Good morning, welcome to the Q2 2023 earnings call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal the conference specialist by pressing star and zero on your telephone keypad. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star and one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star and two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Anders. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much, and welcome everyone to this presentation of Pandox interim report for the second quarter 2023. I'm here together with Liia Nõu, our CEO, and Anneli Lindblom, our CFO. As always, we have STR with us, today represented by Thomas Emanuel, Senior Director at STR. Thomas represents a leading independent research firm focused on the hotel market, and he would share STR's view on the market. The views expressed by STR are completely separate from Pandox, and the presentation is offered only as a service to Pandox stakeholders. Please note that Thomas' presentation will be held after we have completed our earnings presentation, including the Q&A. Before we let Thomas in, Liia and Anneli will present a business update with financial highlights for the second quarter, followed by the Q&A session. Next page, please.
With that, I hand over to Liia Nõu, CEO of Pandox.
Thank you, Anders. Good morning, and welcome everyone. Demand in the hotel market improved considerably in the second quarter, reflecting stronger seasonality and an economy with strong legs. Leisure demand continued to be strong, with consumers clearly prioritizing travel at the expense of other consumption. Business demand also improved, particularly in Germany, which benefited from a more active trade fair calendar. The positive hotel market translated into a good growth and profitability for Pandox, adjusted for government grants, which we received in the comparison quarter of 2022. Cash earnings increased by 4%, which shows that our model with variable rent works well also in higher interest rate environment. During the quarter, we continued to refinance outstanding debt at a high pace.
In the first half of 2023, we have refinanced the equivalent of some SEK 14 billion in debt, only 15% of our loan portfolio now has maturity over less than a year. We remain on a solid financial ground with an LTV of 46.7%, an interest cover ratio measured on a rolling 12-month of 3.2, and we have 100% of our financing with relationship banks. Going forward, we see multiple factors supporting the hotel market, but more about that later. Next page, please. We have a well-diversified hotel property portfolio. We have 158 hotel properties, with approximately 35,600 rooms in 15 countries and in 90 cities, with a property market value of more than SEK 72 billion. Pandox is divided into two business segments: Property Management and Operator Activities.
In Property Management, we lease hotel properties to strong and well-known operators under long revenue-based agreements. This segment makes up for some 83% of our property market value. In Operator Activities, we operate the hotel ourselves in properties we own under different operating models. This segment makes up for some 17% of our property market value. Our focus in our portfolio is on upper-mid-market hotels with mostly domestic demand, which is the backbone of the hotel market, regardless of which phase in the hotel market cycle we are in. Next page, please. Pandox has one of the strongest networks of brands and partners in the hotel property industry. This ensures efficient operations and revenue management, which maximize cash flow and property value. A continuous flow of business opportunities.
You can see in this picture, we work together with several well-known operators, for example, Scandic and Strawberry in the Nordics, and Leonardo in the U.K. and Germany. We also have long relationship with strong international brands, such as Hilton, Holiday Inn, Radisson Group, among others. In our Operator Activities segment, we have also some independent brands created by Pandox. For example, Hotel Berlin, which is our largest hotel with over 700 rooms. We turn to next page, please. Hotel demand was solid in the second quarter, supported by sustained leisure demand and improved business demand. Events and trade fair demand also rose to a very good level. For comparable units, total net sales and net operating income increased by 18% and 16% respectively. Like for like, our largest business segment, Property Management, increased net operating income by some 12%.
Our loan-to-value ratio was 46.7%, and return on equity measured by annualized growth in EPRA NRV was approximately also 12%. Next page, please. Here we see a comparison of the RevPAR level for our business segment, Property Management, from 2019 until today. The numbers are on a comparable basis. As you can see, RevPAR is currently trading above the corresponding period, 2019. ADR continues to be the main driver, with a strong to very strong average price development in most markets. More on that on the following page. Next page, please. Here we have a breakdown of the performance for a selection of countries, regions, and cities versus 2019. The first chart tracks the three-months year-to-date performance to March. The second chart tracks six-month performance year-to-date to June.
