Good morning, everybody. Thanks for showing up. My name is R.J. Milligan with Raymond James Equity Research, and we're very pleased to have Hyatt here to present. What I'd like to do is try and make it as interactive as possible. After a brief overview, feel free to raise your hand, and we'll get through as many questions as you have. There's a lot of interesting dynamic things going on with Hyatt, and obviously there's a lot of things going on in the macro world. Feel free to ask any questions that you might have. With that, I'm gonna turn it over to Joan and Adam. Thank you guys for being here, and we'll have some Q&A in a little bit.
Terrific. Thanks, R.J. Thank you also to Raymond James for hosting this conference. We always have a great experience and great interest at this conference. I'm just gonna spend a couple of minutes. I know that some of you are generalists investors and, just a couple of minutes on the background of Hyatt Hotels. A little bit of disclaimer on forward-looking statements. We're a global hospitality company. We have over 1,500 hotels in 83 countries around the world. That is represented by over 370,000 rooms in our inventory today, open and operating, and 148,000 rooms in our pipeline, which are expected to open over the coming years. This is a record for us, the number of executed contracts that are sitting in our pipeline.
We have the world's largest portfolio of luxury-branded rooms and resort locations around the world, and we serve the high-end traveler in each segment, each brand segment that we operate. I wanna just go through a couple of investment considerations for you. First, I'll start with the second one here on this slide. We have a global portfolio of premium brands. I talked about us serving the high-end customer in each segment that we serve. These brand categories are across five different categories, our luxury, lifestyle, all-inclusive, classics, and essentials categories. Organizing our brands and our focus and resources towards our brands, especially this year as we double down on that focus, is intended to actually serve our customer base in each of these segments more explicitly.
What that does is that drives a differentiated approach to our customer acquisition, which drives higher rates and values to our hotels and better cash flow for our owners and ultimately, better outcomes for our shareholders as well. We have a program, our loyalty program, the World of Hyatt program, which is award-winning and has been leading the industry in growth rates for the last eight years running, over 20% on a annual basis over the last eight years. We invest in this program. We have the best member benefits. We have the best operational execution of delivering those benefits on property, and these members are high-end travelers that enjoy and spend longer with us and stay more with us at our properties around the world.
Next, our white space that we have around the world represents our less than penetration in each market that we serve, particularly in the U.S. You'll see a couple of slides here that are posted on our Investor website. We have representation in every large global market around the world. There's many markets, and particularly in the U.S., where we are either under-penetrated or don't have penetration today. When we think about our ability to grow beyond the pipeline that I just mentioned, the 148,000 rooms in our pipeline, we also have a long runway for organic growth into the future because of this under-penetration that we have in markets, particularly in the U.S., but all over the world.
Our asset-light business model, we have been undergoing a transformation over the past eight years, and we are now an 80-- excuse me, a 90% fee-based earnings mix company. As we think about the benefits of that relative to our strategy going forward, higher predictability in earnings, lower capital intensity, and with all of this runway to grow, it's an incredible opportunity for Hyatt going into the future. Just to put a finer point on that asset-light business model, we have here almost doubled the size of our free cash flow and also have a conversion rate of over 50% of our adjusted EBITDA to free cash flow. This is in line with industry competitors and a very strong result for us. We've mentioned in the last couple of years that this was a target, and we reached it at the end of 2025.
Just a minute on our capital allocation strategy as we think towards the future. What we have done is we have unlocked through our transformation, the assets on our balance sheet, and we've realized in those asset sales a 15x multiple on those assets that we've sold. We've invested in asset-light businesses at a lower than 10 x multiple, created a significant amount of shareholder value. Also returned capital to shareholders in significant amounts every single year over that period. This is what we continue to plan for, which is investing in growth, our capital allocation strategy. We want to continue to grow the company, and we plan to, with excess cash, continue to return excess cash to shareholders.
All the while, it has benefited us to maintain an investment-grade profile with a strong balance sheet, that's what we plan to continue to do. As we think about 2026, going into 2026, we're going to continue to invest in our loyalty program and build our membership base and keep those growth rates growing by building out a network where our members wanna travel and delivering those benefits to them on property. Also, our growth strategy will be focusing on the network effect, which is complementary to our existing to our existing distribution, but where our guests wanna travel. Of course, I mentioned our asset-light earnings mix, which is delivering great free cash flow for us into the future, and we expect to expand that conversion rate over time.
