Host Hotels & Resorts welcomes you to Investor Day 2023. To kick off our business session, here's Jaime Marcus, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for being here with us today. We are so excited to have you here, both in person and on the live stream, and we're looking forward to showcasing the dramatic transformation of Host Hotels & Resorts. This is the first Investor Day that we have hosted since this management team began transitioning in 2017, and we are thrilled to give you an in-depth look at what makes Host so uniquely positioned to outperform. Jim will kick things off in a few moments, but just a few housekeeping notes to start. We will have a dedicated Q&A session at the end of our programming, and you are welcome to submit a question at any point during the business session. For those of you in the room, please submit your questions by texting 833-200-3538.
Don't worry, you don't have to write it down. It is on the tent cards on your table. For those of you joining us on the live stream, you may submit a question by clicking on the gold Ask at the bottom left of your screen. Please note that many of the comments made today are considered to be forward-looking statements under federal securities laws. As described in our filings, these statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause future results to differ from those expressed, and we are not obligated to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements. In addition, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial information, such as adjusted EBITDAre and EBITDA margin. You can find more information on these measures and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP information in the Reconciliations and Supplemental Financial Information section of this presentation. Good.
Host President and Chief Executive Officer to the stage to kick things off. Come on up, Jim.
Thank you, everyone. Thanks for coming. We appreciate the effort. I think it's a good thing that travel is a little complicated these days. Wouldn't you all agree? The airports are crowded. People are back on planes. Hotels are crowded. It really is a terrific feeling to be here in person, face-to-face, enjoying the experience of our iconic properties with you. You know, last night we were at the Four Seasons. Let's see what we got here,
Jaime. Hang on.
Speaking of experiences, I hope you had a great time at the Four Seasons last night. As you saw, the resort is in a class by itself.
Between the five-acre water park, 67,000 sq ft of indoor and outdoor meeting space, the Michelin Star Capa Restaurant, and the nightly fireworks from multiple Disney parks, which we saw last night, it's easy to understand why consumers and groups will pay $1,000 a night to stay at the resort. After the reception last night, hopefully you have a better understanding of what we've been talking about as it relates to elevated group spend. We are really proud of that acquisition. Not only its performance, but our execution in acquiring it. We purchased the resort for $610 million in cash in April 2021. The owners were reluctant sellers as they believed the asset was worth meaningfully more than we offered.
It was the last asset in the fund, and as a result of the uncertainty created by COVID, Host was able to acquire an incredible asset at what we think was a great price. That was the 2nd acquisition in the full service lodging REIT space during the pandemic, a time when no one else was transacting. It just so happened we also bought the 1st hotel that traded during the depths of the pandemic, the Hyatt Regency Austin, which you will hear more about later today. Many were skeptical about the acquisition metrics for the Four Seasons Resort Orlando. In fact, the sentiment was somewhat similar to February 2019 when we acquired the 1 Hotel South Beach. Fortunately, the performance of the Four Seasons Resort Orlando has also been similar to that of the 1 Hotel. At acquisition, the property had not reached stabilization.
We paid 16.8x 2019 EBITDA for the Four Seasons. As of year-end 2022, the multiple was down to 8.4x. As you heard on the tour yesterday, the Four Seasons is an exceptional performer for us. It averages over $600 in ancillary spend per occupied room. It has developed a reputation for exceptional luxury weddings and larger events. Very importantly, the CEO of Disney prefers to stay at the resort when he is in town. Think about that one for a minute. We also recently announced our plans to develop and sell 40 fee simple condominiums on a 5-acre development parcel at Golden Oak, adjacent to our Four Seasons resort. The development will feature a 31-unit mid-rise building and 90 tax condominium villas.
We expect to invest between $150 million and $170 million on this ROI development project, and we are targeting a mid to high teens cash on cash return. Construction is expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2023. We are also very pleased with how the Marriott Transformational Capital Program and other ROI initiatives at Orlando World Center are performing for us. This asset has been an absolute workhorse for Host, and it was our number one EBITDA producer last year at $90 million. You're among the first to see the extensive renovations property-wide, including some incredible public spaces such as a new Magnolia ballroom and a fantastic water park, both of which are on our tour later today. It's worth pointing out that the Four Seasons and World Center were meaningful contributors to our all-owned hotel EBITDA last year.
Both properties are excellent examples of Host's investment strategy realized, which is exactly what we want to illustrate for you today. Let's briefly touch on what we have planned for you. Typically, you hear from just a few of us, Sourav, Jaime, myself. Well, I think that's good, but maybe sometimes I think we talk too much. On today's docket, you'll get to hear from all of our leaders and their collective teams. That's really important to us because we have some incredible people at Host, and we think it should be important to you that you have the opportunity to understand what goes into our decision-making process and how we get from A to B, and how we create value. Our people, platform, and portfolio are our competitive advantage. As you'll see today, everything at Host is interrelated.
We'll show you why that matters through a series of panels and presentations. First up, Sourav Ghosh, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will discuss our recent operational results, our 2023 outlook, and the building blocks for future EBITDA growth. That's a slide and a commentary you're going to be really interested in. Michael Rock, Senior Vice President and Head of Asset Management, will moderate a panel on Host's unique approach to asset management. Mike Lentz, Executive Vice President, Development, Design, and Construction, will dive deeper into capital expenditures. Michael Chang, Vice President of Energy and Sustainability, will touch on our holistic corporate responsibility program, which drives all aspects of our business. Nathan Tyrrell, Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer, and Raj Contractor, Senior Vice President and Head of Investments, will cover the transactions landscape and our approach to capital allocation.
After that, we'll take a quick break and welcome Deanne Brand, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Analytics and our Treasurer to the stage to lead a panel on the real value of our in-house analytics capabilities. We'll conclude the business session with a Q&A session with our Senior Team, followed by lunch at Siro in the lobby of the hotel. Then we'll show off all the renovations at Orlando World Center before closing with a farewell reception. This morning, we're going to focus on our blue- chip positioning. We'll paint a picture for you of who we are, where we've been, and how we got here today, which is a very, very good place to be. We will also touch on what we see for the future and why we believe Host Hotels & Resorts is the best relative investment in the lodging REIT space today.
Throughout today's sessions, we'll recap our winning track record over the past six years since the company began transitioning, and we'll look at our continued offensive and opportunistic positioning today. Combining the two, you'll see that consistency is Host currency. That is the punchline we want you to leave here with. We are not unveiling a new plan and there is no new direction for the company. What we have been doing has been working, so we are simply going to keep doing what we have been doing over the past six years. This consistency is why we believe we are best positioned to continue elevating the EBITDA growth profile of our portfolio and outperforming in the future. We believe this consistency puts Host on a path to $2 billion in Adjusted EBITDAre over time, which Sourav will get into shortly.
Our success is made possible by our best-in-class people, platform, and portfolio. Together, they're our competitive advantage, and today we're going to give you an inside look at them. Shining a brighter light on the Host team is always a privilege. Our leaders and their teams are industry veterans. They have years, often decades of experience in their respective fields before they come to Host. They'll cover their backgrounds in more detail throughout today's sessions. But the thing I want to broadly highlight is that each one of our team members operates with the highest level of integrity. That integrity is what it takes to get into Host, and it's what it takes to make it at Host. It's what is required to continually make the right business decisions, and it's what allows Host to have a sterling reputation in the industry. Which leads me to our platform.
Our platform is defined by five things that we believe no other owner can replicate, and that's because everything is interrelated at Host, including the tenants of our platform. It would be very difficult to have just one of these tenants, and as you'll see here and throughout the day, one good thing consistently leads to another. First, our reputation. This includes our track record with investors, with banks, with managers, but is especially important with buyers and sellers. Buyers and sellers know that Host can close a deal with speed and surety. The Four Seasons Jackson Hole acquisition process took less than 30 days to close. We don't let complicated deal structures or tight timelines get in the way of closing deals.
As Nate Tyrrell and Raj Contractor will talk about later, sometimes we win deals because our team has the resources to comfortably close when others stumble over complexity or require financing. We are great stewards of these iconic properties. Sellers will forego a marketed process or award us the deal despite Host not being the highest bidder, because they know we will close and that the asset will be well-maintained. This was the case with the Alila Ventana Big Sur. Hyatt wanted it in Host hands because of our reputation and relationship with them. By the way, we acquired Alila Ventana at 99.3 times 2021 forecast EBITDA. It's Host's reputation that opens opportunities for us that simply don't exist for other owners. Second, our size and scale.
Many have historically viewed this as a negative that makes it hard for us to move the needle. We view it as a positive that enhances our ability to move the needle. We are the largest owner of Marriott and Hyatt properties, and we own some of their crown jewels. Many people on our team have come from the brands, so when we call, they pick up and listen. We have very symbiotic relationships with our Managers, which means we can get their support and affect real, meaningful change. As an example, our relationships are what allowed us to work alongside our managers to redefine the operating model, and our size and scale ensure the value of these changes is meaningful. Third, Host is the only lodging REIT with an in-house independent Enterprise Analytics Team. You'll hear from them today too.
These are the folks who benchmark performance by asset type or geography to keep assets running optimally using our own data. I can't emphasize that enough. It's our data. It's a database that we built over 20-plus years that allows us to benchmark properties across the United States. They're the ones who develop and maintain our IBM Watson model, looking at market performance forecast. They're the ones who act as Switzerland, sitting independently from the investments and CapEx teams to provide objective, data-driven analysis that underpins our underwriting and ensures we're always taking a measured approach. Throughout the ownership cycle, we use data to our advantage with every acquisition, disposition, renovation, and construction project. It's how we talk ourselves out of bad decisions and into smart ones. It's how we test our hunches and assuage our concerns before we make big, calculated bets. Fourth, our access to capital.
We have all the tools available to us in our capital allocation toolbox. Importantly, at best-in-class pricing. Even during the depths of the pandemic, between the Delta and Omicron variants, we were able to issue a $450 million green bond deal to refinance our Series D bonds at 2.9%, the lowest interest rate in Host history. More recently, in a rising interest rate environment, we recast our $2.5 billion credit facility with no increase in pricing and pricing incentives tied to environmental targets. Finally, our balance sheet. Our balance sheet is the fortress foundation of everything we do here at Host. We maintain low leverage and a well-staggered maturity schedule. Candidly, that's not new since this management team began transitioning.
What is new is now we actually use the balance sheet. Importantly, we use it to create lasting value for our shareholders. That means more than smart acquisitions. Renovations and new construction are essential to how we build value. Other owners just aren't able to invest and reinvest at the scale Host does. All the while, we maintain a straightforward, low-levered balance sheet that allows us to remain offensive and opportunistic in any environment. While other owners were largely sidelined during the pandemic, we continued investing and reinvesting due to the strength of our balance sheet, and that has left us well-positioned to take advantage of the next lodging cycle. Because of our people, platform, and portfolio, Host Hotels is in very good shape. We are a recognized leader in the lodging industry. Now, let's look at the points that prove it.
As I said, everything at Host is interrelated, and one good decision consistently leads us to another. We are fueling an upward spiral, driving exceptional best-in-class performance consistently year after year. Shifting to where we stand today, let's take a step back and look at Host more broadly. As many of you know, we were the first lodging REIT, but a fun fact many of you may not be aware of is that Host actually spun Marriott International out, not vice versa. We are the biggest lodging REIT with very low leverage. We ended the first quarter with an enterprise value of $15.7 billion at 2.2 times leverage with $2.3 billion of liquidity, counting FF&E reserves and availability under our credit facility. We are the only lodging REIT in the S&P 500 and have been since 2007.
We are the only investment-grade lodging REIT and have been since 2013. We are committed to our investment-grade rating as it has served us well through multiple market cycles. From a portfolio perspective, today we have 77 hotels, 41,900 rooms, and 165 employees. In 2017, those stats stood at 94 hotels, 52,600 rooms, and 208 employees. We are well-diversified. No single market makes up more than 10% of our 2022 total revenue. Our business mix was roughly a third business transient, a third leisure, and a third group based on 2022 room revenue. 87% of our hotels are brand managed based on room count. Over 80% of our revenue comes from Marriott and Hyatt branded hotels.
Despite only having 2 Four Seasons in a portfolio of 77 hotels, these 2 hotels contributed 5% of our 2022 total revenue. Approximately 99% of our hotels are upper upscale and luxury. As the company and portfolio stand today, Host Hotels & Resorts is in terrific shape. We're proud of our accomplishments over the past 6 years when this management team began the transition to the company we are today. Back then, Host Hotels & Resorts portfolio looked very different. Today, we have far fewer hotels producing the same level of EBITDA, which demonstrates the dramatic improvement in the portfolio quality. You know, it's kind of funny. We were hopeful these improvements would be enough for multiple expansion relative to the other lodging REITs. As they say, "Hope is not a strategy." That's the real reason why we've invited you all down here today.
With these improvements, we fundamentally believe that Host should be trading at a significant multiple premium to the other lodging REITs. By the time you leave here today, I think you agree that Host is in a comp set of its own. Looking back at late 2019, we knew the prior cycle was coming to a close. We didn't know it was going to be a pandemic, but we purposely positioned ourselves with asset sales and a balance sheet at 1.6 times net leverage. Then the pandemic came. Because we had the balance sheet, we were able to acquire opportunistically and continue with transformational renovation plans and ROI projects, both are key drivers elevating our EBITDA growth profile today.
We were able to execute on these projects during the pandemic at a time of low or no demand, and we collected over $74 million in operating profit guarantees from Marriott through the Marriott Transformational Capital Program. When our New York Marriott Marquis was closed in 2020, we moved construction workers into the hotel to keep construction going safely and efficiently. There's a similar story on Maui when Hawaii was shut down. We were able to speed up the transformational renovation of the Hyatt Regency Kāʻanapali and construction of the Andaz Maui Villas. For the last six years and counting, we made some very big, calculated bets, leveraging our size, scale, and platform to deliver a winning track record. Let's highlight some key metrics that distinguish Host Hotels today. First, our long-term capital allocation multiples.
We've been net sellers since 2018, selling $5 billion of assets at 17x EBITDA, including foregone CapEx, and accretively recycling that into $3.5 billion of high-quality assets at 14x EBITDA. You know, one of the biggest bets we made pre-pandemic was on the 1 Hotel in South Beach. The acquisition metrics on that deal were met with some apprehension when it was announced. A 13 handle on the EBITDA multiple and $1.4 million per key, but that one certainly has paid off. As of year-end 2022, the EBITDA multiple was below 8x, and the property generated over $80 million of EBITDA. More recently, we've been net acquirers.
We believe this is the right way to create value at the beginning of a cycle. Over the last three years, we've sold $1.5 billion of assets at 17.5x EBITDA, including foregone CapEx, and accretively recycled it into $1.9 billion of assets at just 13.1x EBITDA. I mentioned earlier our big bet on the Four Seasons Orlando. That resort, combined with our other seven recent acquisitions, are driving meaningful EBITDA growth well ahead of underwriting. You'll hear more about how these deals came to be and how we got comfortable with these big bets during the investments and enterprise analytics sessions later this morning. We were able to achieve this winning track record due to our platform and team. With our size, scale, and reputation, Host is often the first call as an all-cash buyer.
We had the balance sheet, access to capital, and analytical wherewithal to make smart capital allocation decisions, which have ultimately created significant value for our shareholders. In aggregate, our 8 recent acquisitions represent 5 off-market deals, including 2 deals ahead of foreclosure auction, 5 new markets for Host: Austin, the Florida Keys, Big Sur, Savannah, and Jackson Hole, 3 ultra-luxury resorts, 8 fee simple assets with no meaningful CapEx required in the near term, some iconic and irreplaceable real estate, and most importantly, expected EBITDA growth well above our portfolio average. Contrast that with our 11 recent dispositions.
Those assets represent 3 ground lease assets, a handful of inflexible operating models, some tired brands, several commodity assets in less desirable markets or submarkets, a successful exit from a repositioned legacy asset, more than $470 million of estimated foregone CapEx over the next 5 years, and most importantly, expected EBITDA growth well below our portfolio average. We were able to accretively recycle capital, selling EBITDA at nearly 4.5 times more than where we bought, including foregone CapEx. The 8 assets we purchased over the past 2 years have continued to contribute to our outperformance and are meaningfully ahead of our underwriting expectations.
Based on full year 2023 forecast, EBITDA from the 8 hotels we acquired in 2021 and 2022 is expected to be comfortably within our targeted range of 10-12 times and well ahead of our underwritten stabilization period. You know, the superlatives are nice, but as they say, show me the money. If you look at our key dashboard metrics over the past 6 years, our ability to deliver speaks for itself. Even during a time frame where we had a once-in-a-century global pandemic and lost 95% of our revenue overnight, Host still created meaningful shareholder value. We improved the quality of our portfolio to 77 iconic hotels while increasing RevPAR by 9%, total RevPAR by 15%, and EBITDA per key by 31%.
We also worked with our operators to redefine the hotel operating model, which we believe will lead to meaningful long-term margin expansion. We did all this while increasing net leverage only 0.2 of a turn. This is a very clear picture of our investment strategy at work. Looking at our capital allocation efforts from a slightly different vantage point, since 2017, we have increased the RevPAR of our top 40 hotels by 16%, total RevPAR by 24%, and EBITDA per key by 50%. In 2017, we had 5 hotels with an EBITDA greater than $50 million, and at the end of 2022, that number stood at 9 hotels. I think this stat is particularly impressive.
At the end of 2022, the EBITDA per key of our entire portfolio was greater than the EBITDA per key of our top 40 hotels in 2017. It's hard to argue with stats like that. Our efforts to elevate the EBITDA growth profile of our assets and improve the quality of our cash flows speak for themselves. Our results compared to the other full-service lodging REITs also speak for themselves. Since 2017, we have improved the RevPAR of our portfolio by 9% compared to the other full-service lodging REITs average at 1%. We improved its RevPAR by 15%. Theirs improved 9%. We improved our EBITDA per key by 31%. Theirs improved only 3%.