We show ADR on the vertical axis and occupancy on the horizontal axis. Thus, origin is the point corresponding to 2019 on both ADR and occupancy. In the boxes, we indicate how much higher or lower RevPAR is compared with the corresponding period, 2019. The hotel market continued to improve in the 2nd quarter. Year-to-date, June, all markets traded above or well above 2019 levels on rate, whereas the majority of them, although an improvement took place in the 2nd quarter, remained below 2019 levels on occupancy. In terms of RevPAR, from the first to the second quarter, the greatest relative improvement took place in Germany. Thomas Emanuel from STR will talk more about Germany in his presentation later in this call. Broadly speaking, RevPAR in all our regional markets are trading above 2019, with U.K. and Norway regional being the strongest ones.
Among the Nordic capital cities, Oslo is clearly the strongest, followed by Stockholm. Copenhagen is slightly shy of 2019 levels, whereas Helsinki continues to suffer from the lack of Asian and Russian demand. In these two cities, Copenhagen and Helsinki, there has also been a strong inflow of new hotel rooms in the past few years. Next page, please. Last quarter, I was pleased to be able to announce the first acquisition in a very long time in central Stockholm at Fridhemsplan, more specifically. In June, we signed a new attractive lease with Scandic Hotels Group for their new Scandic Go concept in the economy segment. The agreement will come into force during the second half of 2024 and is a revenue-based lease with minimum guaranteed level.
During 2023, the hotel will continue to be operated under fixed lease with current operator and will then be closed for renovation and reopen late summer 2024 as a Scandic Go. The agreement shows that we have a unique business model, where we, together with strong partners, can create value both in the hotel business and the hotel property. Next page, please. With that, I hand over to Anneli Lindblom, our CFO.
Thank you, Liia. Good morning, everyone. We are happy to report a good set of numbers for the second quarter. To be super clear, we do have government grants in our comparison quarter. Please read the numbers carefully. This government grant refers to previous years, 2020 and 2021. We received them last year in Q2 and also some in Q3. Like-for-like growth was solid, both in revenue and net operating income, supported by stronger seasonality and broadening of the recovery in the hotel markets. Total revenue-based rent increased to SEK 353 million, compared with SEK 258 million last year. Revenue-based rent was generated in more than 80% of the agreement with minimum guaranteed rent. We fly into the third quarter on a good level as for now.
Operator activities saw a clear improvement in the second quarter, in line with stronger seasonality and higher demand for meetings and trade fair accommodation. As you know, Operator Activities is highly dependent on the international meeting market in Brussels and the business demand in Germany. The third quarter is more of a leisure period, but from September onwards, meetings and business demand is expected to resume at a good pace. This will support our larger international meeting hotels, particularly in Operator Activities. Adjusted for the government grant, cash earnings grew by approximately 4% in the second quarter, which shows that our model with variable rent is creating value also in a higher interest rate environment. Next page, please. We perform internal evaluation of our hotel properties each quarter. Approximately 97% of the properties have been externally valued during the past 12 months....
For the first six months in Property Management, unrealized changes in value were at net negative SEK 878 million. In Operator Activities, unrealized and realized changes in value was at net negative SEK 190 million. Measured from the beginning of the year, the increase in average valuation yields was 0.30 percentage points for both business segments. In the period, we also had positive realized changes in value of SEK 200 million. Firstly, we had a capital gain from the divestment of our hotel in Montreal, InterContinental, and a positive net from disposal and insurance settlements for our hotel in Bad Neuenahr. It's Dorint Parkhotel, which suffered from flooding damage in 2021. As always, remember that investment properties are recognized at fair value according to IFRS.
Unrealized changes in value for operating properties are only reported for information purpose, but they are included in our EPRA NRV. End of period, the average valuation yields for investment properties was 5.88%. For operating properties, it was 6.80%. On the following page, I will explain in more detail the underlying factors behind the value change. Next page, please. Here we show how increasing yield requirements and stronger cash flow have affected our property values. As you all know, we have enjoyed a strong hotel market recovery from the second quarter 2022 and onwards. This has gradually been reflected in the increased cash flow projections, both in internal and external valuations.
For the first half of 2023, higher average yields had a negative value impact of SEK 2.6 billion, while stronger cash flow had a positive value impact on SEK 1.8 billion. As you can see, most of this change materialized in the second quarter. This is quite normal and reflects the seasonality of the hotel market, where the second quarter normally provides more and stronger evidence for the valuations. The main reason for the higher cash flow is mainly a strong average price development in large parts of our portfolio. As I said before, measured from the beginning of the year, the increase in average valuation yield was 30 percentage points for both business segments. Next page, please. Pandox has two sources of financing.