Very excited about what 2026 will bring and the health of our business and the health of the high-end consumer on a global basis. I just wanted to comment too, while I have you all, is that we're very excited that we are going to host an investor day later in May, on May 28th 2026. We're gonna be sending out invitations soon. We'll be able to share more about our strategy and our outlook for the future and how we intend to continue to deliver strong shareholder returns well into the future. Wanted to make that comment, and I think we're gonna then move to Q&A.
Thanks, Joan. For everybody's, where is the Investor Day gonna be?
In Chicago.
In Chicago. The date again?
In our hometown.
Excellent.
On May 28th.
Excellent. Probably the first question or first place I'd like to start is maybe just a state of the union in terms of where you see the consumer, what the recent performance has been. Obviously, you reported earnings a couple weeks ago. Maybe just give us an update on the different brands, and what the outlook is, what you've seen in January and February and March so far.
Sure. Well, maybe I'll just start with macro overall, and then maybe you could talk, Adam, about what we're seeing in January and February.
Sure.
We reported in our fourth quarter earnings that the leisure, the high-end leisure consumer is been very strong for us, and we've seen it both in our net package RevPAR into Mexico and the Caribbean, and we've seen it on a global basis around the world. When you look at the segments that we serve, and I'll speak to the Smith Travel categories for the hospitality industry, you'll see Luxury and Upper Upscale for us, very strong and differentiated. As you go down the chain scales, the rate of growth has been lower at lower chain scales. This is what's been broadly reported, the K shape. We're experiencing it too. However, 2/3 of our existing inventory is in those higher-end chain scales.
We report very strong growth rates on RevPAR, top-line RevPAR, relative to the rest of the industry, and the fourth quarter was no exception. I think that's been a record going for us for 10 years now. Leisure traveler is about 50% of our mix, and then the remainder is business travelers and group business. Group business, as we look into 2026, also remains very healthy. We've got, obviously, in the U.S., where we have significant distribution, we've got the World Cup that is going to provide a boost to group this year, but we also have healthy demand coming from corporate customers. The business traveler has been, you know, basically flattish to last year. We saw some growing momentum towards the end of the year into the first quarter.
With the short-term nature of that business, all of you are traveling on a business purpose of visit. It's good to see that this conference is at a record this year, because that means people are getting back on the road and seeing their clients, and that's what they're telling us they're gonna do this year. Overall, healthy consumer across the segments that we serve.
Yeah. You know, we mentioned on the earnings call January, solid results from a RevPAR standpoint ahead of our expectations. Preliminary February results also look very good, really kind of across the globe. We're clearly living in a little bit of a challenging environment right now with events over the last couple of weeks, so we'll see how that unfolds over the next couple of months. In terms of our core customer, our fee-based earnings, looking solid, good momentum. U.S. may end up being a little bit better than what we thought, just given the current macro dynamics.
Can you talk about some of the demand drivers that you're seeing for 2026? Obviously, supply is very low on the lodging side.
I mean, Joan mentioned group pace coming into the year was solid and has been trending very positively for the last few quarters. At least for our customer base, we continue to see sustained demand for leisure travel. That continues to be healthy. Obviously, just growing at moderate rates, but growing positively, as has been the case for the last couple of years now. Business travel continues to be a little, a little uneven, but I think as you get past first quarter, we may see better opportunities there just as we lap Liberation Day essentially. As you think about the macro setup, at least for the U.S., as Joan mentioned, we've got the World Cup this summer, you've got the America 250 celebrations.
There's a lot of CapEx investment being made as everybody knows, and in data centers and other areas to support AI investments that are taking place. Certainly the macro in the U.S. is shaping up in a way that it could bode well. Obviously, the counterbalance to that is there has been some persistent inflation. Obviously the jobs numbers we continue to monitor. On the margin net-net, I think it sets up well, but we're obviously living in a dynamic environment and continue to monitor all of those items, but from a demand standpoint, it looks solid.
Excellent. Good time to ask the audience if there's any questions, and let's try and make it as interactive as possible. Yes. I'll repeat the question.
Given the recent events in Mexico, can you provide a sense of your exposure to Mexico in terms of rooms or fees? How much of the fees are driven by [audio distortion] , incentive management fees, and any impact to bookings?
Sure. The question was about Mexico, some of the recent events there, what's Hyatt's exposure and the expected impact there.