As we think about our current positioning relative to the other full-service lodging REITs, between 2020 and 2022, we have invested $34,000 per key in our assets compared to their $17,000 per key. As of the first quarter, our leverage is 2.2 times compared to their 5 times, and our weighted average maturity is 5 years compared to their 3.4 years. Based on our track record and current positioning, we believe we are very well positioned relative to the other full-service lodging REITs. Speaking of results, there is no better measure than total shareholder return. As of May 5th, our total shareholder returns were number one amongst the other full-service lodging REITs on 1, 3, 5, 7, and 10-year basis. I think that consistent number one speaks for itself.
Despite a number one ranking, many would say Host has been generating the same amount of EBITDA for years, that is true with a few important call-outs. We expect to generate nearly $1.6 billion of EBITDA with 77 hotels versus $1.5 billion with the 94 hotels we owned in 2017. That is a dramatic improvement in the quality of our cash flow, we continue to believe that a dollar of EBITDA from the Four Seasons is not the same as a dollar of EBITDA from the Sheraton. Since 2013, we have also returned $6.3 billion of capital to shareholders, of which $3.3 billion has been returned since 2017. Our annual dividend yield since 2013 is an average 3.4%.
Now that you have a better understanding of our track record and positioning today, let's shift our focus to look at the bigger picture and where we stand amid the uncertainty of the current macroeconomic environment. You know, the word uncertainty today covers a lot of ground: economic, politics, even world peace. The financial sector is turbulent. Capital markets are just starting to open up again. For most, that means debt is relatively unavailable or too expensive. Lending standards are tightening, and the buyer pool for sales that are in process has shrunk. For Host, on the other hand, it's full steam ahead. While we are not seeing distressed assets come to market yet, we are seeing troubling signs for some sellers, and we are willing to be patient. It isn't just about our balance sheet and liquidity profile.
We believe Host is well-positioned because travel demand outlooks are showing continued strength, consumers appear to be more resilient than anyone anticipated. Balance sheets remain strong, excess savings is elevated. 80% of household mortgage debt was locked in at fixed rates during the pandemic and is insulated from the recent rate increases. Consumers also continue to favor services over goods. The labor market remains strong, the unemployment rate is at a historical low. We also have a few tailwinds in the lodging industry in the form of international demand and occupancy that is continuing to ramp with more room to grow. All of these factors support our optimistic view on the health of the consumer and lodging fundamentals. However, the uncertainty is likely to continue over the near term.
One very important difference when comparing today's uncertain macroeconomic environment to those in the past is the supply picture. The total pipeline is down 8% since the start of the pandemic, while rooms under construction are down over 25% and have been trending down every quarter since mid-2020. The forecast for supply growth in 2023 and 2024 have an average growth rate around 1%, well below the long-term historical average of 1.8%, and well below average growth rates of 2.5%, which is where we stood heading into the last three recessions in 1991, 2001, and 2009.
Host portfolio market-weighted estimated supply growth through 2024 is approximately 1%, which is in line with the total U.S. average, driven by very low growth rates in places like San Diego, Hawaii, and Seattle. Looking at property type, direct competition for the Host portfolio is even lower. Big box and luxury supply growth is forecast to be close to zero. The majority of the current pipeline is already under construction, there are very few new projects being planned, given the tight credit conditions for construction financing. The supply picture, coupled with our continued belief that consumers will prioritize experiences, particularly at our 16 iconic resorts, gives us confidence that Host is well-positioned to outperform in the current macroeconomic environment.
To continue with our views of how Host is positioned today, I would like to welcome Sourav Ghosh, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, to the stage.
Thank you, Jim. Good morning, everyone. I'm excited to be here in Orlando. I'm looking forward to discussing our operational performance, our 2023 outlook. What you're all waiting for, the building blocks for potential future EBITDA growth. As you heard from Jim, we believe Host Hotels is the blue chip in our space. Our operational performance backs that up. Speaking of operational performance, since the second quarter of 2022, we have delivered both RevPAR and total RevPAR above 2019 levels. Most recently reporting first quarter RevPAR growth of 7.4% and total RevPAR growth of 10.3% versus 2019. Our strong results were driven by both occupancy increases and continued rate strength, particularly in the group business segment at our downtown hotels. Starting with leisure, although leisure rates are moderating, they remain well above 2019 levels.
We have had double-digit rate growth compared to 2019 at our 16 resorts for the seventh consecutive quarter. For context, transient rates at our resorts were 54% above 2019 in the first quarter after being up nearly the same amount at the end of 2022. 6 resorts had average transient rates above $1,000. Yes, above $1,000, and you were at one of those resorts yesterday, and hopefully you could see why. While we believe leisure rates will continue to moderate, we are confident that rates will settle well above 2019 levels on a go-forward basis. Moving on to business transient revenue. Business transient revenue is improving at a slow and steady pace, with demand driven by small and medium-sized businesses.
Our operators achieved high single-digit increases on special corporate rates in 2023, and overall business transient rates in the first quarter were up 10% to 2019. While business transient demand is continuing to evolve, revenue in this segment improved 400 basis points compared to 2019 on a quarterly sequential basis. On the group front, this marks the third quarter that group revenue has surpassed 2019 levels. Group revenues were up 4% above the first quarter of 2019, driven by 14% rate growth. The short-term booking trend continued, with a pickup of 102,000 group room nights or 28% more rooms booked in the quarter for the quarter compared to 2019.
In the first quarter, we booked over 500,000 group rooms for 2023. Total group revenue pace was 2.5% ahead of same time 2019. We've picked up 237,000 group room nights for the second half of 2023, which is 35% more than we picked up in the first quarter of 2019 for the second half of 2019. For 2023, we now have 3.4 million definite group room nights on the books, which represent 94% of comparable full-year 2022 actual group room nights, which is up from 80% at the end of 2022. For full year 2023, group rate on the books is up over 6% to the same time last year, a 90 basis point increase since the fourth quarter.
Overall, April was a solid group booking month, and full-year 2023 total group revenue pace further improved relative to 2019 to up 3.2% as of April from up 2.5% as of March. Yes, take note of that. That's the new data that's out there. We continue to be very encouraged by large group base we have on the books, particularly given the short-term booking trends. Our strong performance in the first quarter, coupled with our improved outlook for the year, gave us the confidence to substantially raise our full-year RevPAR growth guidance range to 7.5%-10.5%, nearly doubling the midpoint of our full-year expected RevPAR growth to 9% from 5% last quarter.
This marks the fourth consecutive quarter since the onset of the pandemic that we have achieved RevPAR, Adjusted EBITDAre, and EBITDA margins ahead of 2019 at the midpoint. Our full year 2023 RevPAR guidance is 7% above 2019. Our outperformance can be attributed to the capital allocation decisions made over the last six years and our unwavering focus on margin improvement. We believe our execution on both fronts will continue to create value for shareholders for years to come. At the 9% midpoint, we raised our Adjusted EBITDA guidance by $125 million, and our full year 2023 EBITDA is forecasted to be 3% above 2019. Our full year guidance assumes year-over-year comparable hotel RevPAR percentage changes in the second half of the year to be up low single digits at the midpoint. Shifting gears to our margin.
On margin performance, our comparable hotel EBITDA margin has meaningfully improved compared to 2019 despite lagging occupancy and four years of inflationary pressure. We expect margins in 2023 relative to 2019 to be up 25 basis points at the low end of our guidance to up 95 basis points, which reflects our efforts to transform the portfolio and evolve the hotel operating model. We believe this is particularly impressive when you consider that our forecasted total hotel expense CAGR from 2019 to 2023 is only 1.8% versus the forecasted core CPI CAGR of 4% over the same period. When thinking about margin expansion in the future from current business levels, we would expect approximately 30-40 basis points of margin expansion for each point of occupancy growth. Which brings me to the slide you've all been waiting for.
Looking beyond 2023, we think of EBITDA growth across all aspects of our business. We thought it would be beneficial to walk you through the potential EBITDA growth building blocks as we see them today. First, we have operations. Let's start with the low-hanging fruit, which is the additional EBITDA contributions from The Ritz-Carlton, Naples Beach and Hyatt Coconut Point, our two non-comparable hotels that were impacted by Hurricane Ian. These two properties were expected to contribute an additional $71 million of EBITDA in 2023. We expect that number to grow meaningfully in the coming years. Some of that growth gets picked up in the portfolio reinvestment bucket. Moving on to operations more broadly, there is value attributable to the occupancy gap to 2019. The value is intertwined with margin improvements above 2019 when you consider the efforts to redefine the operating model.
Using the midpoint of 2023 forecasted total RevPAR, occupancy, and margin, we believe there could be up to $100 million of incremental EBITDA by increasing occupancy by roughly four points, which is approximately half the occupancy gap to 2019. Wrapping up on operations, while we certainly expect rate growth in the future, for the purposes of this analysis and discussion, we have not made that assumption, any assumption for rate growth. What we can tell you is that today's business volumes, we expect one point of occupancy growth to lead to approximately 30 to 40 basis points of margin expansion. Shifting to acquisitions, as we stand today, we could acquire between $2.5 billion and $3.5 billion of assets while still maintaining a leverage level of 3 to 3.5 times.
Taking the midpoint of $3 billion and assuming a blended 14x multiple, this could represent up to $200 million of incremental EBITDA. It is worth pointing out that the assumptions I just mentioned would approximate what we have successfully executed since 2018. Continuing with acquisitions, we then target stabilizing recently acquired hotels approximately 2 times below the acquisition multiple, 2-3 years after the acquisition on a blended basis. This represents up to $40 million of EBITDA if we were able to acquire $3 billion of assets at a 14x EBITDA multiple and stabilize those assets at 12 times. While we may still be opportunistic on the sales front, we are very happy with the portfolio we have today. The final building block is reinvestment in our portfolio.
Taking a step back, if you think about how we reinvest via ROI capital expenditures, which we split out in our CapEx guidance, our run rate for ROI CapEx is likely to be in the $200 million-$300 million range per year over the near term. We target low to mid-teen cash-on-cash returns for ROI CapEx investments. Assuming that we reinvest $250 million per year at a cash-on-cash return of 12%, this could represent up to $100 million of incremental EBITDA after several years of investing at these levels. That 12% cash on cash, by the way, is on the lower end. Taken together, these potential EBITDA growth building blocks represent a path toward $2 billion in EBITDA, which would be more than 25% above the midpoint of our 2023 adjusted EBITDA.
While this potential EBITDA growth is heavily dependent on the macroeconomic environment, travel trends, the transaction market, and the assumptions listed on this slide, we believe we are best positioned for the opportunities that lie ahead, given our people, our platform, and our portfolio. Now let's bring Jim back to the stage to highlight why we believe you should invest in Host.
Well, by now, this slide should look familiar. Our competitive advantage boils down to our people, our platform, and our portfolio. You have heard about our track record and the state of our business within the context of the current macroeconomic uncertainty. Let's talk about why we believe you should own Host. We have the team, we have the fortress balance sheet, we have access to capital, we have the independent analytic capabilities, the size, the scale, and the reputation. We can make big, fast, smart moves, as you've seen. Even with our winning track record, the investment community often says, "That's great, but how will Host continue to deliver EBITDA growth for shareholders?" The answer is simple. We will continue to remain opportunistic through offensive positioning. After all, you can't score points on defense.
We hope by now you can see that our platform is unlike any other lodging REIT out there, bar none. Our platform has allowed us to create meaningful shareholder value, and we believe it will allow us to continue to move the needle on portfolio quality and EBITDA growth in the future. We've got the portfolio to outperform. We are well diversified across geographies and business mix. We've redefined the operating model, and the portfolio is refreshed. We've added high performers, sold bottom performers, and meaningfully reinvested where it counts. All this taken together means we've improved the quality of our cash flow and elevated the EBITDA growth profile of our portfolio. You have already seen it in our results, and it is why we believe we are very well-positioned for the future. That's what we want to get across today. Consistency is our currency.
Host Hotels is the blue chip in our space. We're in the best shape for the current macroeconomic conditions and the opportunities that lie ahead. We will continue doing what we have been doing because consistency is our currency. We're not only encouraged about the future, we are excited, and we're ready. Let us show you why. That's just a small glimpse of our 77 hotels. It's a fantastic portfolio. We are so well-positioned to continue to outperform. The entire team gets up every day really excited about what lies ahead. If there is one person at Host whose energy could match that video, it is Michael Rock, our Senior Vice President and Head of Asset Management. Michael, wherever you are, the stage is yours.
Well, good morning. Sarah said we'd show you how we believe Host is really best positioned for the opportunities that lie ahead. Boy, if that video doesn't give you a clear view in the iconic assets. Behind those assets, making sure the value remains just as strong is asset management, my realm. Like every area of our business, we have a very unique approach, and that's why consistency is fundamental to this overriding approach to the business. Before I talk about our asset management philosophy over here at Host, I bring up the panel from my team. Just a little bit about me. I started in this business in 1985, in the hotel business. I worked for Marriott International for over 27 years, all of it in operations and all of it at the hotel level.
General manager several times over, Marriott's largest casino and brands such as JW Marriott, EDITION, and The Ritz-Carlton. One of those general manager assignments was at a Host-owned hotel, and that's what started the relationship and honestly opened the opportunity and the door for me to join Host a little more than 10 years ago. Now let's talk a little bit about asset management philosophy at Host. First, the role of the asset manager. They are the conduit for all aspects of Host. Primary point of contact with the property teams, the tip of the spear, if you will. We have tremendous support and resources at Host, from enterprise analytics, engineering and technical services, development, design, construction, investments, and more. Asset managers are that conduit. We're the person that's ultimately responsible for the performance and the execution of the asset.
People ask what I do for a living in asset management. I say we're in the performance improvement business. Asset, that's our job. We don't want to just report the news of what happened. Our job is to make the news happen. Goal is to drive the overall performance, working with our operators to get the right ROI opportunities, value enhancements, capital investments, operational decisions, selling strategies, positioning, marketing, and everything all combined together to outperform the competition. When you do that, you get some math. I thought this room would appreciate some math. V equals I over C, and that's our formula for asset management at Host. V is the value of the real estate, C is the cap rate, always expressed as a %, and I is the income or net operating income that the property is producing.
Working with our operators to improve performance and making decisions around the investment and renovations has this huge positive multiplying effect in terms of the value of the real estate, and that's how our team looks at driving value at Host. We're also in performance improvements business. We're also in the influence business. It's something I've kind of always personally relied on for success, and it's one of the things that really attracted me to Host because we are in that business. Contractually, there's a lot of things we control, like operating budgets and capital investments and certain term long-term contracts. We don't control every decision needed to drive the most value.
Our hotel managers control day-to-day operations, but we work very closely with them to make sure the decisions that they're making are in Host's best interest and ultimately increase the value of the real estate. What do we do with my team? We place a premium on relationship skills. We collaborate with all of our operating partners. We're all working towards the same results. You see, as Jim said, everything at Host is interrelated. Because of this, asset managers at Host spend a tremendous amount of time looking out the windshield instead of looking in the rearview mirror. We're very focused on short, medium, and long-term decisions that drive performance and a little less focused on what happened last month. You can't change the past.
You can learn from it, and if you can learn something from the past and apply that to future months, great. I find it to be a much, much more proactive and forward-looking asset management team at Host versus others who spend a lot of their time driving through the rearview mirror. If I was to characterize it, I'd put it this way: A lot of others ask what happened and why, and at Host, we ask what can be and how, and that's a distinct competitive advantage. Collaboration. You or we? At Host, we're tremendous collaborators and cooperators. We have resources that others simply don't have. You heard me mention before, enterprise analytics, engineering and technical services, design, development, construction, and these allow us to be a part of the solution to unlock performance.
We don't ask our general managers, "What are you going to do to improve?" Instead, we ask, "What can we do together to fix things and improve and drive better results?" It sets high performance standards for our operators. We fully understand that an adversarial relationship will not lead to the best possible results. Hotels, are they widgets or are they snowflakes? I was giving a version of this talk earlier this year to a college class, no one in the class knew what a widget was. I have to come up with a different terminology for that. I would suggest that hotels are much more like snowflakes because widgets are kind of interchangeable, very much the same, not a whole lot of variation.
Snowflakes look the same from a distance, but the closer you get to them, the more distinctly different they become. That's our approach at Host, to get very, very close, dig into where performance can really go, fully appreciating the distinct nuances and differences of each asset, market, operating model, and the competitive environment, so we can unlock that performance upside. Pivoting over to talk about renovation reinvestment. Do you want to play offense or defense? Well, you already heard offense and defense today mentioned, right? We focus our CapEx investments in areas that allow us to drive EBITDA growth. That's playing offense. Versus simply upgrading the look and protecting any downside. That's playing defense. In my opinion, this is a key differentiator between Host and others in the field.
We identify the projects and really prioritize the ones that are going to allow us to drive the greatest performance impact. We unlock more of the real estate value, looking at these assets, and again, the market, the model, competitors. This is where the accretive recycling capital program we've done over the past 6 years has really paid off. Our portfolio consists of higher EBITDA growth potential assets because of our recent capital allocation efforts. We also like to do multi-year planning and repositioning when we can. We're very strategic here in trying to line up renovations at the same time as opposed to doing something in the hotel every 2 or 3 years. We love to layer these renovations on top of themselves. Does a couple of things. First of all, it really limits the overall business interruption that might be associated with renovations.
Second, it really allows our managers to reintroduce these assets to the marketplace with aggressive PR and marketing and changing our pricing strategies at a transformed asset that you can really drive more performance with. You're gonna hear a lot about that later from Mike Lentz from Development, Design, and Construction later on. We also like unlocking the value through renovations and ROIs. We're constantly evaluating and figuring out how we can drive increased activation and driving ancillary revenues. This is arguably the funnest part of our job in asset management. We work with all these great resources that we have to reinvent the parts of what each asset offered in a way that really drives performance and unlocks that value. How do we get that done?