We have equity, and we have just normal bank loans, secured by underlying properties. We have no market finance in the form of bonds and no external rating requirements. Given our business model, which focus on hotels and variable rent, this has proven to be the most efficient and predictable financing over time. On the right, we highlight our capital structure at the end of the period. Based on the closing price yesterday, Pandox is valued at a discount to EPRA NRV of approximately 43%. Next page, please. The slide with some balance sheet KPIs for the 30th of June. We have been very active on refinancing in the second quarter, taking the total amount of refinancing to SEK 14,146 million in the first half of 2023.
We now have some SEK 5.6 billion of debt maturing within one year, of which nothing in the third quarter, and then some SEK 3.2 billion in the fourth quarter this year. We have refinanced mostly with long durations. We have extended our average repayment period to 2.7 years. End of quarter, the average interest on debt was 4.3%, which is a reasonable approximation for the level at year-end, assuming unchanged market rates. We have also extended our average fixed rate period in the quarter. I will explain more on the next slide. Loan-to-value, as well as EPRA NRV, amounted to 46.7%. Our interest cover ratio, measured on a 12-month rolling basis, which is how it's tested in all our credit agreements, was 3.2x .
Cash and credit facilities amounted to SEK 3.3 billion. Next page, please. Yes, during the quarter, we extended our average fixed rate period. We bought interest rate swaps, where we paid fixed and received floating, with maturities between seven-10 years in four major currencies, all in all, corresponding to a total nominal amount of SEK 6 billion. The effect was that our average fixed rate period increased to 4.3 years, compared with 2.7 years in the first quarter. Our net debt hedged against interest rate movements for a period longer than one year increased to 76%, compared with 64% in the first quarter. The main reason for doing this was that we wanted to achieve a more even interest maturity profile...
We also saw an attractive opportunity to take advantage of the inverted yield curve in the interest rate markets. Next page, please. With that, I'll hand back to Liia for some final remarks.
Thank you, Anneli. The good development in the hotel market reflects an economy with strong legs. Household demand for experiences has been high, and people have prioritized travel at any price over other consumption. We believe that what people experienced during the pandemic may be one explanation for this, and that the escape factor is still a strong driver. Also, surplus household savings remain high in many of our markets. We see further potential for increased business travel in the autumn, particularly in Germany, where trade fair calendars are now well filled in classic trade fair cities. The same applies to international travel, which still has a way to go to reach 2019 levels. Reopening in Asia after the pandemic has been relatively slow, and arrivals from countries such as China and Japan into Europe are still at a low level.
One explanation, which also applies to international travel in general, is that flight capacity has not yet fully returned to pre-pandemic levels. One positive short-term factor is that weak exchange rates in UK, Norway, and Sweden should stimulate increased international arrivals to these markets. Next page, please. We now move over to Q&A. Operator, we are now ready for questions. Everyone, please do not forget to listen in to the presentation of Thomas afterwards.
We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star and one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time you wish to withdraw your question, please press star, then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Once again, to ask a question, you may press star and one. The first question comes from Fredrik Stensved from ABG. Please go ahead, sir. Your line is open, sir. You may proceed.
Thanks. This is Fredrik from ABG. I hope you can hear me.
Hi. Hi, Fredrik.
Hi there. A couple of questions from my end. Maybe to start with, you mentioned in the report that you had administration costs of SEK 20 million related to an hotel, which is under refurbishment. Do you think that's sort of a non-recurring cost, or why do you split that out in cash ?
Absolutely. This is the hotel actually we have in Nuremberg. We bought it in 2019, and we have had it close to two years under renovation, i.e., closed. The cost in the second quarter for that hotel, as we are ramping up the investment is ready to be launched, is SEK 20 million in the quarter. We do expect, you know, this hotel will come out in the market. It's pure cost and a closed hotel, and it will be launched in the third quarter.
Very good, thanks. I also wonder, the amount of hotels that generated turnover rent now in Q2.
Yes, Anneli, do you have it? Yeah.
I mean, we're up to 80% that are now running on revenue base then. What was the question?
On how many?
Yeah.
How many?
How many hotels of the 100?
So eighty of the hundred.
80, I would say of the 100.