Maybe we can tag team this one too. I would just start by saying, you know, the events in Puerto Vallarta were deeply concerning. Good news that, you know, guests and colleagues were all safe and accounted for, and appears now that there's stability there in that market. You know, it's early to tell on impact actually. Adam van share kind of the mix, the concentration that we have today. Actual impact is something that we're monitoring very closely.
What we're seeing is sort of cancellations in the very near term, and we're also seeing, because we have the largest portfolio of luxury rooms and resort locations, we actually have a lot of places for people to rebook, and that's what we are seeing a lot of, not just in other markets within the Caribbean, meaning in all-inclusive markets, but in the Bahamas and Aruba and in resorts in the U.S. That, that is the dynamic that is harder to put a pinpoint on the impact. I think, we're watching it closely, and it appears to have, at least the situation there have stabilized and there's every reason that we will continue to monitor it very closely.
Yeah. In 2025, Mexico represented high single-digit fees for us.
Annually.
Annually. I would not expect the impact to be that amount. As Joan mentioned, we are seeing other areas where rebookings are taking place, not only in the Caribbean, but also even in the United States, as you think about Florida, Southwest part of, you know, kind of the Sun Belt states in the Southwest part of the U.S. The net-net benefit to fees or impact to fees, as of right now, doesn't look too material. The distribution segment, our ALG Vacations business is probably one area where we expect a little bit of near-term headwind for the next couple of months, we're still evaluating, you know, the overall impact.
You know, as we look at these situations as they've taken place in the past before, they tend to be temporary. You see rebookings taking place into other locations and longer term, the markets recover. You know, we'll provide more as we evalua te the situation, don't feel as though the impact is going to be significant to 2025 or 2026.
Additional questions? Yes.
Can you talk a little bit more about the exiting the 15x multiples on assets and entering into 10x multiples, kind of how sustainable that is and how that keeps going for three years?
Sure. I'll just repeat them. The question is, what does the transaction market look like, your ability to get attractive EBITDA multiples on asset sales? What's the outlook for that, can that continue?
Sure. Maybe just a little bit of background. Since we started our disposition program, where we said we were gonna actively commit to selling down real estate and then reinvesting that real estate or returning excess to shareholders, we realized proceeds of $5.7 billion on a net basis at a average 15x multiple, invested in all asset-light acquisitions of $4.4 billion over the past since 2017. Those asset-light acquisitions have been made at a stabilized less than 10x multiple. Significant shareholder value. Along that same period, we returned $4.8 billion back to shareholders. That's sort of the magnitude of the transformation that we undertook.
As we look forward and reference to that portfolio, a very diverse and high-end portfolio that we have that we had sold. Luxury hotels and group hotels, international hotels. As we look at the portfolio today, we similarly have a diverse portfolio. It's only 10% of our earnings now, but we have the opportunity, and we have reported that we are in the process now. We're under PSA for a couple of assets. They are not material assets, but we continue to evaluate opportunities to sell the assets on our balance sheet, and we will only do that. The reason why we realize such great multiples is because of the quality of the asset, but also the timing.
We sold into strength in every occasion, and we sold those assets subject to a long-term management or franchise contract. It's same thing as we go forward. We will sell into strength. We've got a very diverse. If you look at our filings, you'll see there's luxury, high cachet, there's group assets. It is still diverse, so we have a lot of opportunities going forward. Again, back to the selling into strength and making sure we retain the distribution that is there and retain a long-term management contract, which is incremental value to the 15 x I described.
Additional questions? I think maybe it makes sense to maybe spend a few minutes talking about World of Hyatt. Very differentiated. Can you talk about the loyalty program, why it's so important, why it's differentiated? Then maybe that's a good transition into talking about the credit card and the renegotiation and the impact there.
Sure. We relaunched our World of Hyatt program back in 2017. Since that time, it has been growing at a compounded rate of over 20%. It's exceptionally attractive to new members that we're bringing in and existing members. Their engagement, actually, existing members in the program has been. You'll, you'll be able to quote, Adam, the stat we gave on the earnings call because the members that stay with us the longest have been growing at the highest rates.
That's right.