When we're walking through the assets with our property teams, we're always asking ourselves, "Is this the highest and best use?" That's a question we ask all the time. Is this the highest and best use of this area to drive EBITDA? You could take that library in Toronto and make it a Topgolf Swing Suite. Right? You could take that seldom-used event lawn in Maui in Wailea at Andaz and build luxury villas on top of it. You could take the excess flat lot parking in Scottsdale at The Westin Kierland and build an AC Hotel on it. Water parks, both here and at The Ritz-Carlton Naples, built on empty lots and seldom-used pool facilities. You're likely to see some creative uses of the space later on in your tour today. A little foreshadowing.
Lastly, are we in the real estate business or the travel business? We are a real estate company, but we're in the travel business. Inevitably linked to travel because no one pays me to sleep in their own bed or to eat in their own kitchen. The last thing as I wrap up about kind of the role of asset management philosophy at Host are the two questions. Each of my nine asset managers has to ask themselves these two questions after every property visit.
When they get back on that plane or in their car, the first question is, "Did I personally add value by being here today?" The second was, "Are they anxious to see me back as soon as possible?" If I can answer yes to both of those, then not only have I done my job, I've also done it in the right way. Now join me in welcoming, let's meet some of my rock star team as they come up to the stage here. We have Kerry Gaber, Market Vice President of Asset Management, Travis Snyder, Market Vice President of Asset Management, and Joseph Tapley, Vice President of Asset Management. Let's give them a round of applause.
You know, as I watch you coming up here, it just kinda hit me, but each of you individually carries as much EBITDA responsibility as other lodging REITs. Just we talk about size and scale of Host.
Scary thought.
Not gonna sleep tonight now.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. You guys knew that already, though. You knew that already.
We did.
Well, look, let's get to know each of you a little bit and your background. We'll start with Kerry, and then we'll go to Travis and Joe. Kerry, tell us about yourself.
Good morning, everyone. All right, this will get a little boring because I think we all kind of started the same way. I started out working for Marriott International in Finance out of college. I started in a property role, I think, down in Fort Lauderdale, and then I got to move to Nashville, Tennessee, which to me that was a foreign place. I didn't understand why everybody let me out in traffic all the time. I was like, "Wow, they're very nice here." After that, I moved up into a regional role. This is where I got to understand what owner relations was, and this is also where I got to familiarize myself with different ownership groups and learned which ones I would not work for.
Host was number one on the list of the ones I would work for and where I saw a future maybe as an asset manager. Eventually, I moved up into corporate roles at Marriott, so I was a finance business partner, supporting the sales and revenue organization, the brand team, and the operations team. Everyone who reported to the president. We worked on all kinds of special projects. We managed the marketing fund. We worked on owner disclosure. It was great experience for me to understand how that company worked and how that company could be influenced. My next role was with The Ritz-Carlton. I worked for the CFO at The Ritz-Carlton. I had kind of a unique job there where I worked on special projects.
I worked a lot on the EDITION brand, and launching that brand.
Wait a minute. You're the one that was responsible for that pro forma I had to live up to?
I was. Sorry, Michael.
Get that out there.
I primarily worked on New York, London, and Miami. I worked on the launch of EDITION brand. I worked on the operating model for the The Ritz-Carlton hotels, so how we could reinvent those and improve financial performance of those. I got to work on a lot of international projects. I got to work on a project in Kazakhstan, Riyadh, and the Dorado Beach The Ritz-Carlton Preserve down in Puerto Rico. It was a great experience, but at that point, I'd been working for Marriott for around 15 years and had the opportunity to join Host in Asset Management. I've been with Host in Asset Management for 10 years now.
When I was looking right before we had this meeting about what markets I'd covered in the U.S. and outside the U.S., I think in the United States, the only market I haven't really covered personally between Marriott and Host is the Pacific Northwest. You can ask me anything, but don't ask me about Seattle or Portland or any of those markets. I also had the opportunity to cover Kea Lani when I worked for Marriott as well. Yeah, that's a little bit about me, but I've covered pretty much every asset type out there in lodging.
Fantastic. Travis.
All right. Great. Thank you so much again for being here. Good morning. Like Kerry I started with Marriott right out of college. I was working as a assistant director of finance and accounting at one of their hotels, and really fell in love with the business and have been in the industry ever since. I just celebrated 30 years. It's making me feel pretty old here this morning, but during that time, I've held positions, as I said, on property at the regional and corporate levels, and both on the brand and ownership side. Spent 23 years with Marriott, including 4 years with their vacation club division, 4 years with a company called CNL Hotels & Resorts. Just celebrated over three and a half years with Host.
During the career, I've had a chance to work on a number of great things, hotel openings, repositioning hotels. At MVW, I led the largest transformation in the company's history to reposition their main product offering from a week-spaced real estate product to a more flexible points-based product backed by real estate. In my last position at Marriott, I was vice president of development and global asset management, with responsibility for new hotel development openings and negotiating transactions on behalf of Marriott. At Host, I get the pleasure to work with this fantastic team. I'm overseeing some of our great assets in San Francisco, New York, Boston, Naples, and previously also had D.C.
All right, great. Joe.
Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here with you. I am the newest member of the group. Like my colleagues, started out my career on the operations side in the lodging industry, primarily in the finance discipline. I've held roles with Interstate now, Aimbridge, as well as Marriott Hotels and Resorts. During my tenure with Marriott, I had the opportunity to open a couple of iconic properties for The Ritz-Carlton, one of which was an early mixed-use project in The Ritz-Carlton Sarasota, which I believe was the second condo hotel in that brand. Thereafter, I had the opportunity to be on the opening team of The Ritz-Carlton's first early expression of a lifestyle hotel in The Ritz-Carlton South Beach.
I transitioned into asset management through private equity consecutively with two high-net worth family groups. Both were owners and developers of luxury real estate. My roles prior to joining Host were primarily in asset management, but I also had some various roles in finance and feasibility responsibilities. My responsibilities comprised of resort city hotels, destinations from the Caribbean to Hawaii to the Northeast United States.
Great. Fabulous. Lots of experience up here.
Mm-hmm.
It's terrific. Well, Kerry, let's start with you. Share some of your learnings from your years at Host, and the kind of key differences, if you would, between, like, urban big box hotels and convention hotels versus a resort property.
Sure. When we look at the different markets that we kind of operate in, when we look at an urban box, what's important to those hotels or what typically you see come through there are people who are interested in leisure travel and business travelers. One of the things we need to make sure that we have and understand is the customer experience, both from a leisure perspective and from a business traveler perspective. You're all business travelers here. One of the things that's important to you, right, is technology. As we look as an asset management to recapitalize our assets, we ensure that we're upgrading and having the exact technology and current technology that's out there put into our rooms and put into our public spaces.
One group that you won't hear from today but has been tremendous help to us is our information technology folks. What's it like to go to a hotel, and you can't use your cell phone, right? It doesn't work. Our information technology group, based on our size and kind of our influence, has been able to get for us distributed antenna systems into a lot of our hotels that has solved the mobile piece for us. Mike's group, who you'll hear from later, they help us tremendously when we look to renovate meeting space and/or rooms to ensure our Wi-Fi technology is current and up-to-date. We find that's very important to the business traveler. Another thing that's important to the business traveler is fitness facilities, right? We invest heavily in our fitness facilities.
One example of that a lot of you have seen is San Francisco Marriott Marquis. Today, what is a fabulous fitness center, I think one of the best in our portfolio and the best out there was a pool that cost us a lot of money to maintain, right? It's an elevated pool. Mike's team does not like elevated pools. We were able to fill in that pool and create a spectacular fitness center that helps us to market that hotel to business and convention travelers today. We also have created in-room fitness experience. Michael alluded to this earlier. You'll find in some of our urban big boxes, we have fitness rooms. We've got equipment in the room for the guests that we sell at a premium because that is important to a business traveler.
Some people have gotten used to having things in their homes, and they want that translated to their lodging experience. Another way that we focus on our urban hotels, from a business traveler perspective is marketing our location, right? We have really nicely located hotels. If you look at the Grand Hyatt San Francisco, our proximity to Salesforce, you look at Travis's hotel, the Marriott Marquis, our proximity to Times Square, and a lot of financial organizations there, as a lot of you know, you're from New York.
Mm-hmm.
We make sure that we've invested. Eric has helped us over in the EI, AE group. Sorry. We have way too many acronyms. I can't remember.
Enterprise analytics.
Enterprise analytics. Sorry. He's helped us to do these mappings, drone footage with TrueTour so that you can see the proximity of our assets to the key destinations in the marketplace, whether that's a leisure perspective or that's from a group perspective. We've invested heavily in that as well. Those are some of the things we've done from an urban box perspective. If we look at resorts, right, which are in today, people want comfortable, spacious rooms. They want multiple dining options. They want unique things to do and amenities. One of the best examples we have here is Venetian, right? We massively repositioned this resort to make sure that it was all things to all people, right? You've got wonderful dining options at Venetian.
You've got a fabulous golf course, great fitness facility, great aquatic center. That has resulted in us improving market share at that hotel 34%, right? It's a massive improvement from when we acquired that asset. It's been a great story for us. Another one here you'll see today is World Center, right? We mentioned the water park earlier. The water park allowed us to raise the resort fee here $7 and increase our transient rooms by 7,000 room nights. It's a great story, and it's ensuring that we have a great future to grow revenue at these two resorts. If you look at our convention hotels, what the conventioneer wants is they want unique meeting spaces, right? You saw a picture earlier of the ballrooms at San Diego Marriott Marquis. We built 2 35,000 sq ft ballrooms there.
That has allowed us to increase our banquet contribution from group 64%. Right? That's a massive improvement in revenue streams at that property. You'll see today when we walk around this property, we added the Magnolia meeting space. We added 60,000 sq ft of meeting space. We have 4 ballrooms. We were only able to really utilize 3 of them. This allows us to fully utilize all 4 because we have the breakout space, right? We're on track to make that pro forma, and that's a, you know, a mid-to-high teens return for us here at World Center. I mean, this is a massive property, and I think this is a massive market for meetings, right, in Orlando, we have to continue to maintain and grow and keep up.
Great.
That's it for me.
Fabulous. Travis, I'm gonna turn to you now. Tell us about some of the goings-on to New York Marriott Marquis. Want to hear about some of the performance now that the renovations are complete and how we're delivering those results, and a little bit more about our food and beverage partnership with Union Square Hospitality Group.
Absolutely. I should tell the audience that everyone at Host knows very well I love to talk about the New York Marriott Marquis. While I'll try to be brief here, I can't promise that. Mike Lentz will talk a little bit later about the details of the renovation. Over a 3-year period, we completely transformed the hotel, touching virtually every guest-facing area. The feedback to date from both transient and group customers has been simply fantastic. It was interesting, much of the renovation happened during the pandemic. We had a decision to make, as Jim talked about a little bit earlier. We could have stopped the renovation, we decided to continue. We had a strategic objective of coming out of the pandemic, we would outperform our competitors.
I'm happy to report that the renovated product has allowed us to share shift business and outperform the competitors. While there's some comparability issues on a full year basis from a market share standpoint, Q1 compared to 2019, we are significantly outperforming from a market share standpoint. RevPAR index is up 15% for that time period. Occupancy index is up 8%, and ADR index is up 7%. You know, the quality of the product has really allowed us to take a different approach to pricing the hotel. We now take much more of a luxury approach. We don't really fade retail pricing any longer. On an absolute dollar basis, the ADR at the hotel was up just over 8% compared to 2019. From a group perspective, the results are even more remarkable.
Group RevPAR index for Q1 compared to 2019 is up 44%. Yes, that's right, I said 44%. Room nights, actual room nights projected for 2023 and what we actualized in 2022 are 208,000 room nights in each of those years. We will do over 400,000 rooms at the Marquis over the past 2 years. It's a 15-year high. The results have been really fantastic from the renovation. I think the next piece, you were asking about Union Square Hospitality.
Union Square and Danny Meyer.
Again, one of my favorite topics to talk about. In 2021, Union Square Hospitality Group was selected to operate food and beverage outlets at the hotel. Union Square Events was selected to operate our banquets and catering department. As far as I'm aware, this is the first time that all food and beverage has been outsourced at a Marriott-managed convention hotel in North America. I will tell you that this change really represents the power of Host from my perspective and our ability to achieve results with our operating partners. Let's just say, and there's a number of people in the room today who were in those initial meetings with Marriott, it was a very hard no, and in fact, it was, "It's never gonna happen.
We're not gonna do it." There may have been some words used that I'm not gonna repeat today.
Selective editing.
Selective editing. Again, I think using the data from our enterprise analytics team, leveraging our relationships at all levels in the organization, and really, frankly, our entire team just not willing to take no for an answer, we ultimately reached agreement with Marriott to outsource food and beverage. Today, the execution of food and beverage at the Marquis is seamless to the customer. There's high-quality service and terrific culinary experiences. The part that we all really care about, the financial impact, right? From a financial impact on a year-to-date basis, food and beverage revenue is down approximately $4 million to 2019. This is all attributed to the View complex. We have a restaurant in the lounge on the 47th and 48th floors of the hotel that's been closed since early part of the pandemic. However, F&B profit is up $5.6 million.
Yep, I said it. Down $4 million in revenue, but up over $5 million in profit. Our F&B margin by this move is approaching 35% versus 11% in 2019. To put a bow on the impact of this F&B change, New York hotels typically don't make money in January and February. The Marquis made money in both months this year. It's been a huge achievement. Again, I think we've been talking about it all morning, but this really represents the power of the Host platform.
That's just terrific results. We have a similar story to tell about Boston Copley.
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for bringing that up. Copley is very similar. Host made a very significant investment in the hotel to do significant renovations. Those renovations, along with the hotel being very well located in the city, a history of strong performance allowed us to attract a national restaurant company, Darden Restaurants, who took over outlets through a lease structure there, actually, rebranded as a Yard House. That deal provides for a cash on cash return of over 30%.
Fantastic. Joe, we're gonna turn to you. As you mentioned earlier, one of our newer members to the team here. Can you compare and contrast a little bit, asset management at Host versus elsewhere? Putting you on the spot here.
Absolutely. Absolutely. I won't mention any names either. Some of the similarities between some of the private equity groups that I've worked with and private owners versus Host. One, we're all aligned on in respect to key metrics. You know, several conversations around performance. Michael Rock mentioned about looking out through the rear window. We did a lot of that at other groups. Also, their approach to utilizing major brands to operate hotels as expected, debt sources and limited partners find these agreements to be attractive to the asset, which is what we do here at Host. They also pursue quality assets with high barriers of entry in a particular market or sub-market with the goal of adding value through a property improvement plan. We both do the same.
Some of the areas of difference is, as mentioned, Host articulates the metrics into actionable steps, one in which we can enhance the value of the asset, make improvements, and we have the support mechanism that supplies us efficient data in order to be superior to others and make these metrics actionable. With respect to our partners, size and scale gives us an opportunity and attention necessary for alignment with our operating partners, which is vastly different than some of the smaller groups. Lastly, Host outlook in terms of investment cycle allows asset managers to take the time to adjust projects and initiatives based on the macroeconomic environment rather than a firm predetermined sort of debt window that we have to adhere to because of other obligations.
Great. Well, now let's talk more about the topic that takes up, most of the time in our interactions with our properties, and that is-
Pricing.
Pricing.
Pricing.
How sustainable is the ADR that we're seeing now, and some steps to help support that. Let's start with Joe, and then we'll go to Travis and Kerry.
Sure. My experience with regard to pricing and ADR is essentially a value proposition. What we try to drive with our operators is how valuable that proposition is to guests and how meaningful it is. When it comes to pricing, our managers are unapologetic about what we've charged in recent years. They challenge the market, make an offer and adjust accordingly. We're fortunate that we have the predictive tools available to us to take the guesswork out of the equation that allows us to be thoughtful in our recommendations to our operators. As well, we real-time pace and competitive data to support those decisions. ADR increases moving forward may moderate, but from where we are today, we believe that the starting point is sustainable. Our customers are willing to pay for experiences.
We must continue to deliver on exceptional service to drive that pricing value.
That's great. That's kind of, similarly, I think we heard that yesterday in our introductory comments over at The Four Seasons, that the pricing and the experience and the service that goes with that go very much hand in glove.
Yeah.
Right. Yeah. Travis?
Sure. Thanks. Just to offer a few additional thoughts. While we're constantly pushing ADR and RevPAR, it's critically important and there's a significant focus. One of the things that we focus on just as much that has already been talked a little bit about today is TRevPAR, Total Revenue Per Available Room, and that's a constant focus for us also. As a group, we're focused on the future. We engage with our general managers, our operators on driving ADR. Again, we spend as much time talking to them about pushing ancillary spend, pricing on our food and beverage, pricing at our cabanas. I mean, heck, some of the cabanas are well over $1,000 a day at our resorts.
We're looking at, you know, again, Jim talked about it earlier, Michael's talked about it, really any underutilized space in the hotel, how do we continue to drive value and find opportunities to create additional EBITDA through those spaces? Another area where we've been spending a lot of time is on dynamic pricing. If you think about room rates, there's a constant movement of pricing, but really looking at the ancillary spend and during higher demand periods, how can we charge more for those periods? If you think about it, TRevPAR is really kind of a natural evolution of revenue management, right? Fits squarely into where customers, you know, are looking for experiences. When our hotels can tailor those experiences and services, to meet the customer needs, we think that it really drives TRevPAR.
One example of this is at the New York Marriott Marquis, where we had some underutilized space. The hotel signed a deal with a group called Le Petit Chef. They offer these kind of really cool, kind of animated dining experiences. At over $200 a person, it's been selling out ever since they started it about a year ago.
That's a great story. Kerry?
All right. I'm gonna take a slightly different approach on driving revenue growth. I'm gonna talk about banquet and catering contributions. Today, obviously, you hear us talk about that we're at record highs for these numbers. This doesn't come by any accident, right? It's, we've taken a much more strategic approach to driving banquet and catering contribution with our operators. One thing that you see today, regardless of whether you're eating in our hotels or eating out somewhere, the portions and the pricing, one has gone down and one has gone up, right? You know, your filet and your steak has gotten smaller, but your pricing for that has gone up. We do focus on that, right? We're faced with high inflation.