Yeah, it's about. I think the majority part, which is still not running on the variable, is some part in Germany, which are on a higher level, but also in Finland, where the minimum rents have actually increased because they are indexed with inflation, which is good. They're also on a higher level, and as you know, Helsinki, with the big conference centers and the closeness to the Asian and the Russian market, has suffered some.
Right. 80, in total generating turnover rent. Do you think the ones in Germany and Finland not currently generating turnover rent, do you think that will, those hotels sort of will reach the hurdle or exceed the hurdle in H2?
The majority part, especially in Germany, will reach, and that's because, of course, in the second quarter, the fair trades and the group meetings have come back. As we said, it's coming back much more even in the second quarter. Of course, because there's like a calendar effect, you start from the 1st of January when you look at it, the first quarter is always the weakest quarter. Yes, we do see the majority of all our hotels running on a variable rent.
Very good. That's, that's all from me. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star 1. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference over to Emmanuel Thomas, to continue with his presentation. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, everybody. Thank you very much indeed for your time today. If I can ask you to proceed to the next slide, my title page, European Hotel Performance Update. As mentioned, my name is Thomas Emanuel. I'm a Senior Director at STR, based in London, and for the next 10, 12 minutes or so, I'll be giving you an overview on what is happening across the hotel industry. If we can move to the next slide, please. Of course, there is lots of talk in the media. Every time you open a newspaper or turn on the television, we are hearing about economic challenges, high interest rates, inflation, the cost of debt, the geopolitical situation, supply chain, logistics, et cetera. There are lots of risks out there.
What I want to do in this presentation is talk really about how the hotel industry is doing in the face of these risks, and how much we need to worry about these risks in our industry. Next slide, please. I will start with a look at global occupancies. This is global occupancy indexed to 2019, and what we can see is across the world, we are ever so nearly back to where we were prior to COVID. We're not quite there, but we are nearly there. If you look at the last four months or really every month of this calendar year, we're in the mid to high 90s in terms of percentage recovered at a global level.
If we move to the next slide, please, you will then be able to see something actually quite interesting is from a global occupancy perspective, we are recovering at pretty much the same pace as we were post the global financial crisis. We've indexed these two lines to the December before the financial crisis and before COVID hit. Of course, the dip for COVID, as we all know, was much more steep, but the recovery has been much more rapid as well, and we are basically now in line with where we were in comparison to the last major shock as such to the hotel industry. Next slide, please. This slide refers neatly to what was mentioned at the conclusion of the Pandox presentation in regards to airline capacity.
This is data from the OAG, and we can see just how much airline capacity did dip in 2020. The good news, and this is a real positive for the hospitality industry, of course, is that by the end of Q3, OAG are forecasting that airline capacity, airline seats, will be back to the levels they were in 2019. This is a real positive for our industry as we move forward. Next slide, please. We now drill down and look at occupancy on a regional level, and there are, of course, some variances across the regions. Here you have May year-to-date, actual occupancy and the percentage change that means from 2019. Across Latin America, things are looking a bit stronger. Across much of Asia, things still remain a little bit weaker.
Across the, the Western world as such, North America, Europe, Middle East, you can see we're not too far behind where we were in 2019. In Europe, it's a 5% change, but that equates to just three percentage points in terms of actualized occupancy. If we move to the next slide, please, and we'll shift now our attention to global average daily rates. As was mentioned previously, average rates have come back incredibly strongly, and here we're comparing it to the recovery post the global financial crisis. Once again, you can see that we are currently. The ADR recovery cycle is two years shorter than the global financial crisis recovery cycle, and overall, globally, average rates are sitting at about 20% ahead of where they were prior to COVID. Next slide, please.
If we drill down and look at things on a regional level, again, we see things a little bit weaker across Asia, and then we've got some hyperinflation in South America and Northern Africa, somewhat skewing those numbers slightly. Across North America, Europe, Middle East, you can see again, very healthy recovery indeed from a rate perspective. This is in, of course, numbers that are ahead of inflation, we see this as real ADR growth, not just nominal ADR growth. Next slide, please. What is driving performance and what will drive performance going forward? We've really split this into four buckets, which we'll dive into momentarily as well in the presentation. Firstly, you've got leisure. Leisure travel was, of course, the first to come back post-COVID, and the appetite for leisure, as has been referred to previously, remains very strong.
