The year didn’t get off to a great start for the hotel industry, but industry analysts expect to hear more optimism about the remainder of 2024 from executives of publicly traded hotel companies during the upcoming round of earnings calls.
CoStar had previously forecast that the first quarter of 2024 would be poor because of the tough comparisons to last year as well as the Easter calendar shift that depressed group demand, said Jan Freitag, national director of hospitality market analytics at CoStar.
“We knew it wasn’t going to be good, but I think it’s a little worse than the expectation was,” he said. “The expectation for the remainder of the year is that it’s going to be significantly better.”
Michael Bellisario, senior hotel research analyst and director at Baird, said his estimates for the quarter are coming in down, and that’s mostly for the first quarter. There was underlying weakness in the quarter beyond the Easter shift. The first three months of the year are not the most important compared to the second and third quarters, but the challenge for hotel companies, particularly the real estate investment trusts, is how they’re going to adjust their outlook.
Yes, there was bad weather in Phoenix, California and Florida during important spring break weeks, but that doesn’t explain weak performance in other markets, such as Seattle or Denver, Bellisario said.
“I think investors now think the cat’s a little bit out of the bag and that you’re starting to see estimates come down,” he said. “Management teams are signaling that. I don’t know how many companies are going to cut full-year guidance. I think they maybe decrease the high end and definitely talk more about the midpoint.”
There’s a lot of confidence in group demand, but a lot of that comes in the back half of the year where 80% of it isn’t actually booked yet, Bellisario said.
“In this business, you guide to and you budget to what you know and what you see, which is the last 60 days and the next 60 days,” he said. “The pickup is not quite what it has been, and the trailing has been weaker than you thought.”
Where the Brands Are
Net unit growth continues to be the most important metric for the franchise brands, Freitag said. There’s limited new supply on the pipeline side, with the number of rooms in construction now up 1%. Conversions haven’t really picked up, either.
“It’s totally counterintuitive to what I would have thought,” he said.
Basically, the brands don’t seem to be pushing owners hard to go forward with their property-improvement plans so they don’t have to worry about deletions from their systems while new supply is still low, as they need the units in their system, Freitag said. Net unit growth is getting a boost from the brands' growth outside of the U.S.
The brand companies will likely be upbeat about their growth and talk about their brand momentum and having lots of white space internationally, Bellisario said. Hilton has its deals with Graduate Hotels and NoMad, and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts has its agreement with WaterWalk.
Overall, brands will be consistent and positive, Bellisario said.
“We have good brands, we have strong brands, we have signings and strong momentum,” he said.
Overall, everyone has moved on from Choice Hotels International’s pursuit of Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, said C. Patrick Scholes, managing director of lodging and leisure equity research at Truist Securities. However, if a year from now Wyndham’s stock hasn’t increased in value, Choice could be waiting.
“Choice might come back and say, ‘Hey, Wyndham did lay out this plan to get the stock up there and here we are, a year later, and it hasn’t,’” he said. “I think there’s still time for that, but the clock is kind of ticking on that.”
Bellisario has a similar mindset. He said there will be interest in how Wyndham’s stock performs, adding it's down at the time of the interview. He also asked about its capacity to buy back stock. Hotels in the lower end of the chain scale have had weaker performance, and it’s taking longer to reach the inflection point.
For Choice, there are questions lingering about whether it has sold its Wyndham shares and has started to buy back its own stock, Bellisario said.
“What is the go-forward strategy?” he asked. “Are there acquisitions for you to do?”
REIT Priorities
Based on hearing from brokers at roundtables, Freitag said it sounds like there’s a lot of inquiries, generally from buyers and sellers, and he expects more activity in the second half of the year. Both parties, particularly buyers, are wrapping their heads around the fact that an interest rate cut is not in the near future, but if it is, it will be diminished.
“You just have to underwrite to what it is,” he said. “Then the question is, are you missing the boat if you don’t act now?”
The REITs will be relatively upbeat on the fundamentals despite the softness in the first quarter, Bellisario said. They’ll point to group business on the books, no cracks in demand and expectations for RevPAR performance in the second quarter compared to the first quarter as well as the second half of the year compared to the first.
Expenses will remain topical because they’re still weighing on margins and there’s really no abatement, he said. The labor market is still tight, and contract labor use is still high, so margins are still challenged.
On the transaction side, Apple Hospitality REIT bought the AC Hotel by Marriott Washington D.C. Convention Center for approximately $116.8 million, Bellisario said. There’s been some investor pushback on the $499,000 per key, but there’s also a lot of leased income that comes from the rooftop, which has a billboard and retail space. He said he hopes for more commentary on how the price per key does not capture earnings that come from non-room sources of revenue.
Overall, the companies that are buying or looking to buy are the ones with better balance sheets, such as Apple REIT and Host Hotels & Resorts, he said. Those still selling hotels are the ones trying to repair their balance sheets to put themselves in a better position to grow.
“That’s a challenging exercise when the transaction market is not fully functioning and interest rates are still very high,” he said.
Apple and Host, and to a lesser degree Sunstone Hotel Investors, DiamondRock Hospitality and RLJ Lodging Trust, can buy, Bellisario said. Park Hotels & Resorts said it plans to be a net seller with a target of a couple hundred million dollars, which could mean a hotel or two. Pebblebrook Hotel Trust has hotels it wants to sell, and because it’s winding down major capital expenditure projects and has been generating more cash flow and deleveraging, it can afford to be firmer on pricing expectations.
Scholes said he wants to hear from Park about the Hawaii hospitality market. There are tougher comps in Hawaii, but there’s also good room rate growth that might also be pricing out some travelers.
He also said he wants to hear from Pebblebrook executives on their takeaways on San Francisco. The latest forecast for the market wasn’t “terribly encouraging,” he said. Sunstone’s acquisition of the 630-room Hyatt Regency San Antonio Riverwalk for $230 million from Hyatt Hotels Corp. had attractive pricing, and he’d like to have more color on that deal as well.
Something else investors will be looking for more color on is changes in executive roles at several REITs. DiamondRock announced April 15 that Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey Donnelly is the new CEO following the departure of Mark Brugger. On April 19, Ashford Hospitality Trust announced President and CEO Rob Hays will step down on June 30.