Customers understand that, and we make sure that the operators are charging appropriately. Escalation percentages and contracts. We sign contracts with groups many years out based on the hotels we have. They're booking 4, 5, 6 years out, so we want to make sure that the operators are putting the proper escalation in those contracts to ensure that we don't have an issue in the future. Another thing that we do, which Travis just alluded to, is kind of peak demand pricing and location. At our resorts, if you want an event outside or you want it in a high season, you're gonna pay 15%-20% more for that event. Here in Florida, if you want something in Q1 outdoors, it's gonna cost you quite a bit more than if you want it in July.
We're just ensuring that we have that strategy and we're implementing that appropriately. Consumption strategy. You saw a great example of this last night, right? Did you see the waiters and waitresses, servers walking around with the trays, right? The more of that you consume, the more the Host paid for you to have that event, right? Our strategy with the operators is always be walking around with something in your hand, right? 'Cause the more that they're taking that, the more our average checks are going up and our count, cover counts are going up. This is very strategic that we are passing hors d'oeuvres and drinks and desserts and anything else that you will pay for on consumption.
Ease of access.
Absolutely. Yep.
where the alcohol comes to you that actually drives some incredible incremental revenues and profits.
Absolutely.
Okay.
The other thing that we've seen as a big trend in food and beverage today is sober people or sober-curious individuals, right? That's revenue that we're losing on the beverage side, which is highly profitable. You will see that a lot of our properties have made mocktail menus today. You're gonna pay as much for a mocktail as you are for a glass of wine, they've implemented some pretty extensive mocktail menus to ensure that we're retaining that revenue. We did all of this recently at a hotel. We had a large convention hotel. It was coming into the year $6 million down in banquet and catering pace. They're now going to be up $3 million, that's a $9 million swing by implementing all these strategies that we just talked about here today.
That's another fantastic story.
Can I tag onto that one second.
Tag away.
before we move on? You know, it's really interesting, we talked earlier about benchmarking, and we definitely use a lot of data from the enterprise analytics team to really see if we're getting the best results. As Carrie was talking about this topic in particular, it's another example of where our size and scale matters in terms of sharing best practices. At a recent department meeting, Carrie brought forward some best practices from some of her hotels. We were able to broadcast that out across all the other hotels. While they were doing a lot of the things, I heard from almost every hotel, "Hey, you know, I got a couple of nuggets out of there that's gonna help us drive revenue." Again, that kind of collaboration...
Yes.
has really helped.
Propagating those good ideas throughout the portfolio is tremendous.
Okay.
Great. Travis, since we're with you, give us your insight here and the benefits of having a brand at a hotel.
Oh, boy. Let me think about that one for a second. No, I think, look, if, as we talked earlier, everyone on the stage really kind of started their career on the brand side, right? Before entering asset management. I think one of the great things is we know the inner workings, right? We know how the sausage is made in the brands. We know what's important to them, and I think that positions us really well, when we're trying to get things done. You can certainly argue, and I'm not gonna hide from this, right? There's this kind of natural friction between sometimes what the brands want and what's good for the hotel owners. When you think about brand standards that are rolled out, and we say, "Geez, what the heck are they thinking with that?
That can't happen." I think, you know, the good news though is the brands, there's no denying that based on their size and scale, that they have an advantage, right? If you just think about the room nights they generate, the ancillary spend, that comes from the rewards, programs, it's just really, really, you know, significant. That's all good.
Mm-hmm.
How do you then solve for this issue of the conflict? I think it's been really interesting at Host, we have some real competitive advantages. Just like the brands have an advantage due to size and scale, we have an advantage from size and scale. I'm stealing Jim's line, but when we call, they answer the phone. Having worked there for 23 years, not only do they answer the phone, there's a significant amount of activity that kicks off to figure out, "Uh-oh, Host is calling. How do we solve this issue?
You've been on both ends of that phone call.
Yeah, yeah. I've been working on solving some of those. I think there's that. I think, one thing that a lot of us, many of us, participate in brand advisory boards and owner advisory councils. It's another way that we're able to have influence. Then I think you really can't overstate the power of the relationships at all levels, right? I mean, we all have our relationships, and as I think our executive team would attest, when we need some help, we call, and they make the phone calls and, you know, just a number of examples, whether it's really very complicated capital plan that was put together through MTCT and getting that done on a portfolio level or individual asset issues like The New York Marquis, where we outsource food and beverage.
We're able to leverage all of that together to get the best outcome for Host.
Great. Kerry, let's talk about margins. Share with us, like, some of the best methods that you've found in driving hotel margin performance.
Absolutely. One of our favorite things to talk about at Host. We've talked about it a lot today already, but I can't stress enough the importance of the relationship we have with Enterprise Analytics, who you'll hear from in a little while. This is one of my favorite things about working with Host. You know, having a financial background, I love data, as many of you do. The ability that we have with the large portfolio that we have and have had, and the tools that this group provides to us from a benchmarking perspective are incredible. It's a great partnership between both organizations, and I think it allows us to drive really great results. One of the things that we did in our partnership, was work with a company called Corpedia to...
This was to improve our productivity in the hotel. You might find that, okay, we've got some benchmarks, and this hotel does the front office better than this hotel, so, you know, let's show some improvement. Well, this process really took it a level deeper. It actually looked at the functions that people were performing, right? We learned in many of our properties, ones like this one, right? This is a 2,010-room hotel with 0.5 million sq ft of meeting space. It's large, right? It's a lot of square footage to cover. What we learned is that the employees, when they needed supplies, were having to walk all the way back to these central locations to get them, whether that was an engineer or a housekeeper.
One of the things that was done as a part of that project to improve our productivity was to locate closets. This is a simple thing, but a massive saving in productivity, right? Locate maintenance closets and linen closets and supply closets closer to where people were doing the actual work. That was a great opportunity for us to look how work was done, right? Try to find an improvement that yielded millions of dollars in savings to us from a productivity perspective, and that was a great partnership between these two groups at Host. Another thing that we did from a productivity perspective, which you'll hear us talk a lot about because it is our largest expense, labor, right? Is we looked at our front offices, right? We have people standing at a desk.
We have people behind the desk that you do not see answering the phone, right? That was a large area of opportunity that we identified early on, we combined that function for the PBX operators and the front desk employees. Now we're taking that to the next level with artificial intelligence in phone, when we're replacing our phone switches, having some of that automated. Again, that yields us a large saving in productivity improvements, that's a great partnership between our two groups, actually that also is a partnership with Mike's group and the technology folks. The third way we kind of improve our margins, right, is our ROI projects that you hear us talk a lot about, right? Simple things, just really taking a look at the business and how it's running and how we can improve.
At Grand Hyatt D.C., right, we were leasing a fitness center space in the building next door, right? We were paying six figures a year for this fitness center. It was great, it was nice, we had space in our own building. It was like that when we acquired the asset, we realized that we had the opportunity to build our own fitness center and terminate that lease, right, and save us a significant amount of money. There's things lik that we're doing. We had the opportunity in Boston. You already heard Travis Snyder talk about the restaurants. Well, long before that, we leased the Starbucks as well. This is a highly trafficked Starbucks right by the T in the Copley Mall, people are entering all the office buildings, we're walking into there on a daily basis.
Again, because of your labor costs in a city like Boston, right, our margin was in the teens, right? Now we have a six-figure lease with Starbucks, and Starbucks really doesn't lease many locations.
That's true.
That was the power of our location and our relationship with Starbucks.
Some great examples. Joe, tell us about the multi-year repositioning going on at the Fairmont Kea Lani, where we've been working at this for a while, and some really some exciting stuff to share with the group.
On to the other end of the country.
Mm-hmm.
Very excited to talk about this project. We're now within days of completing the guest room renovation, all suites, all villas. The lobby renovation begins in July. As we finish the physical side of the transformation, we're continuing to enhance or refine the resort's positioning as Maui's only suite and villa luxury oasis. Quite a unique asset. Continued commitment to sustainability. We'll stick with many of the projects and programs that we've done geared towards sustainability, one in which is rooted in Aloha, which is a reforestation initiative, directly impacting the island's most precious resources, is a great example in which we have our guests, our staff, and members of the community participate in.
There are numerous other sustainability programs in place and planned, dedicated to perpetuating Hawaiian culture and strengthening the connection between the community, and that's indicative of Fairmont Kea Lani's grander vision for the resort. What's forthcoming is an immersive experience from arrival to departure. We're focused on honoring the history and rich culture of Maui as well as the community of Wailea and all that drives the mystique of the destination. Embracing sense of place through all levels of the resort's transformation has and will continue to allow our operators to drive a higher price point. We continue to focus on what this experience is worth and not what it costs, and this posture's been holding true thus far with our guests.
Well, I think it's interesting, too. I would tie in that immersive experience you're discussing to that luxury price point and again, connecting with the comments we've talked about today and also Thomas's comments last night at Four Seasons Orlando. Those things really go synergistically together to drive-
It's a natural process of marketing that they take away that experience and share that with those that they know. It certainly enhances our ability to talk about the resort more.
That's great. All right, gang, final question. What is the future of asset management? Kerry?
Okay. Future of asset management.
You guys are the future of asset management. We know that. Specifically.
I mean, it's continuing to look at the business, right? What is the customer looking for. One of the things we know the customer is looking for is experiences, right? You look at properties like Alila Ventana, right? If you haven't had the pleasure of going there yet, we highly recommend that you visit. In an effort to find more things to do and find ways to market that destination and, you know, generate additional revenue streams besides the rooms, we've created some significantly interesting bookable experiences, right? One that Nate really likes is the beekeeping experience there.
If you haven't had a chance to do that, it's a really great experience to interact with the bees and extract your own honey. You can also make things with it. Another thing that we've done there, this is a little more aspirational in marketing in nature, but we've created the XPT experience with Gabby and Laird Hamilton. We're thinking it's gonna be somewhere around $60,000. You can have a nice health and wellness retreat with Gabby and Laird Hamilton at the Alila Ventana. Michael's Hotel, Jackson Hole, right? We've got the wolf experience. For, I think it's $25,000, you can fly out in a helicopter into the park and search for wolves, right?
Mm-hmm.
It's really making these experiences that people will book, right? We have high net worth individuals staying in these hotels, so we will capitalize on these bookable experiences, but it also gives us a great opportunity to market the resorts. If you look at our group guests, right? From a bookable experience perspective there, in San Diego, we've done a couple of interesting things. We created a Topgolf Swing Suite on the Bay at the Marriott Marquis, which is booked heavily by groups. They were looking for more things to do with their affiliates when they were in town, so this was an opportunity to go that revenue stream. At the Hyatt Manchester, from a leisure perspective, we've got the rooftop cinema, which has a nice view of the city where we show movies.
We have a food and beverage concession opportunity there as well. As well as groups can book that privately for their own events. In keeping with we were talking yesterday as we were walking around the Four Seasons, the sports piece, right? Pickleball has made a.
It's a thing.
in terms of a sports and fitness.
Pickleball is a thing.
facility. What we've done, Coronado has done something very unique with respect to that. They've created actually pickleball championships. Groups can come, they can book, they can have a lesson, they can have an awards dinner, all around pickleball. They're booking a lot of groups, this extending opportunity. The other thing that we've done and we talked about earlier is just making rooms with equipment for them, for health-conscious travelers, right? Hyatt Manchester created a Peloton experience. You can rent a Peloton room that has the treadmill, the bike equipment, and weights and mats and everything, for a private fitness workout when you have your stay there in San Diego.
Great. Thanks.
Thanks.
Joe.
Two things that stand at top of mind for me are technology and really storytelling about what our hotels offer. The labor market continues to change and in some cases be elusive in some positions. Necessary tasks in a hotel are less engaging and desired. We've taken the approach of deploying technology advancement to try to aid or combat that. For example, at the Hyatt Regency Maui, we deployed robotic vacuums. They're called Whiz robots. They vacuum public spaces, corridors, meeting spaces, and kids like to chase them. Our managers have found some of these tasks of doing that kind of vacuuming to be mundane, deploying them elsewhere. Employees, we've had the opportunity to work with our hotels to engage and to create boost engagement as well as save labor costs.
Yeah, I tell you, the people that are happiest with the Whiz robot vacuums are the housekeepers.
Absolutely.
The people who used to vacuum the floor all day are now running linen up to the housekeepers and making them more efficient and making their jobs easier to do.
Correct. Correct. There's a connection there.
Yeah.
Absolutely. The second item that's high on my list is storytelling. It's really no longer productive to just continue to populate social media with messages. We now need to make a connection with our guests or potential guests and articulate a story going back to the Fairmont Kea Lani about exactly what we're doing. Our story is about what we deliver and the feeling that we want guests to leave with. We're confident through these efforts of making this connection, we'll be able to continue to drive, you know, competitive advantage throughout our entire portfolio.
Travis, bring us home.
Everything these guys said. Plus, I think, you know, what I would say is, having been here for over three years now, there's this incredible energy at Host, right? About looking forward-
Mm-hmm
about continuing to get the most out of the assets and driving EBITDA. Really from my perspective, that's it. Just not being satisfied, continuing to look forward, continuing to find innovative ways to drive revenue at our hotels and resorts, to continue to redefine that operating model, and really leverage everything our great platform has to offer.
That's great. Well, thanks, team for the brushstrokes on asset management. Applause. They did a great job with the panel. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Coming up next to drive home some of the finer points of capital expenditures and corporate responsibility, please, let's hear from Mike Lentz, Executive Vice President, Development, Design, and Construction. Thank you, Mike.
Thank you. Thank you, Michael. Good morning, everyone. I lead capital expenditure projects, which includes renewals and renovations, ROI investments, and investments in sustainability. I have the good fortune to share with you this morning some really great work that's done by the in-house talented team of professionals that work for me. As you heard from Jim, our size and our scale give us the ability to have subject matter expertise in multiple areas, from design and procurement to engineering and cost management. Included in that expertise is energy and sustainability. I'm joined this morning by Michael Chang, who will be discussing corporate responsibility and, in particular, some of our environmental initiatives. Let's get started. I...
Using our CapEx guidance from 2023 to help you understand sort of how we think about capital and capital allocation within Host as it relates to capital expenditures. All of this is centered around driving EBITDA growth to improve the cash flow of our portfolio. As you've heard today, our people, our platform, and our portfolio are Host's competitive advantage. Everything we do is interrelated, from pre-acquisition due diligence to underwriting and budget reconciliations. Our long-term capital planning touches really every group within Host. Using our guidance, I'd like to break that down a little bit. The first bucket is renewals and renovations. We include in this bucket all of our front of house reinvestment, as well as building replacements, investments in central plant, building envelope and in infrastructure.
Hotel management agreements differ in terms of owner funding required for renewals and renovations, we're always looking for ways to combine R&R investments with ROI opportunities. The next bucket is ROI projects. This is really a broad category, it includes everything from brand reinvestment programs, like the Marriott Transformational Capital Program, to sustainability ROIs and investments in cogen plants, renewable energy, technology initiatives to reduce energy and water consumption. Other types of ROI projects include ground up development, guestroom and meeting space expansions, initiatives to repurpose underutilized spaces. ROI projects can be sourced from a number of different areas within Host. For example, a brand reinvestment program like the MTCP might come from investments, where operations ROIs, like repurposing underutilized spaces, will come from our asset managers. All major ROI projects are underwritten by our enterprise analytics team. You can see it's a very collaborative process.
The final bucket, insurable reconstruction. Typically, this is a very small area of capital for us, but the impact of Hurricane Ian, which is categorized as a 500-year event, makes that much more significant in 2023. You've heard us talk a lot about the Marriott Transformational Capital Program. I thought I'd take a few moments to show you where we are as we approach the completion of this initiative. Recall the genesis of the program was the convergence of a number of Host-owned assets that were in need of cycle-based renovations. Marriott's rollout of a new series of brand standards and a significant owner-funded shortfall that would result from complete implementation. We negotiated operating profit guarantees to offset business interruption and enhanced owners' priority treatment on incremental investment, which reduces the IMF paid to Marriott.
On average, we're targeting 3-5 points of RevPAR index share gain from these 16 properties following their transformational renovations. It's really a win-win for both Marriott and Host, as we now have on-brand assets in some of the most important markets to Marriott's elite level Bonvoy customers. We believe piecemeal renovations will not move the needle, and when an asset is not number 1 in its comp set, there's an opportunity to gain market share through transformational renovations focused on updated guest rooms, public space, lobby and lobby bar experiences, loyalty club lounges, fitness centers, those things that help a hotel present like a new asset and are important to our customers. During the pandemic, we extended this initiative to include 8 additional assets that would benefit from transformational renovations.
On the MTCP, 15 of 16 assets are now complete. Later this month, we'll complete the Marriott Metro Center in D.C. On the 8 other assets, we're about 90% complete now. We'll complete the Westin Denver early next month. Ritz Naples Beach renovations are substantially complete, simply waiting on the hurricane restoration work to reopen that property. The final asset, as Joe mentioned, Fairmont Kea Lani, will finish in December. I've pulled a couple of case studies from our investor presentation to show some results. Let's start right here at the Orlando World Center. In October 2021, we completed the third and final phase of guest room renovations. I like this before and after slide because it really highlights some of the themes associated with Marriott's new guest room design standards.
LVT hard surface flooring, resized case goods, architectural features, and finally, indigenous design elements often found in the vinyl wall covering or the artwork that is unique to every property. I think this achieves the goal of making the room feel larger and through finishes and furnishings. The guest bathrooms underwent a similar transformation with tub-to-shower conversions in 75% of the guest rooms, new vanities, enlightened mirrors, and barn doors wherever possible. The bathrooms themselves are not any larger, but through some of these design moves, we help them to feel a bit larger.
Another aspect of the MTCP was improving the arrival experience, which is accomplished through a number of design moves, including new registration desks and pods, activated lobbies with improved lobby bars, and site-specific enhancements like the sushi bar here at the World Center. The first of two value enhancement projects at Orlando World Center include the addition of a 2.5- acre water park. The new water park opened in March of 2022, just in time for spring break. Another value enhancement project is the Magnolia Meeting Space, and we talked about this briefly. You heard it briefly earlier, but I'll just kind of explain sort of the background. The hotel manager identified the fact that breakout meeting rooms were holding the property back from its ability to maximize the utilization of the large ballrooms and effectively layer group business.