We're doing both. We're actually deepening our engagement with existing members and growing the program at industry-leading rates. This is partially - there's a variety of reasons for this, one of which is the fact that our member benefits are award-winning and the best in the industry. If you read the blogs, you'll see that we have designed the best benefits. We're very transparent with our rate chart, and we also deliver those benefits when you arrive on property. It's sort of a commitment we've made to the members, and they give back to us in the engagement that they have with our properties. The other factor that's very important is that as we've also delivered industry-leading growth rates, net rooms growth rates, we have intentionally grown in markets that our members want to travel to.
We've done the work, done the studying of where our members wanna travel, and in order to deepen our engagement with them, we have to be there. That growth in luxury lifestyle and resort properties that we've accomplished, those investments, that $4.4 billion that I mentioned, in addition to our organic growth rates, has enabled this distribution that has just made us extremely attractive to new members, bringing them into the system.
On the credit card deal, great outcome for us. Extended our relationship with Chase, who's our credit card provider. We will ultimately end up doubling the earnings that we get from our credit card programs from 2025 to 2027. Very, very happy about that. I think it's just a reflection of all of the great work that's been done across the company to really position Hyatt in a differentiated way, from the acquisitions that we've done to building out the high-end portfolio that we have to the work that we're doing to expand our presence through the Upper Mid-Scale segment, especially in the United States. This is just one of the catalysts that we see for Hyatt as an investment opportunity.
In fact, we get a lot of questions about, "Well, what's the next catalyst that's coming?" The answer is it's Hyatt. Like, what we've done to position our brands, to have the white space to grow over time is really the catalyst of what makes Hyatt so compelling going forward. As you think about us and the quality of our loyalty program, the ability to drive net rooms growth into the future, it really does set us up in a way that we feel is differentiated and will ultimately drive higher fees, greater cash flow over time. As Joan mentioned, with our capital allocation priorities, gives us the ability and the flexibility to both invest in growth as well as return excess capital to shareholders.
Something we're very proud of and very excited about as we think about the future.
Additional questions? Yes.
Yeah. related to AI, how have you adapted maybe consumer trip finding and also?
Sure. The question is on AI, which is obviously a very popular topic across all these presentations. You know, how are you using it to help run your business? How are you using it or thinking about it when it's comes to bookings, dealing with OTAs? I think just a general overview would be helpful.
I would say we have a long track record of investing in our data and focusing on insights to drive action and decision-making. Long time. In order to be able to do that, you have to invest in your data structures. I think a lot of companies have found that, "Now, now I have to invest in my data structures." We've been doing that for years and years because we have always been a data insights-driven company. A couple of years ago, Mark, actually our CEO, described this on our fourth quarter earnings call, is we've been at the actual AI capabilities and use cases for about two years. He led actually a steering committee within the company.
When it comes from the top, you know that it is getting the resources it needs, the attention it needs in order to be able to invest in use cases. All of the use cases, while there were dozens and dozens that we came up with, all of the ones we invested in are, were revenue-generating and will touch our customer. Your question specifically is around search. One example that I will give you is we are the one of the first hotel companies where you can actually go to your ChatGPT app right now, and you can download the Hyatt intent-based search app.
When you do that, it will allow you to type in as you prompt, as you've got, all gotten better and better at prompting, with the vacation that you wanna take, and then it'll take you to Hyatt so that we can find the right resort for you, based on your intent and purpose of visit. We are forward with these initiatives because of the investments that we've made over time, and we are operationalizing other use cases at the same time. You know, as we think about this as we've built the data, we have a strong data foundation. We've built the capabilities in-house, so while we leverage expertise and, you know, vendors who are supporting and providing the technology, we're doing it all in our ecosystem, very safe and disciplined.
We're able to actually experiment and, pivot and modify as the technology changes because we've got the capabilities in-house, and it's been ongoing for many years.
Yeah. The other thing too is, at the end of the day, what we're trying to do is deepen the relationship with our customers. As we're leveraging this technology, part of it is also just going to the places that our customers are seeking out to find us and making sure that we're present there. We still wanna have a deep connection with our customers, with our members, because we feel that's the best way for us to provide, you know, the award-winning service and loyalty program that we have. We think about this as an accelerant to behaviors that we're already doing well, and think that the opportunity ahead of us can be really powerful and also do it in a way that is really great for the customer experience.
Thanks. We have time for one more question. If no additional questions, we will have a breakout session immediately following this. Feel free to join us, and we'll get all those questions answered. All right. With that, I will thank you, Joan. Thank you, Adam. Appreciate it. Thank Hyatt for being here. Everybody have a great day.