove first quarter RevPAR up nearly 6%. RevPAR growth was led by Hong Kong and Hainan Island, which were both up around 20% year-over-year on the back of very strong ADR growth. RevPAR in CALA rose 2%, led by record leisure results in the Caribbean, partially offset by a decline in RevPAR at Mexican luxury resorts. First quarter RevPAR in EMEA increased over 3% with increases in Europe and Africa, partially offset by a decline in the Middle East. In March, RevPAR in the Middle East declined over 30%, while RevPAR in Europe rose 4% as the impact of the conflict in the Middle East on European markets was relatively minimal and largely contained to countries near the Middle East, such as Cyprus and Azerbaijan. Since day 1 of the conflict, our top priority has been the safety of our associates and our guests. While we expect continued volatility and ongoing impact from the conflict, particularly at our Middle East hotels, looking ahead, as Jen will discuss further, we are raising our full year global RevPAR guidance and now expect growth of 2% to 3%. Now let's turn to results by customer segment. In the first quarter, leisure RevPAR rose 6% globally and 5% in the U.S. and Canada. Group RevPAR rose 5%, both globally and in the U.S. and Canada. And first quarter business transient RevPAR rose 1% globally and 2% in the U.S. and Canada, with mid-single-digit declines in government room nights and slight declines in other BT room nights, partially offset by higher ADR. We remain focused on steadily expanding our industry-leading portfolio and presence to reach new markets and new travelers worldwide. Global signings are off to an excellent start this year with first quarter deal signings up 9% year-over-year. Key recent multiunit deals signed include another agreement with Sun Group to add 10 hotels across 8 brands in Vietnam over the next few years. We also signed deals to bring our regionally rooted collection brand, Series by Marriott, to Europe, signing 6 projects in Italy and 5 in the United Kingdom. Additionally, we announced that Lefay, our first brand dedicated exclusively to luxury wellness is expected to enter our portfolio later this year. Our global pipeline rose over 5% year-over-year to a new record of nearly 618,000 rooms at the end of the quarter, with 43% of pipeline rooms under construction, including rooms that are pending conversion. Marriott has more rooms in its pipeline and more pipeline rooms under construction than any other global lodging company. Conversions, including multiunit deals, remain a significant driver of growth, representing over 35% of signings and over 40% of openings in the quarter. With our growing pipeline and strong momentum in conversions, we still expect net rooms growth between 4.5% and 5%, including our typical assumption of between 1% and 1.5% room deletions. Our powerful industry-leading Marriott Bonvoy loyalty program had nearly 283 million members at the end of March. As we focus on enhancing engagement with our members, we've continued to roll out new co-branded credit cards around the world. Today, we have 37 cards in 13 countries after recently launching cards in Indonesia and Brazil. Our scale, combined with strong engagement helps drive more direct bookings, more repeat stays and value for owners across our worldwide system. And our multiyear technology transformation is well underway. Just yesterday, we transitioned our 1,000th hotel over to our new tech ecosystem. Our new technology platforms automate multiple processes that used to be done manually and are expected to enhance owner returns while positioning our hotel associates to focus more time on quality of service to deliver on customer expectations. We're also excited about increasingly leveraging AI across the company to assist our associates, serve our guests and drive results for our owners. Some examples are rolling out AI-powered desktop assistance at our customer engagement centers and using AI for guest pre-arrival communications. As AI platforms continue to enrich the trip planning experience, we believe our unparalleled depth of inventory and global reach are significant competitive advantages. While it is early days for travel searching and planning in AI, we believe AI presents an exciting opportunity to connect directly and in a more personalized manner with our customers, and we're optimistic about the potential for AI to help strengthen our lower-cost direct booking channels. We continue to optimize our content for Gen AI services and are working with multiple players across the space. We're also very excited about beginning a phased rollout of robust natural language search experience on marriott.com, and our app planned by the end of the second quarter. This experience will leverage real-time inventory to respond to guest inquiries and help them explore our portfolio more easily from answering hotel-level questions to supporting multi-destination searches. Before I end my prepared remarks, I want to express my sincere admiration and gratitude to all of our associates around the world for their hard work and dedication with a special thanks and recognition for those who have been impacted by the conflict in the Middle East. And now I will turn the call over to Jen for more details on our financial results. Jen?