Working with Host Asset Management and enterprise analytics, we underwrote the addition of 24 meeting rooms ranging in size from 1,500- 1,800 sq ft and constructed this 60,000 gross sq ft expansion, which finished last May. Over the next 3 years, we have $233 million of group room nights and catering revenue on the books utilizing the Magnolia Meeting Space, and another tentative $19 million rather. We're on track to achieve our optimal group room mix at this property by 2025. The cumulative impact of the MTCP transformational renovations, as well as the addition of the water park and meeting space, helped this property become the number 1 EBITDA contributor in our portfolio in 2022 at $90 million.
You can see we've had material improvements in RevPAR, total RevPAR, banquet revenue per group room night, all leading to a 27% EBITDA increase and a 200 basis point EBITDA margin improvement. Moving on to another transformational renovation, the New York Marriott Marquis, also a multi-year pro-property that took 3 years to renovate all the guest rooms. Here you see we did not install LVT flooring because that LVT flooring replacement is tied to casegoods. Casegoods were in like-new condition, we're really pleased with how this renovation transformed the room with new soft goods, flooring, wall covering, lighting and artwork. Many of you are familiar or rather are from New York, the next time you visit Times Square, I would encourage you to check out the Broadway Lounge on the 8th floor of the Marquis.
Here we removed a former walkway that encircled the restaurant and effectively cut off views to Times Square. The result is a fabulous two-story space that is one of the best places in Times Square to have a drink or to ring in the new year. This picture shows one of 2 8 foot by 75 foot video billboards suspended from the 9th floor bridge. That's a pre-function area. We use that to bring Times Square into the lobby. Here's a shot of our updated registration desk. This photograph shows our lobby bar, Revel & Rye. Here's a shot of the M Club Lounge, the mother of all M Club lounges, the largest in the Marriott system. Here you see the Broadway Lounge by daytime. It's really a beautiful space.
The New York Marriott Marquis is a great representative of the MTCP program, as the renovation was truly transformational. I'm glad we continued through the pandemic because doing the construction on the eighth floor in that atrium space, during any time other than the pandemic, when the hotel was effectively closed, would have been incredibly disruptive and caused a great deal of business interruption. The multi-year transformation completed in the third quarter of 2021. We have a little more than 1 year of post-renovation results. While RevPAR index share isn't comparable because one of the hotel comp sets is one of the hotels in the comp set is closed, we can share some high-level numbers. Q1 2023 transient rate up 21% from pre-renovation ADRs.
Groups have reacted very favorably to the new rooms, meeting space and amenities, giving the property the confidence to push group room rates by 12% over 2019. In 2022, I think you heard Travis mention, we had over 208,000 group room nights, setting an all-time record for this property, and we're set to exceed that number or meet that number again in 2023. Additional ROI initiatives undertaken during the reposition included outsourcing F&B, as Travis mentioned, as well as constructing a Cogen Plant that will result in a stabilized cash flow improvement of $3.1 million annually. Michael's gonna discuss that a little later.
In addition to the 16 assets in the MTCP program, we had 8 other assets, a number of hotels and resorts that we thought extensive renovations would really benefit those assets that we completed during the pandemic. At the Hyatt Regency Maui, we completed this extensive renovation of guest rooms, suites, corridors, as well as the new arrival experience. The extensive renovations to the guest room bathrooms included converting tubs to showers, installing dual vanities, and reorganizing the fixtures to improve space utilization and expand the bathroom, which was achieved by removing a traditional closet in favor of an open closet concept that provides more storage in less space. We took full advantage of the pandemic and completed an incredibly invasive renovation of the atrium tower ground floor.
We needed to replace the waterproofing and drainage in the planters. The only way to do it was to demolish the entire atrium, dig up the lobby, then put it all back. We also had to replace risers and distribution piping, which caused this guest room renovation to be incredibly complex and would have been terribly disruptive if not completed during the pandemic. The result is a beautiful new atrium space that enhances the arrival experience and embraces the Aloha spirit. Had we not been able to do this project during a period when Maui was effectively closed to tourism, it would've been very difficult. Here's the case study slide for the Hyatt Regency Maui completed in December of 2020. We had 10 points of RevPAR index share gain.
We've seen 51% increase in ADR, 27% increase in food and beverage spend per occupied room, and 590 basis point hotel EBITDA margin improvement over 2019. Moving on to the Fairmont Kea Lani. We've mentioned this one also, Here's some slides and some pictures to go with it. Following a series of piecemeal renovations, this hotel simply did not keep up with the other assets, the luxury properties in Wailea. Last year, we started a truly transformative renovation. This is an extensive repositioning renovation that includes all guest rooms, suites, and villas, as well as a new arrival experience that is aimed at positioning the property as the most authentic Hawaiian luxury resort.
Using a deal structure similar to that of the MTCP, our investments and asset management team negotiated a reinvestment deal with Accor which combined with a targeted increase in average daily rate should enable us to achieve double-digit cash-on-cash returns. This is an all-suite hotel where the standard guest rooms occupy two bays and over 850 sq ft. Here you see before and after views of the parlor or the living room portion of the guest room. Here you see before and after views of the guest room's bedroom. The new rooms are lighter, brighter, and incorporate Hawaiian patterns and colors. In fact, we engaged a native Hawaiian designer to help review the design to ensure its authenticity.
The bathrooms here were already huge, already had five fixtures, but the pedestal sinks, wall sconces, and stone gave it a dated feel, so we replaced almost all of it. As I mentioned, in addition to transforming the guest rooms, suites, and villas, we'll also transform the arrival experience. By removing the central fountain and opening the arches, we'll dramatically change sight lines to the ocean upon arrival. By removing the ornate stone flooring in favor of simpler stone finishes and patterns with the introduction of live plantings, we'll give the lobby a whole new feel. As we get towards the lobby bar, we'll wrap columns organically in wood and surround them with native foliage and set the mood for a new lobby bar that will have unparalleled ocean and sunset views.
We'll complete the guest room villas, and room renovations here this month, and we'll start the lobby transformation in July. That's set to complete in early December in time for festive. This is the final property in the 24 asset program of transformational renovations that we've targeted an increase of 3-5 points of RevPAR index share gain. I think you can see on some of these case studies, we're well ahead of that target. Shifting to our ROI development projects. While we're not typically a ground-up developer, we collaborate with investments, asset management, and enterprise analytics to identify and underwrite development and redevelopment projects to monetize excess or underutilized real estate in our portfolio, where we aim to generate, at a minimum, low to mid-teens unlevered cash-on-cash returns on our investments.
I'm gonna share some case studies on some recent completions and give you a peek at some upcoming ROI development projects as we continue to extend the pipeline with new opportunities to elevate the EBITDA growth profile of our platform. At The Westin Kierland, we identified excess parking, and we processed an update to the planned unit development, which created a 2-acre development parcel. Leveraging our in-house development design and construction expertise, we constructed this 165 key premium select service hotel. While the brand's design standards are very prescriptive, leaving little room for interior design team's discretion, we're proud to say this hotel won Best New Premium Select Service Hotel from Marriott in 2021. The hotel opened in January of 2021 and exceeded underwriting well ahead of anticipated stabilization. Our 2022 NOI represents a 17% cash-on-cash return.
Host acquired the Andaz Wailea, we acquired a fully entitled condo project with an expiring special management area permit. Our pre-development team secured a permit transfer and a two-year extension, which was just enough time to complete design, engineering, and construction of 19 luxury three and four-bedroom villas despite pandemic-related delays. Completed and opened in May of 2021, these Ilikai villas had a 2022 RevPAR of $1,080, which was 21% ahead of underwriting. At The Ritz-Carlton Naples Tiburon, this project was underwritten to improve summer occupancy without any expected ADR premium, the development project has come out of the gates with incredible performance. In an underutilized area of the resort, we added a 1.5 acre water park, including a lazy river, water slides, and kids' pool play and play area.
To make room, we relocated the family pool, expanded the pool deck area, and incorporated a number of private cabanas and an event lawn. We added a new poolside restaurant, bar, kitchen, and completed the construction during the pandemic with minimal guest disruption. The impact the aquatics program and the F&B outlet has had on the resort is nothing short of amazing. Compared to 2019, hotel EBITDA increased by 87% to $23 million. EBITDA margins improved by 500 basis points. Total RevPAR is up 59%, and RevPAR is up 69%. The resort's RevPAR index share grew from 166 in 2019 to 205 in 2022. Staying in Naples and moving over to the beach resort, this property was built to luxury standards of 1985. The hotel simply didn't have enough suites to satisfy demand.
We combined standard guest rooms to create multi-bay suites, enabling us to harvest keys from in the existing hotel for a new expansion tower. The transformational renovation will add ultimately a net 24 additional keys for a total of 474 keys. More importantly, it will increase the suite count from 35 suites to 92 suites. To accompany the repositioned guest rooms and suites, we're renovating and expanding the guest room bathrooms to increase fixture counts and elevate the level of design and functionality. We're increasing the pool deck area by over 50%, adding new cabanas and bungalows. We're adding a new poolside food and beverage outlet and bar. We're adding a new club lounge that will eliminate the capacity constraint on upsells. Finally, we're enhancing the arrival experience with a reimagined lobby and lobby bar.
We were set to open this project in December of last year. Hurricane Ian had another thing coming for us. On September 28th, when Ian made landfall near Cape Coral, it was a high-end Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 155 miles per hour, making it the 4th largest hurricane or 4th strongest hurricane to hit Florida since record-keeping began in 1851. Ian brought nearly 18-foot storm surge to Charlotte Harbor, along with 20 inches of rain, and the impacted areas will take years to recover. The Ritz-Carlton, Naples was severely damaged as a result of the storm surge and has undergone extensive reconstruction. As we've been rebuilding the impacted areas, we've looked for ways to enhance resilience, and Michael's going to talk a little bit more about that when he covers climate risk and asset vulnerability.
I'm thrilled to say that we're about six weeks away from our targeted reopening. These drone camera shots were taken just two weeks ago. On the left, you see the family pool, and on the right, you see two new adult pools. The tower in between those two is our new Vanderbilt Tower, and on the pool level is our new food and beverage outlet and our new bar. Note in the upper right-hand corner, you see an image there. It's an example of planned future CapEx that was accelerated to avoid future disruption. We identified that the waterproofing above the valet parking garage had 5 to 10 years or less remaining useful life. We excavated the entire entry drive, porte cochere, to replace that waterproofing and weather-tight the parking garage.
This is a five-month project that would have been incredibly disruptive if it were done during any time other than a hotel closure. Construction of the new tower, all the guest rooms and lobby is substantially complete. We're in the punch list process, turning areas over to the operations team. Here are some photographs of the new arrival experience. Across the top, you see our new registration concierge and seating groups. Across the bottom, you see our new champagne bar, which replaces a tea service area. This really elevates The Ritz-Carlton to modern luxury expectations. Here are some shots of our beautiful new club lounge. I mentioned earlier that this is larger. It's six times the size of the old club lounge, removing a limit on the number of upsells.
Prior to the pandemic, the club lounge sold at an annualized ADR premium of $220 per night. Club access rooms are now priced at a premium ranging from $500-$900 per night, depending on the season. Note we retained and renovated the old club lounge to give the hotel another space to sell for group business. Here are some shots of our beautiful new suites and guest rooms. Across the top, you see images of our suites, and across the bottom, you see our standard guest rooms. Note the middle photos show how we elevated the design of the guest bathrooms, moving to just really enhance the new experience there. Okay, I've got some new projects I want to show.
Hilton Singer Island, we've looked at redeveloping this property a number of different ways, and we've determined that the best near-term solution is to convert it to an independent lifestyle hotel while maintaining the option to develop over the existing surface lot in the future. The repositioning will address all front of house areas, including new guest rooms, suites, bathrooms, three-meal restaurant, new arrival lobby, meeting space, and we've added several ROI projects, including a lobby cafe and marketplace, a new indoor-outdoor bar, additional meeting space, and expansion of the pool deck and addition of cabanas. We estimate mid-teens cash-on-cash returns on the repositioning reinvestment, and we expect to complete it in December of 2023.
When we acquired The Phoenician, concurrent with the repositioning renovation, we processed a new master plan PUD, converting 27 holes of golf to a new 18-hole resort course and freeing up approximately 50 acres for development. We've sold approximately 40 acres for $90 million for residential development. When we repositioned the resort, we upsized the tennis complex, the fitness center, the spa, the pools, and amenity areas to support a fee-based membership program. We also retained sites for future development and expansion of the resort, including this two-acre site circled in red, which is adjacent to the Canyon Suites. Here we've designed eight luxury villas ranging from 2,500-3,500 sq ft that can be sold as 20 separate keys. It gives us a product category that we don't currently have, expanding the resort's offering.
I'll move pretty quickly through this because we all saw it yesterday when we were on the tour, but when we acquired The Four Seasons Resort here at Walt Disney World, we also acquired an adjacent 5-acre development parcel, which is fully entitled for 40 fee simple condominiums that we anticipate selling as Four Seasons branded condos. In addition to access to The Four Seasons world-class amenities, including the spa, pools, water park, and food and beverage outlets, these condos will be part of Disney's Golden Oak Private Residence club and can purchase golf membership at our Four Seasons Tranquilo Golf Club. We're in the process of finalizing agreements for licensing and management as well as sales and marketing, and we've targeted a marketing launch in the second quarter of 2024.
Municipal and environmental approvals are in process. We expect to break ground on the project in the fourth quarter of 2023 and complete construction in the fourth quarter of 2025. As we pointed out during the property tour, the five-acre development site is immediately north and west of the resort and its entry drive adjacent to the water park. Condo owners will enter the resort through The Four Seasons neighborhood where there's an existing gate. We anticipate the building architecture, I should say, is meant to really be a transition from the large scale Tuscan architecture of the hotel to more simpler contemporary architecture of the existing residences. The darker base colors relate more to the hotel, whereas the lighter and simpler details at the roof line relate more to the residences.
The condo tower is stairstepped to put most of the density nearest the hotel, where we have 8 stories over parking and 2 floors over parking in the corner closest to the residences. On the other end of the site, closest to the existing Four Seasons residences, we have 2-story villas planned. Here's some imagery of the south and east elevation. This is the west elevation. You'll notice architecturally there's some differences between some of these as we're working on finalizing details, however, they are subtle. This is an alternate of the west elevation and the pool complex, and another option for the entry. Turning to corporate responsibility, Host program was formalized in 2010 with our first-generation environmental goals and our first goals that were focused on social and employee community engagement.
The world of ESG has changed significantly since then, with increased interest by institutional investors who are focused on ESG matters and demanding greater disclosure and management of long-term environmental and social risks. I'm proud to share that we've been recognized as a sustainability leader for over a decade as a result of our transparency and our management of our environmental impacts. Our CR program is centered on creating long-term value through responsible investment, an overarching strategy which guides our focus across environmental, social, and governance topics. Over the years, we've achieved numerous industry firsts, reflecting our commitment to industry-leading ESG initiatives and integration of ESG into our business strategy. We're one of the first real estate companies and the first hospitality company to set an emissions target that's verified by the Science Based Targets initiative, and that's been verified since 2016.
We're the first lodging REIT to issue green bonds and a sustainability-linked credit facility to drive environmental initiatives such as increasing LEED certifications in our portfolio and increasing renewable energy consumption. A result of these initiatives, we've continued to lower our cost of capital. The social side, we're the first lodging REIT to issue social targets, including 2 diversity-related targets and 1 employee engagement target. Here to reveal more about our comprehensive efforts is Michael Chang. He's a leader in HOST's corporate responsibility program with a focus on environmental sustainability. Michael, the stage is yours.
Thank you, Mike. Good morning, everyone. As Mike mentioned, HOST has been recognized for over a decade for its leadership in sustainability. We've highlighted a few leading ESG recognitions demonstrating our success and our consistent focus on creating value and scaling impact through environmental and social initiatives. Over the next few slides, I'll cover the evolution of our corporate responsibility program and how we create value through responsible investment and how our environmental initiatives contribute to our long-term sustainability aspirations. HOST CR program has evolved significantly over the last 15 years while maintaining its holistic and pragmatic approach to ESG. In response to shareholder requests for ESG information, HOST formalized our CR program in 2010, and we added board oversight along with it, our first-generation greenhouse gas and energy goals shortly after.
Throughout the years, we have demonstrated our commitment to ESG with a deliberate expansion of our CR program, adding goals around material topics such as water, construction waste, and renewable energy, and new initiatives seeking to integrate sustainability in the products and materials for our renovation and redevelopment activities. From a performance perspective, we have consistently met our ESG goals ahead of schedule and are currently on track to meet our 3rd generation 2025 goals, including our verified science-based greenhouse gas target at the highest ambition level.
As our investors and stakeholders increasingly prioritize these issues, we also strengthen the governance of our program to further embed ESG into our business, forming our cross-functional CR advisory committee, engaging with financial reporting to put appropriate controls in place over our ESG data, and increasing oversight with our executive steering committee, including Mike and the heads of HR, legal, and IR. Not only were our efforts recognized by investors in leading frameworks, we also achieved many industry firsts, as Mike mentioned, from setting verified science-based targets, incorporating SASB non-financial metrics in our 10-K to launching a LEED program for existing hotels, enabling us to issue nearly $2 billion in green bonds and link sustainability pricing incentives to our $2.5 billion credit facility.
What began as a program focused on ESG disclosure 15 years ago has evolved into a key component of our business strategy while enabling access to lower cost of capital through sustainable financing. To continue to meet investor expectations and maintain leadership in a quickly evolving landscape, we launched our Aspirational 2050 vision last year to become a net positive company. This long-term holistic framework serves to guide our ESG strategy across environmental and social topics, material to our business beyond just net zero emissions. The five topic areas include net positive, where we aim to go beyond net zero impact across in our approach to energy emissions, water waste and biodiversity. Climate resiliency through sustainable certifications and reducing exposure to climate risk.