Corporate demand is also coming back quite nicely, and we see the opportunity for that to do so further as we move into, of course, Q3 and then the ever-important Q4 as well from the corporate travel perspective. Event fares are also returning quite nicely to the calendar, and we are starting to see the impact of that. You may be wondering why we've got a picture of a young man there with a mullet haircut, but this is rather tongue-in-cheek, admittedly, but it describes what has been termed as bleisure. The mixture of business and leisure, and the reason we've termed this mullet travel as such, is the front of the haircut is nice and neat. You're ready for the office. The back of the hair is long, a bit scruffy.
It means you're ready to party, it just showcases that mix of business and leisure travel in quite a nice way. Next slide, please. We will move now on to Europe. This is some data from our friends at Oxford Economics, looking at the recovery of the various travel types across Europe as a whole. If we look at 2023, we see domestic travel has fully recovered back up above 2019 levels. Intraregional, still a little bit behind, long-haul remains a little bit behind that as well. Of course, this isn't surprising, what is important to take from this chart as well, is the direction of travel is a positive one, we are moving back up to where we were or ahead of where we were prior to the pandemic. Next slide, please.
This showcases occupancy percentage change, along with average rate and RevPAR percentage changes, again, compared to 2019. What we can see, occupancy across Europe, unsurprising, haven't quite recovered, but average rates were fully back above 2019 levels back in February of last year, and then RevPAR recovered in May of last year. We have now seen 12 months of solid RevPAR increases, which have been driven, of course, by average rates, and over that time period, averaged out, it's indexing at 116. Next slide, please. We'll now look at things by country level. This is RevPAR May year-to-date indexed to 2019, and we can see for the most part, we've got some really positive numbers. Of course, this is driven predominantly, of course, by average rate, but we've got some very positive numbers there.
We see Turkey, but that's slightly skewed by exchange rates, Hungary, the Balkans as well, all doing relatively well, as well as major Western European countries for the most part. It has been, however, a little bit slower in Germany, and that has been touched on previously as to why, but there is more conservative domestic demand across that market. Group recovery, I will come on to that. It's getting better as the events come back, but that has been a challenge in the first five months of the year. Less luxury, leisure demand than many other countries in Europe and then, of course, limited dollarized travelers as well. If we move to the next slide, what we'll see here is that the gateway cities correlate quite nicely to how the countries are doing in the most part as well.
RevPAR-wise, we are up ahead in many cases. You can see particularly markets like Paris, Edinburgh, Rome, Budapest, doing well, and some of those markets in the Nordics that we've got on the, on the slide, Copenhagen, Helsinki, was described why those are challenged a little bit more. For the most part, in most markets, things are doing really rather well. If we move to the next slide, I'm going to touch on Germany, as was mentioned. We've got a selection of key German cities here, and we've got occupancy for May year-to-date for both 2023 and 2019. It's not surprising that, of course, we are still a little bit further behind where we were.
The exception is Mannheim, which is actually ahead. You can see there in many cases, the gap is not too sharp at all. It is still a little bit behind where we were. If we move to the next slide, please. I think this is the good news story that was echoed very nicely earlier in the presentation. This, again, is by month, looking at five major cities. We can see if we look at 2023, the pattern is a really positive one. We are moving up month upon month in quite a nice, consistent manner. We're actually now seeing certain months in Hamburg and in Cologne, for example, where 2023 occupancy is ahead of 2019 occupancy already. The direction of travel across Germany is a positive one.
If we can move to the next slide, please, and shift our attention to average daily rates. Well, it's a sea of green, as you can see, in most markets, significantly above inflation rates. Once again, we are seeing real, not just nominal, average rate growth across our gateway markets. Next slide, please. Again, we're shifting our attention here to Germany, and the pattern is a good one. Once again, we're seeing in the vast majority of markets, average rates, excuse me, above 2019 levels. There are some really positive stories here again.
Düsseldorf has a EUR 27 premium on 2019, Berlin, a EUR 21 premium, for example, as well. couple of outliers, admittedly, Munich still slightly behind. You'll see more as to why on the next slide, if we can please advance the deck. This slide talks quite neatly to what was discussed earlier in regards to events coming back in Germany. We can see here those five major cities, again, occupancies by month for 2019 and for 2023. Pretty consistently they are ahead for 2023. Where we do see some anomalies is due to the fairs. If we look at Munich, we saw before on the price side, it was still lagging, and that's because of April, where in April of 2019, the Bauma event attracted approximately 400,000 people to the city. It takes place every three years.