Responsible supply chain because our suppliers are essential partners to achieving our long-term CR goals, and maintaining our status as an employer of choice, because our people are what sets us apart, and we strive to build a diverse, inclusive, innovative, and engaging workplace for them to grow their careers. Lastly, social impact, which is our commitment to corporate citizenship and supporting our communities. For the remainder of our time, I'll focus on our current efforts towards becoming a net positive company and owning one of the most resilient portfolios. Making responsible investments that reduce environmental impacts while striving to generate best-in-class returns is a central theme to our CR program. Over the last five years, we've invested in over 600 sustainability projects with expected annual utility savings of roughly $20 million, representing an average of 15%-20% cash-on-cash returns.
The environmental impact of these investments are what drive our performance against our third generation 2025 environmental targets. Here we have a sustainability ROI case study on the cogeneration plant on the New York Marriott Marquis. A Cogen Plant, also known as a combined heat and power plant, is a system that generates both electricity and heat. Cogen is generally more efficient because you can use both the electricity and heat output, which results in cost savings and reduced emissions while increasing resiliency by reducing demand on the electric grid and creating power redundancy.
In addition to the transformational renovation, we're building a 4.2 megawatt Cogen Plant that will reduce the amount of electricity we purchase from the utility by nearly 75% through the electricity that we will generate and the electric consumption we will eliminate using the waste heat to reduce the use of existing central plant equipment. We're also installing a 1.1 megawatt-hour battery. That system will allow the hotel to avoid purchasing energy during peak periods of time. To better illustrate the scale of the project, we've built a 3-story structure on top of the existing boiler plant, housing custom system components that were built off-site and put together at the property, a formidable project in the middle of Manhattan.
This project is a great example of our investment strategy at work, and one that was made easier by the size and scale of our platform. Responsible investment in tech and innovation also plays a key role in achieving our net positive aspiration. For over a decade, we've had processes and systems in place to monitor and benchmark our greenhouse gas, energy, and water performance. This data is critical when modeling and funding sustainability ROI projects. We've had great success rolling out projects such as LED lighting, guest room energy management fixtures, and low flow guest room energy management systems and low flow plumbing fixtures across the portfolio, which often have cash-on-cash returns exceeding double digits. After more than a decade of making these types of investments, we've taken care of most of the low-hanging fruit using our proprietary ROI diagnostic tool.
As a result, we've been piloting emerging technologies such as AI and machine learning-assisted, smart building and ongoing commissioning platforms to further identify investment opportunities and maximize operational efficiencies. We also have pilots around robotics and next generation EV charging infrastructure to support the transition to electric vehicles. Our fortress balance sheet also has allowed Host to invest in prop tech and climate tech venture capital funds, which gives us early access to emerging technologies aimed at addressing climate change and making aging buildings more efficient and resilient.
Our commitment to responsible investment has also allowed us to lower our cost of capital on approximately $4.3 billion of sustainable financing, further demonstrating our ESG leadership and our pragmatic approach to the net positive and resiliency pillars of our 2050 vision. Since 2019, we have issued over $1.8 billion in green bonds, with nearly $1.5 billion already allocated to the acquisitions of LEED certified properties and projects that have achieved certification through our LEED program with existing hotels. This January, we closed on the refinancing of our $2.5 billion credit facility with no increase in pricing, linking two-way pricing incentives that contribute to our verified Science Based Targets and resiliency goals. Through our sustainability linked credit facility, we have established a goal of more than tripling the number of hotels with LEED certification in just over four years.
Historically, it's been especially challenging to LEED certify existing full service, upper upscale, luxury, convention type hotels due to their intensive energy and water use. However, we've developed a novel approach to LEED certifying our hotels following transformational renovations and built an approved pipeline of projects that we expect will exceed our 2027 goal with our current portfolio. Last fall, the JW Marriott, Washington, D.C., was the first full service hotel in the D.C. metro area to achieve LEED existing building certification at the gold level. This certification was made possible with an engaged hotel management team, and we have invested in various sustainability upgrades, including rooftop solar PV, estimated to save over $400,000 annual utility expense. We have also established the goal of more than tripling the use of renewable energy as a percentage of our electricity consumption by 2027.
Host has over a decade of experience implementing large scale rooftop solar, we expect to procure roughly 12% of electricity from renewable sources in 2022, and we'll have 11 hotels with on-site solar PV generating 10% to over 25% cash-on-cash returns. Scaling renewable energy is not easy. The financial viability of solar is still largely dependent on policy, rebates, and incentives. Even in Hawaii, where electricity rates are roughly 2 to 4 times of that in the mainland, state and federal incentives are critical to making these solar investments pencil. There are also physical limitations to scaling on-site solar. If we were to put solar on all available rooftop space across our portfolio, we would only generate under 20% of our electricity use.
We look to off-site solar products such as renewable energy credits to make significant progress, but this is a short-term solution until new technologies and products become viable. I'd like to switch our focus a little bit on climate resiliency. We make significant investments to harden our assets to prepare for extreme climate related events. We execute on projects such as replacements and restorations of exterior walls, doors and windows, roofs, grounds, and elevated relocated equipment to further increase the resilience of our hotels. On average, approximately 6% of our CapEx were related on, were on related projects over the past 6 years. We also hold annual extreme weather and climate resiliency webinars with hotel property teams to engage on preparedness expectations, best practices, and host resource that are available to restore business operations as soon as possible after an event.
This year, we began developing a formal climate risk program that will inform a more proactive and organized approach to managing these risks in our portfolio. Prior to Hurricane Ian, we had already planned and budgeted for a portfolio climate risk analysis across six climate perils including flood, wind, fire, heat, cold, and water stress. The results of this analysis, along with our internal historical experience and knowledge of our assets, in addition to the models from our insurance providers, will guide our strategy to better manage our exposure to climate risk in our portfolio. In this last case study, I'd like to highlight some of our resiliency measures we are implementing at The Ritz-Carlton Naples. We are using the Hurricane Ian recovery phase to design and implement new climate resiliency measures that are targeted to withstand a 500-year event.
These measures include constructing a new elevated central energy plant, elevating electrical equipment where feasible. This last picture shows the existing Gumbo Limbo beachfront restaurant. We're showing this picture that was taken maybe 2 weeks ago because the entire restaurant was raised in 2018, which prevented any major structural or catastrophic loss. The hotel also benefited from hurricane rated windows and doors and slight that were installed in 2013. The guest rooms remained largely intact without significant damage from water intrusion during Hurricane Ian because of these measures. These measures also demonstrate the effectiveness of our resilience investments, we are using our size and scale to implement them consistently across our portfolio to be guided by our new climate risk program.
I hope, you leave here today with a better understanding of our sustainability efforts, how they are integrated into our business strategy, and how they contribute to our long-term aspiration of becoming a net positive company by 2050. Our commitment to sustainability is not just a moral imperative. It is also a strategic investment that drives responsible growth, positions Host as a leader with one of the most iconic, irreplaceable, sustainable, and resilient portfolios in the lodging industry. Up next, now let's open the aperture to look at Host's overall in-investment strategy. Please welcome to the stage Nathan Tyrrell, Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer, and Raj Contractor, Senior Vice President of Investments.
Well, good afternoon. It is fantastic to see so many familiar faces. You know, for those of you who don't know my partner Raj well, he's our head of investments. He's been involved in all of the terrific transactions that you've been hearing about over the last decade or so. He grew up in New Orleans, went to Tulane University, and then to Stanford University. He has two awesome kids, and a wife who is even more impressive than he is. He's also a big New Orleans Saints fan.
Thanks for that, Nate. I think most of you, if not, all of you already know Nate. He's a lot older than I am, and he's been working at Host since what it was called Host Marriott, something like what, 18 years ago?
Yes, sir.
He leads investments in asset management, so both Michael Rock and I report to him. He's modest about this, but he's a double Harvard grad, and he played football there. He's a father of two great kids, including a chess genius. Unfortunately, he's a Tampa Bay Bucs fan. Don't hold that against him, he's a good guy nonetheless.
Great. Now that we've covered our introductions, what we thought we'd do is spend the next 30 minutes talking about the investments group, about our strategy, current investment trends that we're seeing in the market, our unique platform, our track record, and then maybe share some inside stories about some of our favorite deals. Look, we have a lot to celebrate. As you've heard, over the last 6 years, our capital allocation efforts have truly transformed our portfolio. We're really very well positioned to take advantage of any of the opportunities that may come out of the current macroeconomic environment.
In a different time and place with a drink in hand for everyone, ideally very good tequila for me, we might offer a toast in celebration and a thank you both to the Host investment team for all these accomplishments, but also to our investors for their support. However, since it is only 11:00 A.M. in the morning, we're just gonna stick with some coffee. Thank you to the Investments Team and thank you to our Investors.
Cheers.
First, let me clarify that when we thank our investments team, we are not just talking about the handful of people who report to Raj Contractor directly, because no deal happens at Host without contributions from a large and diverse group of people. Raj Contractor's investments group is responsible for leading the execution of our investment strategy, including the acquisition of new hotels, dispositions of existing hotels, and the reinvestment into our existing portfolio. They really serve as the quarterbacks of transactional activity, working in concert with all of the functions that you see here on this slide, or at Host, including asset management, design and construction, finance and accounting, enterprise analytics, legal, investor relations, and of course, last but not least, human resources who help us hire the best and the brightest.
We believe that this cross-functional collaboration, it's truly what differentiates Host in the lodging industry. It allows us to move quickly, armed with value-enhancing data to provide certainty to our counterparties, and to help us make good investment decisions. When you combine that with our investment-grade balance sheet, it's earned us the reputation as the buyer of choice for hotel real estate. Our investment strategy is focused on taking advantage of the current market, environment to raise the EBITDA growth profile of Host through acquisition, sales, and by reinvesting in our portfolio. In simple terms, we're investing in assets that we think will produce elevated EBITDA growth over the next 3 to 5 years. Sometimes that comes from well-timed purchases of hotels with unique attributes, and really good market dynamics.
Other times, it comes from the upside that we're able to unlock through our asset management capabilities, or through ROI opportunities.
Thanks for that overview, Nate. You've been around a while and seen some cycles in the hotel sector. How would you describe the current state of the market?
Let me start with the big picture. There are some clear long-term trends that suggest that right now is a great time to invest in hotels. On the demand side, people are clearly more interested in spending on travel and experiences than they are on goods. Hotels are capturing a much bigger share of consumers' wallets than they did 30 years ago. In addition, there are 38 million more people in the key demographics that spend the most on travel. That's in the 25-39 age range, and in the active retirement ages of 55-79.
So hold on. you know you're in that active retirement age bracket or almost there, don't you?
Thank you. I'm just gonna ignore that. Post-COVID, there's simply much more locational flexibility around work, which is driving longer hotel stays. Finally, as Jim mentioned, near-term supply growth of only around 1% is the lowest that we've seen in the industry in decades. It's a very favorable setup for hotel investment today. However, the current transaction market has clearly been chilled by tighter credit and higher borrowing costs. Raj, you're in the market talking to brokers and owners and touring assets, really every day. Can you take a minute and just describe what you're seeing on the ground in terms of deal activity?
Sure. As you mentioned, there's just not a whole lot trading right now. There's been some pockets of activity in Sun Belt markets like Tampa and Nashville, Phoenix, markets like that. These are well-capitalized buyers and assets with good cash flow, they can trade at cap rates high enough to cover the high debt costs. Sellers are able to get a good return on their basis from a few years ago. There's definitely liquidity for lodging. Debt is available for those types of deals and borrowers up to 65% LTV, but it's expensive, over SOFR plus 400 or north of 9%.
In the debt market, we've heard that big money center banks like Wells Fargo are back quoting on multiple deals, and the CMBS SASB market is open for hotel deals under $1 billion, especially in refinancings at similar rates. More broadly, although the current capital market dislocation has indeed slowed some things, it looks like owners will face some pressure to sell either because of end of fund life issues or because hotel owners are facing a wave of impending loan maturities, the largest in history coming due at any one time. Many of these loans were originated at peak values with substantially higher leverage, and many contained use of personal guarantees. Some owners possess little liquidity, and asset-level cash flows are insufficient for refinancing principal balances, forbearance, and property renovations.
Approximately 25% of CMBS loans maturing in 2023 and 2024 are full-service hotels. I believe, and I know you believe, that we have some real competitive advantages here. All these factors create opportunity for Host due to our access to capital and our exceptional credibility. There's competition. High-net-worth individuals and family offices have always competed for luxury hotels. Sovereign wealth funds who've been out in the market some time, appear to be gearing up for increased acquisitions and activity in the U.S. Some of the biggest PE firms have raised enormous amounts of capital and increased their allocations for lodging. Long story short, we won't be shooting fish in a barrel. Nate, a question for you, and I'm sure all these guys are thinking the same thing.
A good friend of mine who runs a hedge fund, looked recently at our IR presentation and asked, "Hey, everything says the same thing. What really differentiate you guys?
It's two simple words. It's our platform, which you've obviously heard a lot about this morning. There is no doubt in my mind that Host has the single best platform for investing in hotel real estate. It's something that we have been building for 20 years. It is truly unique, and it is not easily replicable. Our platform is a combination of exceptional access to capital, plus our ability to leverage data, plus an incredible group of people who are not only expert in what they do but love working together, and hopefully you've gotten a feel for that over the last 24 hours, and have done so for many years. Our culture, is just truly cross-functional. What I mean by this is, everyone at Host understands that we're in the same business, right?
We're investing in hotels. We're collaborating with our managers to create value at our properties. Everyone has a role to play. Treasury is constantly improving our access to capital. Design and construction is finding the most effective and impactful ways to reposition our assets. Enterprise analytics produces this data-driven analysis that our asset managers then use to drive property improvement. Our investments team sources opportunities and then works hand in hand with legal to negotiate transactions. Everyone understands the roles of their teammates, and they know really how to work together to accomplish our goals. Collaboration of expertise is infused in our daily processes. This was a result of a very deliberate change in both our culture and our organization. It's the magic that makes our platform unique.
The net result of all of that is that our platform allows us to see around corners, often solving problems before they even exist. There's a really simple example of this in action that we see on a regular basis. Rick Werber, who runs our engineering group and works for Mike, handles all of the engineering. He's the first tour that we schedule anytime we look at a new acquisition. His epic 4-hour back-of-the-house tours, where he crawls through spaces that normal people avoid, is really legendary because he's able to so quickly and effectively assess any CapEx risks and then pull together fantastic mitigation plans. Mike actually said to me the other day that he thinks Rick can actually smell when a pipe is going to leak.
I think he was joking, but even if he was, that's not far from the truth. Applied expertise like this is what enhances the probability that the investment decisions that we make are the right investment decisions, whether it's buying, selling, renovating, or developing to achieve the attractive cash-on-cash returns that you've heard about a little bit earlier. If you add to that our extensive relationships, which we've developed over decades, plus the credibility and the momentum that we've built through all of our recent transaction activity, it means that we really do see more opportunities than most hotel investors.
Sellers wanna sell to us, buyers wanna transact with us, this just increases the likelihood that we see an off-market deal or we win a bid, sometimes even if we're not the highest bidder. In short, our unique and irreplaceable platform generates more investment opportunities for us, it ensures that we make the best decisions when we see those opportunities. Raj, you know, given that our track record is really the best evidence of the strength of our platform, and it's what we think is probably the best predictor of what's to come in the future, maybe you can spend a few minutes kind of hitting the highlights.
Sure. I know Jim spoke about this earlier, and I hope people don't mind that I'm continuing to brag a little bit. Since 2018, we sold almost $5 billion of hotel assets at a 17 times EBITDA multiple, and acquired $3.5 billion at a 14 times EBITDA multiple. Think about that for a minute. We did more than $8.5 billion in transactions over the last five years. For those keeping track, that aggregate transaction value is greater than the total enterprise value of any of the other publicly traded lodging REITs. We bought relevant experiential assets in high growth markets and sold assets with significant capital requirements and low cash flows.
As Michael Rock likes to say, "We sold Chevys and we bought Maseratis." No offense to the Chevy owners out there. The point is that we sold older hotels with slower potential in need of outsized CapEx. We bought newer assets that we believe are well-positioned for accelerated EBITDA growth. Several with extraordinary pricing power. We did this accretively, selling at higher multiples than what we bought, as evidenced by the RevPAR, TRevPAR and EBITDA per key improvement Jim shared earlier. The result has been a material and dramatic transformation in our portfolio.
To your point about platform helping us make the right decisions, our recent acquisitions were acquired at a 13.1x EBITDA multiple. They're meaningfully ahead of our underwriting expectations, putting us well within our target stabilized EBITDA multiple range of 10x-12x, well ahead of schedule. These transactions played an integral part in delivering our strong operational performance over the past few quarters. Our portfolio is stronger than it's ever been. Question for you, sorry, I know you gotta.
Yeah, I'm gonna ask you.
Okay.
I wanna hear from you. You just went through the highlights. I wanna know so what's your favorite deal that you've worked on?
Good question. I love them all, but if I had to pick one, it would be The One, The One Hotel South Beach. We've been tracking this deal since Starwood and LeFrak renovated it, redeveloped it, and reopened it. This asset is clearly the best physical asset on South Beach, and a lot of you guys have seen it. Four pools, oversized rooms, great amenities. You know, we engaged with them early, but another group actually bid higher than we did. A lot of people don't know that.
But they weren't able to figure out the complexities of the condo structure there, and when it was clear the other group couldn't close, we were able to quickly step in, working with legal and CapEx to quickly assess any risks of the condo structure, and move quickly to negotiate transaction documents, and we closed the deal all cash in a very short period of time. We took some risks. In fact, a lot of you guys didn't like the deal, right? Around the street, having some concern that $610 million purchase price was a very high price per key. Heard it so many times. However, it was also 12.6x EBITDA multiple, which you guys didn't talk about.
Our analysis suggested there was an upside working with SH, the operator, who is relatively new but highly skilled and had a really good on-property team. For context, as Jim mentioned, the hot-hotel achieved an 8 times multiple based on 22 performance and produced over $80 million of EBITDA last year. These results have been nothing short of astounding. With our hotel manager, we've experimented with dynamic pricing, added a revenue-generating beach club, we've booked elite group business, we've got high-end transient guests there, and the hotel is a leader in sustainability. Here's a fun fact. Nate, you mentioned the good tequila earlier. A bottle of Clase Azul Reposado, which we could buy at a liquor store for $140, retails at $1,400 at The One Hotel South Beach, so 10x.
We sell a lot of them. When we talk about extraordinary pricing power, that's amazing.
Okay. now you get to ask me.
Now I get to ask you. what's your favorite deal?
By the way, for the record, Clase Azul Reposado is my favorite tequila.
Now I know what to get you for Christmas.
Yeah, that's right.
Although, I'm not gonna buy them at The One, unless you give me a raise.
Deal. Look, we've purchased so many terrific hotels that it really is difficult to choose. I mean, the Hotel Van Zandt in Austin has to be one of the coolest hotels in one of the hottest real estate markets in the country. We just hosted our board of directors meeting there and our annual shareholders meeting there last week. Baker's Cay in Key Largo has the best hook and cook experience, fishing experience, if that's your thing. However, the Don CeSar is probably my favorite for several reasons. First of all, it is my hometown, right? I grew up on that beach.
I went to bar mitzvahs and proms and weddings at the hotel. I remember what it was like back then, and truly have a real feeling of personal pride when I go back today and see all of the incredible improvements that we've made. Second, it is a perfect example of our team coming together to execute our business plan. Many of our investors may remember that our plan was to convert from lows to independent to use our asset management and revenue management capabilities to both reduce expenses and improve market share. After a few years, renovate the property to further accelerate our EBITDA growth. Well, the Don did about $15 and a half million of EBITDA in 2016, the year before that we bought it for $214 million.
I'm pleased to report that after doing all of the things we said we were going to do, the Don produced $35 million of EBITDA in 2022. After factoring in $29 million for renovations, our current basis is only 6.9x 2022 EBITDA. That's a home run in my hometown, which is why I love it.
That's awesome. It's an amazing hotel. How about your least favorite deal?
Selling is much more difficult than buying. It's, you know. For me, it was probably the sale of our European joint venture interest, which just was so long and complicated. It took well over a year. Plus, although it was clearly the right thing to do from a business perspective, it, I do miss having a reason to regularly visit the Hotel Arts in Barcelona and the Renaissance Plaza Vendôme in Paris.
Agree. I agree. Typically, the assets we sell have a lot of CapEx requirements, and they're also the ones we've owned for a very long time that has a very low tax basis. This requires impeccable execution to not only sell it creatively but also like-kind exchange creatively. I think what allows us to execute these types of deals and hit the timelines is teamwork and speed.
Just to build on that, I think a terrific example of impeccable execution was the sale of the Sheraton Boston. You know, for those of you who won't know this, our lead bidder on that deal is a group who we had previously transacted with. They actually flaked on the deal that they were supposed to go hard on their deposit. Raj, really because of his strong relationship with the second bidder, was able to get them reengaged within 24 hours, hard on their deposit within 30 days, close the deal within 60 days, all of that in time to make our like-kind exchange deadline. This was a complicated union asset with heavy CapEx investment and a business plan that included the change of use for one of the towers.
It was really excellent execution.
Thanks. Appreciate that.
You're welcome. All right, let's go back to acquisitions for a little bit and talk about off-market transactions. We see more than our fair share, and why do you think that's the case?
I think it's really what we just said. The teamwork and speed that we have, it creates a lot of certainty of closing. The Host platform we talked about all day today, and our ability to move fast. And being an all cash buyer is a big advantage, especially when, you know, talking about the larger deals, where the field's already thin to begin with. And over the past three years, we've closed five off-market deals, one of which Jim talked about earlier, the Hyatt Regency Austin, the first hotel to trade during the pandemic. It was a distressed sale. The owner needed a buyer he could trust to close quickly, move quickly, and take risk, before the world started to recover. So this is like early 2021.
I remember flying out to Austin before the COVID vaccine was available, and right before I'm leaving, Nate calls me and he's like, "Please don't get COVID." My wife, you know, got wind of that, and she followed up, and she's like, "Look, if you're gonna get COVID, you better close the deal.
She's a little tougher than I am.
She's tougher, yeah. You know, Hyatt vouched for us, obviously great relationship with them. Based on our strong relationship, and our performance on the three hotel portfolio we acquired for them in 2018, they were very helpful through the process. I'm happy to report I didn't get COVID, and as you know, we got the deal done.
It's probably worth mentioning how, you know, that deal then led to another deal, our acquisition of the Alila Ventana, my favorite beekeeping hotel, which Hyatt really bought to retain the management contract, and then because they didn't wanna hold on to the real estate, flipped to us at their purchase price plus transaction costs. It's such an extraordinary property in Big Sur. It ran 91% occupancy at an ADR of over $1,900 last year, producing more than $319,000 of EBITDA per key. Really a deal that worked out very, very well for both sides.
We talked a little bit about moving fast, and let me give you some examples. On the acquisitions front, mentioned Hyatt Regency Austin. Seller was in a foreclosure situation. We had to move really quickly in order to beat the timelines, and we did it. A similar hotel is The Laura Hotel, which was formerly the Alessandra in Houston. Similar situation, had to move really quickly. Jim mentioned Four Seasons Resort Jackson Hole. Had to close really quickly on that one. On the sales side, which is much more complex, I'll highlight, you know, in 21, we sold a 5-pack deal to Lone Star. Ground leases, 5 markets, different managers, complicated. We got that done in 60 days, and we were able to hit our like-kind exchange deadline for Four Seasons Orlando. That was impeccable execution.
You know, it's kind of remarkable that with all those asset sales, $5 billion worth of asset sales, which amounted to tax gains in the billions, that we're able to offset that, through the use of like-kind exchanges for virtually all of it, except for our international sales. Speaking of sales, why don't you take a minute and just tell everybody how we decide what to sell and when?
Sure. With everything that we've done to improve our portfolio, we now have a very limited number of non-core hotels, and their aggregate value is not very material to a company of our size. This gives us an opportunity to be purely opportunistic when it comes to sales. We tend to look at upcoming CapEx and growth prospects, and sometimes we're sellers if we have assets and multiple assets in the same city, and there's a buyer that's willing to pay a price that exceeds our internal hold value. The Camby hotel that we sold earlier this year is a good example of an opportunistic sale.
Right. Before we start to run short on time, tell people what it is that you do and what the team does when the market starts to slow down a little bit, like we saw over the last maybe, 4 or 5 months.
When things are slow, it's often the best time for future prospecting, planning, touring assets, staying in front of developers and owners, and developing the relationships that'll lead to opportunities down the road. The work we put in now will lead to great deals in the future, either at 6, 12, or more months from now. It's always been that way. We also spend time on other transactions: ground lease extensions, purchases, negotiating with our management companies, things like the Marriott Transformation Capital Program that Mike Lentz talked about, the F&B deal with Union Square Hospitality that Travis spoke about, things like that. And that deal's been a home run, as you mentioned. I believe I get the last question. What are you most excited about for the future?
That's a softball. That's easy. I am extremely excited about the opportunity to continue to work with, you know, the best group of people, the best platform in the industry to continue to grow the EBITDA in the Host portfolio. The environment is right. We're ready to do more of the kinds of deals that we've done recently. I'm also really super excited about our relationship with Noble Investment Group. They share many of the same values and the culture that you've learned a lot about. They are really, really good at creating value, especially in the lower chain scales. We're gonna do just terrific things together. You know, that brings us to the end of our chat.
We really do look forward to raising a glass of something that isn't coffee later today at our farewell reception. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you to our audience. Next up, we're gonna have our enterprise analytics team who really make our job a lot easier. They're gonna lift the curtain a bit on what is a true competitive advantage for Host. First, you're probably all dying for this. We're gonna take a 15-minute break. There are some treats prepared by the hotel right outside of this room. Let's take a break, and then we'll see you back here in 15 minutes.
The program will resume in one minute. Please remember to silence your devices.
We hope you enjoyed a brief break and the Florida themed snacks that the chef here at Orlando World Center prepared. You have heard us say that our people, platform, and portfolio are real differentiators here at Host. What's the secret sauce that gives us the edge? Let's find out from someone who knows how to turn data into a true competitive advantage. Please welcome to the stage our moderator, Deanne Brand, Senior Vice President, Strategy and Analytics, and Treasurer.
Thank you, Jaime, for that introduction, and good morning, everyone. Jaime mentioned secret sauce. That is exactly how I would describe this team. The big data, it's a big deal for us. Finding value in it, that's our superpower. I actually joined Host a little more than a year ago, so I'm rather new. In my former role at another full-service lodging REIT, and for those of you wondering or who may not know, rhymes with Starwood. I often perused and read Host investor presentation. I wondered to myself about this highly touted enterprise analytics team. Who were they? What did they do? How did they give Host a competitive advantage? Honestly, I didn't fully understand until I joined the team.
Based on my 20-ish years or so of experience in and around the industry, I can attest there is no group like this at any other lodging REIT. Today I'm here. Some of our exceptional members of the enterprise analytics team are here to help you understand better what we do and the value we bring. First, I'm gonna kinda take a step back a little bit and provide you a little bit of historical context of how the enterprise analytics team evolved. Prior to Jim taking over as CEO, the groups that comprise the team today, they sat in various functions today, so namely asset management, design and construction, and finance. It was a decentralized approach to analytics, and with that, it really came the risk of making decisions in a vacuum.
Jim and Sourav, they worked together, and they formed a centralized analytics platform with one single source of truth for all of our data. What this structure has done, it has broken down silos within the organization. It fosters a holistic, cohesive, and consistent approach to how we look at all of our capital allocation decisions. The EA Team, it was formed. I'm gonna move over here. All right. We actually, you've heard it from everyone else here. They've all mentioned everyone that you've heard from design and construction, asset management, investments. We are a support function for the entire organization. While these teams, they're out, they're focusing on our properties, our projects, and growth opportunities, we're able to dig in to the data.
We dig in at the property level, at the portfolio level, and what we do is we arm the business with information that drives change, and it better informs our capital allocation decisions. This is the team that you see up here. These are the various groups that make up the team today. In a few minutes, you're gonna hear from Mark Biondi, who leads our operations, strategy, and analytics team. Eric Jankowski, who heads up commercial strategy and revenue management. Finally, Karina Parker, who is the head of our feasibility and investment analysis group. I'm not gonna spend too much time talking to those areas of expertise. You'd also today be hearing from Brenna Holladay, and she heads up our strategic insight group, but she unfortunately couldn't join us today, but it's for a good reason.
She's on maternity leave, and if I know her, she is probably reading Goodnight Moon-dy's Analytics to her baby at bedtime. I am gonna take a moment to talk to you about her team. We often refer to Strategic Insight as our unofficial in-house economists. They focus on the bigger picture, the macroeconomic trends. They perform market research. They synthesize insights from multiple disciplines. They perform statistical and economical analysis, but they also work on special projects. You all are most likely familiar with our long-term market predictive analytical model, IBM Watson, and that is one of the special projects that team worked on. IBM Watson, that is the super-secret ingredient in our sauce. You know, it's that one ingredient that your grandmother, she always leaves it out, you know, when she's sharing her recipe, just to make sure hers is always best.
I still cannot make Grammy's ginger molasses cookies the same way she did, but I digress. Host has always been at the forefront of technology and analytics in the lodging industry, and IBM Watson is really just another one of the ways. While ChatGPT might be the pretty new thing right now, we have been working with AI, with Watson for years, and it's really changed our game. Why IBM Watson? First, we all know markets matter. Market choice and timing of when you enter and exit, it has a significant impact on your potential returns. There is a massive spread between the per-performance of top and bottom markets, and that outperformance and underperformance, it changes over time. What we found was that traditional industry forecasts, they were primarily based on historical performance, and that is not a reliable indicator of future performance.
We knew there was a better way, we sought our partnership with IBM. What Watson does for us, it forecasts RevPAR performance for 50 markets. It utilizes over 1 million structured data points. Really what brings it to the next level is it includes unstructured data points from over 3 million news articles through natural language processing. We are very proud to say that our proprietary tool, it has proven to be more accurate than traditional methods of forecasting, even after adjusting for post-COVID trends. By using Watson, we can make more informed acquisition, disposition, and even reinvestment and repositioning decisions for our portfolio. Finally, rounding out the team, we have the corporate finance group.
In addition to capital markets and treasury, you know, this team runs our five-year strategic corporate planning model, which we use to evaluate the financial impacts of various capital allocation decisions across the entire business. What's our purpose? What is the purpose of enterprise analytics? At the heart of it, the EA Team is focused on driving superior performance and profitability, as well as to illuminate key insights to facilitate capital allocation decisions. Our mantra: continuous improvement. We wanna be at the forefront of innovation, we jump at the chance to test out new property technologies with our brand partners. While we have varying disciplines and substantial expertise on our team, we work as a cross-functional team and work with everyone throughout the organization. We foster and build influential relationships internally, also with our strategic partners, like our managers.
As Jim said earlier, everything, and I think you've heard a couple times, everything we do here, it's all interrelated. Differentiators. What differentiates this team? Well, as I mentioned earlier, I'm the new kid on the block, and when I started this role and the word analytics appeared in my rather long title, so thank you, Jim and Jaime, I was bombarded on LinkedIn by data analytics providers. They reached out. They were promising easy, simple, one-stop-shop analytic tools. They promised they could give us all the answers in one easy tool, right? They were pushing that mythical easy button, if you will. I knew better, and having been here for more than a year, I can tell you there is more than a tool at work here.
What truly makes this team effective and differentiates us from our competitors, it comes down to 4 things, it's these 4 things you see here. First and foremost, you have heard it all morning and all day, it is our people. It is hands down the talent that we have on this team. The EA team, the leadership group that you see here, we all average 25 years plus of experience. On the operations, strategy, and analytics team, they have a combined 60 years of on-property experience. Number 2, our process. You guys have all heard the phrase, garbage in, garbage out, right? It comes down to data integrity. While we would love it if all of our managers could send us the exact same financial data in the exact same form across the board, that just doesn't happen.
What we do with that data is we map it, we normalize it, so that we can create a consistent level of comparability. It was apples to apples comparability. What this does is this allows us to perform this detailed benchmarking across various attributes. We can identify best-in-class performers, or we can look for areas of opportunity where we can work very closely with our asset management partners to find, you know, new ways to drive change. Number three, you have heard it's our size, it's our scale. Our size and our scale. It gives us the resources to form and have a best-in-class team like we have here. Of course, it's our extensive database, right? All of our data from properties we've owned historically and the properties that we have now.
It really allows us to benchmark across brands, managers, markets, and many other attributes. This really helps our team identify discrete, actionable areas of opportunity that lead to improved results and helps our team identify operational upside opportunities even when looking at potential acquisitions. Last, it comes down to our technology, right? It's our proprietary systems, our superior BI tools, and our best-in-class partners like IBM Watson. All right, one last slide before we get into the panel discussion. I think this is a great slide that just kind of illustrates how we collectively work together as a team. As you think about an acquisition, right? There's a few questions you wanna ask yourself. Is it the right asset and the right market? That's where strategic insight, they're coming in, they're evaluating the fit of a proposed transaction by utilizing our pre-predictive analytics model, right?
Is it the right price? Feasibility. Our in-house valuation experts. They're underwriting the opportunity, and they're collaborating with operations, strategy, and analytics to identify revenue or margin opportunities, as well as to benchmark capital spending, right? Finally, is it the right time? This opportunity, corporate finance comes in, and they run it through our five-year strategic model. We're taking that opportunity and weighing it against other opportunities, such as other potential acquisitions, ROI, share repurchases, dividends, et cetera, right? Bringing it all together with the right team, the data, and the insights. Host is in the position to make the best and most informed decisions. All right. Now you guys have a better understanding of the team. It's time that we bring the chefs of our sauce up on the stage. Please welcome Mark Biondi. He is our analytical genius who is smooth like butter.
Eric Jankowski, he is the revenue guru and is always cooking up ways to drive top line. Karina Parker, the queen of valuation with a nose for opportunity like no other. All right. All right, guys. Now that we're settled, I'd love for each of you guys to provide, you know, a brief introduction to the audience and discuss, you know, your various disciplines and what you guys do at Host. I'll start with you, Mark.
Great. Thanks, Deanne. You know, it's a real pleasure to be here, speaking with you all today about what we do every day, which is to drive value for Host. Personally, this week actually marks my seventeenth anniversary with Host. That's actually really easy for me to remember 'cause it's exactly one year younger than my relationship with my wife. We, you know, we like to joke about the different milestones in our relationship. You know, it's funny to think that next year, my relationship and my career will be old enough to vote. You know, before joining Host, I actually spent five years with Marriott doing on-property finance and accounting. In fact, the first hotel I actually worked at was a Host-owned property.
I guess you could say my relationship with Host actually goes back to the beginning of my career in the industry.
That property level experience was really invaluable. You know, it allowed me to get an understanding of the business from the ground up, to understand the interplay of the financial and operational metrics that make the business function, and also the complexities that really face management teams at the hotel on a daily basis. You know, that property level experience really informed my career as I transitioned into analytical roles at Host, and it continues to influence how I lead the team today. You know, as the title implies, operations analytics, it really focuses on all aspects of our Host operations. Which really boils down to kinda 3 key areas. It's how do we maximize the revenue at our properties? How do we drive profitability? How do we optimize the capital reinvestment in our portfolio?
Now, our team has specialists in each of these three areas. For example, Eric's gonna talk a little more detail about some of the specifics of revenue and commercial strategy. When I think about the overall approach for my team, it's really. The word that comes to mind is holistic. You know, we're constantly thinking about ways to not just drive revenue, but profitable revenue, right? We're thinking about how do we time our renovations at the properties to minimize potential business disruption. We're looking for ways to, let's say, improve productivity in ways that are transparent to the guest experience. Because at the end of the day, nothing in the operations world exists in a vacuum, right?
everything we do has an impact throughout the operation, and so that's why having a cross-functional team with a wide base of experience really allows Host to drive performance.