You then look at Hamburg, for example, it had a really strong May, and that was because of the festa Europe event attracting a vast number of visitors. Equally, in Cologne, the interzum event, 57,000 visitors to the city for that fair. There are also a wealth of concerts from Helene Fischer to Elton John, helping to drive average rate in those cities. The fair business is there, the calendar is booked up, so this is certainly gonna help a number of key German markets going forward into that ever important Q4 as well. We can just advance to the next slide, please, and just touch on some other patterns that we're seeing. This is day of week occupancy percentage change across Europe by month, and we've broken this out into three buckets. Now, in the U.S., we're actually seeing weekend occupancy year-on-year decline.
That leisure travel, that revenge travel as such, slowed down a little bit in the States. We're not seeing that yet here in Europe. We're still growing regardless of the day of the week. Things are getting better. The shoulder night, that points to that leisure demand I mentioned. Solid growth during the week as well, pointing to corporate demand as well. If we move forward to the next slide, please, you can see there it is a bit of a mixed bag. We are seeing things looking better during the week. If you go back a few months, even, we were seeing far greater declines during the week than at the weekend. That's not happening anymore. Really, where we are seeing what is driving occupancy recovery across Europe is that recovery in the corporate sector.
If we can move to the next slide, please. This touches on group demand, group versus transient. Transient's been back for 18 months or so, varies very solidly. Those group numbers don't look great in isolation, but if I was doing this presentation three, six, 12 months ago, it would be 50%, 70% behind. It's 30% behind, and it is improving as those events are coming back. Expect to see group demand continue to move in the right direction. Next slide, please. These demand drivers, of course, are helping that resilient and very strong average rate growth. You can see it's consistent across all nights of the week.
What we do need to be conscious of, really, we're saying from around July time this month, we're gonna start to see those rate % start to slow because we will have had 12 months of very solid recovery in terms of performance. Expect to see the rate growth retained, but start to slow when we look at things on a year-on-year basis. Next slide, please. Looking forward now, business on the books. This is the percentage point change from last year to this year for the next 90 days as of a couple of weeks back, and we can see with a couple of exceptions, actually, it's looking pretty strong.
If we think back to last summer, we were talking about just how positive the summer was for Europe, both from a city perspective, but also a leisure perspective, and we are expecting similar this summer as well. It's looking like it will be a very good one. If we could advance the slide, please. I'll finish this deck with our forecast. This is our European cities forecast, which is an aggregation of the list of cities that you can see at the bottom of the slide here. I'll just take each KPI in turn. This is indexed to 2019, and if we look at demand, first of all, we do expect demand to be 1% above 2019 levels this year.
We will have sold more rooms this year than in 2019, which is fantastic, and you can see that demand line is continuing to move forward. As well as demand growing, supply is also growing, so that has an impact on our occupancy numbers. Although we're seeing things getting better, we're not forecasting full occupancy recovery until around 2026 or 2027 at the moment. Average rates, that royal blue line, we know what's happened, but look, from 2023, it's fairly static, it's fairly stable.
The rate growth that we've achieved is here to stay, but don't expect to see year-on-year in increases being significant by any stretch as we move forward. If we put that all together, RevPAR, as you can see this year, we are forecasting RevPAR to be seventeen percentage points ahead of 17% ahead of 2019 levels, which is a fantastic place for the industry to be, and as you can see, it will continue to move forward in quite a nice, steady fashion as we go forward. Next slide, please. My conclusions. Hotel demand globally, very close to being fully recovered. Room rates recovered in real terms.
Growth this year-on-year, is not gonna be as strong. Corporate demand is coming back. We should see that continue as we move forward throughout the year. Leisure, losing a little bit of last year's luster, perhaps, but that's really just a year-on-year comparison, but ultimately still very solid. The outlook, we believe, for our industry remains resilient as we do face the future with some, obviously, economic challenges. The hotel industry remains in a good position. Next slide. With that, I will say thank you very much indeed.
Thank you, Thomas, for this hotel market update. Thanks, all folks, thank you for participating in this call. We really appreciate your time and interest in Pandox. Our interim report for Q3 2023 is published on October 26th. Thank you all for your interest in Pandox. We wish you all a nice and relaxing summer, goodbye.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect. Goodbye.