Thanks, Mark. Eric?
Thanks, Deanne. It's good morning, everyone. I have the pleasure of leading the commercial strategy function or revenue management group at Host, where I've worked for over 19 years. I really had the opportunity to start the revenue management group way back when after my time with Marriott. We touch anything top line related, right? Sales, marketing, distribution, e-commerce, and of course, revenue optimization. Like Mark and many others, I worked at Marriott for 14 years before I joined Host. I started as a pool attendant right out of college, and worked in a lot of different operations roles, so laundry, housekeeping, front office, and all did that before Host. I've been in the industry for about 33 years.
Having this property, above property experience for me, it's really allowed me to maintain and build relationships with our hotel teams and our brand partners. I really think that just leads to the collaboration between the teams, the acceptance of best practices, and really, as Michael said earlier, just the higher level of influence. For me, we use a two-prong approach, really to drive our results. We partner with our asset management team, and that's first and foremost. It's really to drive top-line results at the properties. We have the best operators in the business. We work with them really to refine their sales strategies. We benchmark against other Host properties, just at the scale and the breadth of our data.
It's really best practices to providing those to hotels to drive maximize revenue, profitability. Second, we work with the brands and we do this a lot. Just really ensure there's focus on our hotels at the highest levels. Take Marriott, and a lot of the people there I've worked with for over 20 years, we kinda grew up together in the business. If there's an issue, an idea, a problem, something, it's really great for me. I just text somebody and for me, it's great 'cause I get a response pretty much instantly. It's these relationships that, you know, just help drive our awareness, marketing and sales and our performance at our properties. Another thing that we do is we regularly engage with vendors, right?
You saw the video earlier, that's one of our partners that we engage with just to drive new technology and really just to give us an edge. Being part of the operations strategy team, we really just drive top-line revenues, and it's really profitable revenues. Thank you.
Thanks, Eric. Karina.
Thanks, Deanne. Good morning, everyone. I'm fortunate to have spent the last 11 years at Host, all in feasibility. Before that, I worked for a real estate consulting firm focusing strictly on hotels and market feasibility studies, valuation and appraisals. Through and through, I am a feasibility person, and if you're familiar with feasibility, you have to be passionate about it. A couple of you actually asked me last night, what does feasibility and investment analysis do at Host? I'll share with everyone my answer, and Jim talked about it. I think today he called me Switzerland. The feasibility team is Host's internal evaluation consulting group, whose objective is to perform underwriting and valuation activities to enable Host to make informed decisions with respect to rational and disciplined allocation of capital.
In a nutshell, the bulk of feasibility's work is focused on potential acquisitions, dispositions, major repositionings, development opportunities, and value-enhancing ROI projects. We look at all markets and assets through the same feasibility lens and bringing consistency to our underwriting. Just to give you an idea, in the first five months of this year, our team has produced approximately 50 performas and reviewed approximately 15 value-enhancing ROI opportunities.
What makes feasibility unique here at Host, it sits outside of our investment team and operates independently. This independence is key to making our analysis objective and fair. Second, our size, scale, and resources, whether it's tapping into our deep benchmarking data, consulting with Eric's revenue management team on mix strategy for our hotel or delving into IBM Watson rankings and RevPAR projections with strategic insight. These are the unique resources that we have to help support our thoughtful and detailed and data-driven underwriting.
Thanks, Karina. All right, now you guys have a better sense of the full team and what we all do. It's time to get into the meat of the panel. Mark, I'm gonna start with you. There's been a lot of focus on the operating model over the past couple of years. How has it evolved, and where do you see it going?
Well, that's a great question. You know, let's take a step back for a moment, though, and, you know, appreciate the unique position our industry found itself in in 2020. You know, hotels don't normally close. I remember at the time GMs were joking that nobody knew how to lock the front door of a hotel, right? It's just not something that happens. While that was an unbelievably challenging time, and certainly one we never wanna experience again, I think we all recognize the opportunity it provided to reassess every aspect of operations and truly cut zero-based like we never had before. For our part at Host, we, you know, we started by asking some key questions, right? What services drive value? what do guests truly care about?
You know, sometimes what did we only think they cared about? What was maybe outmoded or relevant or better enabled by technology? I'm proud to say, with our relentless engagement in partnership with the asset management team at the property regional brand level, we really made some incredible progress and improvements to the operating model. You know, some of the key areas are, you know, flatter leadership organizations with more multi-skilled associates at the property level, reduced above property and allocated costs from the brands and more flexible and streamlined brand standards. You know, hundreds of these were either eliminated or modified to be more relevant to today. All right. That's where we've been. Obviously, the big question is: Where are we going?
What I like to say is, I think we're in the next phase of the hotel operating model evolution. In part of that, my team is kind of focused on 2 key areas. First and foremost, right, it's ensuring that all the learnings and changes over the last few years are pulled through and truly made a permanent part of the operating model going forward. 2022 was a bit of a challenging year. You know, we had Omicron at the beginning of the year, then business rebounded, I think, faster than anyone anticipated. Then properties faced some challenges getting staffed up. It was a little hard to kinda quantitatively assess how much of the operating model evolution had really taken hold last year.
Now that operations are much more stabilized, you know, we're focused on ensuring that our hotels never return to the mindset of, you know, that's how we've always done things, right? That's the last thing we want. With that, you know, we've created various tools and analytical reports that our asset management team can leverage to proactively identify any potential cost creep at the hotel level. You know, we're providing independent analysis for any proposed added positions or costs to make sure that anything that's coming back into the model is truly driving an ROI. You know, recently we presented some analysis on productivity trends to our brand partners to show how it was trending in different hotel types relative to where hotels were actually forecasting the future.
It really had the desired impact because both of our major operating partners are doing kind of a full overhaul of their labor management system standards this summer based on current best-in-class performers. All right. That really speaks to the second part of our focus is pushing the brands, making them embrace the new, don't assume we know what the guests want, right? The perfect example of this that I love to cite is, you know, large format bathroom amenities in hotels. You know, initially there was near universal agreement across the major brands that guests would hate that change. There was, you know, slow, grudging acknowledgment that maybe it could work in economy and mid-scale, but never full-service hotels.
Then a few years later, it's being rolled out in full-service hotels, but oh, can't do it in luxury, right? Now here we sit a couple years later, it's being rolled out at luxury hotels, and guess what? Along the way, there's hardly been any complaints. It's certainly not a guest revolt that, you know, was expected. Here we're sitting with reduced waste, lower operating costs, better productivity from this change, you know. That's what we're really focused on in the future, is continuing to push our brands and management companies to look for innovative solutions that address guest needs and desires based on the current operating environment.
That's great. You, you mentioned testing new ideas. Speaking of testing new ideas and working alongside our brand partners, Eric, I know you spend a lot of time with our own property teams too, in conjunction with Asset Management. You know, kinda similar on the operations side, but, you know, how has revenue strategy changed and evolved kinda post-COVID, and how do we think about it now?
Yeah. That's really a great question. During the pandemic, we saw an opportunity to price rooms differently. Hotels can really operate off a new playbook. We let the property teams know in conjunction with the asset managers, right? That maintain pricing. Don't discount to drive demand, which I think as everyone knows here, just never works.
Right? properties priced the demand that was coming in, and they really kept inching up rates. Michael Rock always says right, "We don't set the prices, the customers do. We really just offer it." Revenue managers, I think, took that concept, they ran with it, and today, as you know, leisure rates are well above 2019 levels. our job was really to work with the asset managers, the property teams, the regionals, the brands, just really ensure those rates were maintained and that they're sticky, right? Even on the group side, I think sales managers have really gotten it. The brands implemented tools to really show how the group prices that they're offering these meeting planners that they needed to be well above inflationary levels.
Next big thing really for me that came out of this pandemic was just more of a total revenue management approach to the properties. I think it was mentioned before a little bit, ancillary revenue, right? I really think that's the opportunity that every hotel has. Example, property teams are pricing cabanas just like hotel rooms, right? They talk about the demand that's coming in for cabanas. They talk about pace, day of week pricing, even time of day. They're really doing this in their sales strategy meetings that they're having as a collective hotel team weekly, really just to kind of find that opportunity to price it right and to make sure the customers that want these experiences, they all want them, and they're paying for them.
I think someone said, you know, it's $1,000 for some of these cabanas, and it's actually amazing. We're really working with the hotel teams and the brands really to drive this ancillary and additional revenue stream. Really lastly, I'd be remiss if I didn't just mention how creative our properties have been in their marketing with this MTCP and renovation program. It's been just so amazing, especially since leisure demand has driven this recovery. They've taken just great lifestyle pictures, videos that highlight these properties and the extensive work that was done. We're actually working on a series of drone shots with these mini drones that really just provide a first-person view for the customer to experience these properties. It's really this all done just to keep rates sticky, right?
How do you maintain rates and keep them sticky? That's our largest focus.
I know we all like hearing pricing is sticky.
Yeah.
Speaking of sticky, Karina, that kind of reminds me of the current environment we're in right now with inflation and sticky inflation. You know, we have sticky inflation, rising interest rates. You know, how is that impacting how we're looking at underwriting?
Deanne, you mentioned a lot of moving parts. All of which are pieces of our underwriting puzzle and hit on ways our underwriting is evolving. Let's start with inflation. We account for elevated inflation in the near term, both on the expense and the revenue sides. Not to get too detailed, I am a feasibility person, though. We are looking at things like metro-specific CPI, as many new minimum wage ordinances are now tied to local CPI, and how that will impact the bottom line of a hotel. That's how inflation is impacting our cash flow analysis. That also impacts our valuation methodology with regard to how we think about cap and discount rates and the spread between them. Higher sustained inflation results in larger spread, which in turn impacts value.
In our post-COVID world, we are incorporating the evolution of operating model, as we talked about, and the philosophy that focuses more on RevPAR and TRevPAR. One big learning coming out of COVID is that our hotels can be more profitable at lower occupancy levels and higher ADRs. This has really turned the old heads in beds philosophy many of us learned completely upside down. On interest rates, rising interest rates have elevated our return thresholds, not a surprise, but has also impacted our outlook on supply, as financing is more challenging. We've seen a slowdown in the supply pipeline, which helps our hotels and contributes to stronger RevPAR growth. We analyze the market and the hotel, we take this all into consideration.
We're seeing rising rates coupled with rising construction costs, which have a disproportionate negative impact on other owners who haven't had the capacity to reinvest since COVID. You've heard before, Host has spent $1.5 billion, reinvesting and repositioning 26 assets, partially through MTCP or Marriott Transformational Capital Program. We believe this will have a much longer-term impact given the significant reinvestments many other owners need to make in their properties. This will give our assets more room to run, and Host will benefit from a refreshed portfolio.
You guys have all heard it, right? We're already seeing it in the numbers. That, that's actually a great segue, I think. Eric, Karina has talked about our Marriott Transformational Capital Program. You know, how do you think about reintroducing our transformed Marriott hotels and other renovated hotels for that matter, you know, back out to the market? You know, were there any challenges that you faced during COVID that you think stick around?
Yeah. Deanne, let me just say first it's been so much fun kinda just working with our asset managers and property teams, our brand partners, really just to feature this extensive work that was done at each of these transformed hotels. Really, the asset managers and I met with each of the properties. We really brainstormed ideas for relaunching these hotels and in a way that highlighted the upgrades and improvements that were made during the renovation process. We really made sure the properties were enhancing their online presence, including social media and that storytelling that Joe mentioned earlier. Some instances, they even showed captivating clips of
Interviews with designers, right? Whoever thought a designer could help the story. It's really just talk about what inspired them. They collaborate with travel bloggers, with influencers, really just how do you generate more buzz? How do you get these moments? Then just during the pandemic, we really knew that virtual site tours or virtual tours would be a really big thing. Sales managers were walking around the hotels, using FaceTime on their iPhones to show off the properties, right, and the work to meeting planners. We partnered with a company, Visiting Media, to offer a platform to hotels and really enable this selling virtually.
Some of the work that we've done that's made into that video, sales managers can really just focus on the fantastic product and the value proposition that these hotels have. They have 360 videos. They have 3D renderings of public space, of meeting space, of guest rooms. Our brand partners, right? They really played such a huge role in relaunching these hotels 'cause we've got them featured on brand.com, on their website in prominent places, securing social media influencers that they never would have been able to do on their own. Even one property, the brand put for us after a call to someone at the senior at the brand level, this large customer event, right? At the hotel.
It really showcased the asset, all the work that we did. The even better thing was just that it resulted in some future group business for this hotel. It was fantastic.
That's awesome. It's so great to hear how creative we've been and we continue to be, and how we've evolved our sales strategy. Mark, and, you know, you talked about the next phase of the operating model, and I know this is something you're very passionate about. Can you talk to all of us about some technologies that might get us there?
Well, I'm so glad you brought up technology, Deanne, 'cause, look, I do think that this is one of the biggest opportunities for us in the next phase of the operating model evolution: create more operational work at the hotel level. Now, you know, the major brands are addressing some of this with overhauls of their core systems, you know, and Host from our perspective and with our scale, we've tried to influence them to take a more off-the-shelf approach with open integrations that'll make it a lot easier to bolt on new technologies in the future as things arise. You know, separately from that, you know, Host is also we're out there looking for operational technology for the future.
You know, we're focused on sourcing, vetting solutions, you know, bringing those forward to our brand partners and saying, "Hey, we wanna test this at our hotels." Right? We wanna be ahead of the curve. You know, we have cross-functional technology task forces with both Marriott and Hyatt, where we meet on a quarterly basis to talk about the various tech initiatives we have going and the pilots and testing we're doing. As I think about the, you know, the overall philosophy for operational tech, it's really that it should address one, but ideally three key pillars, right? It should be able to drive incremental revenue, it should improve operational efficiency, or it should enhance the guest and associate experience.
A perfect example of this that touches on all three, and it's actually something Kerry brought up earlier, is AI-enabled phone call handling technology. You know, we began piloting this over 2 years ago, now have it live at over 12 hotels, including here at the Orlando World Center Marriott. I hope some of you noticed, you know, we placed a card in your welcome packet encouraging you to give a call and play around with the system and get to experience it. And if you did, you would've experienced a natural voice that recognizes intent and can answer a variety of common questions and route calls appropriately. It's really a huge step forward from the traditional, you know, press 1 for this, press 2 for that, right?
It's much more interactive. We found that this can reduce the number of calls that need to be answered by an operator by up to 70%. The operational efficiency play is clear. From a guest standpoint, you know, their experience is improved by never having to be put on hold to get a simple question answered. You might say, "Well, where does the revenue play here?" Well, always Eric's first question. Right? You know, this may not seem quite as direct, but by removing these kind of transactional tasks from the associate's day, it frees them up to focus on the more value add interactions with guests and upsell all the great experiences that our hotels have to offer.
Then in turn, by removing those transactional tasks, it allows for the creation of more elevated positions that have more responsibility, and, you know, that should really improve the ability to attract and retain talent, reduce turnover, and enable more associates to build a career in hospitality. You can see it's clearly something I'm passionate about, as Deanne said, I'd love to talk about some of our other tech initiatives, but I'll cut myself off for the moment.
No, I agree with you 100%. I think it's a huge opportunity for the industry, for Host, and it really takes an owner like us that's willing to test out new technologies and, you know, really be at the forefront of innovation. Speaking of, you know, technology and resources, Karina, I'm gonna kinda come back to you.
You know, what internal resources or technologies do you have at your disposal here at Host that maybe you haven't in former prior roles or, you know, what do you have at your disposal?
I touched on this a little bit earlier, it's 1 of the reasons I love my job at Host. Our size and scale gives us a deep pool of data and resources to support our underwriting. When I was in consulting, I thought we had good data, there's just no comparison. What's exceptional about our data is the knowledge that surrounds it. Let's say I'm benchmarking. I'm working on analysis. I'll pull some comparable data, to the casual observer, you'll see a bunch of numbers and a list of hotels. You might just think I take an average of it for benchmarking purposes. To the team, the data isn't just numbers on a page. Each data tells a story.
By collaborating with operations analytics, asset management teams, we can accurately understand these stories and behind the data and use it to pinpoint our underwriting. It's really the combination of breadth of knowledge and depth of data that really gives our secret sauce a kick. To kick it up a notch, we have the benefit of IBM Watson. It's the best market RevPAR forecasting tool I've used in my 16 years doing feasibility. It gives us a much better sense of market RevPAR growth, and why there is that, you know, the reason for that RevPAR growth and shapes how we think about capital allocation. As we're looking at different investment opportunities in different markets, we can use Watson to compare RevPAR growth and prioritize where we should allocate capital.
In keeping with our consistent approach, Watson brings that all together at a market level.
I'm really glad that you brought up Watson again. As you can tell, I know we're very proud of Watson, and we talked a lot about this tool. I don't know about you all, but I'm actually a visual learner. Today, we'd love to show you a demo of the dashboard. What we're gonna show you here is what, like, all of our associates see when they go in to do research in a particular market. With that, we'll pull up the demo.
On the homepage, the markets are ranked by their projected annual RevPAR growth from 2019 to 2026. Depending on the user's goals, they can filter similar markets by clicking on this dropdown or rank the markets by other variables, which can be done by clicking on any of the other columns. For each market, in addition to the ranking information, you see the top impactful variables that are driving the projections up or down. Before we dive into a market example, I'll show you how users can contextualize these variables by looking at the chart at the bottom of this page. Green variables are positive for RevPAR outlook and red variables are negative. The closer a variable is to the center of the spiral, the more weight it has on the model.
Choosing a market to look at, first, you see the same high-level ranking and confidence information from the homepage, the RevPAR prediction for the market, and the historical RevPAR performance compared to the US below it. All of the model's variables fall into one of these buckets, which are aggregated on the far right to see directionally if the category's influence is neutral, favorable, or unfavorable. In this market, the user may want to look into the socioeconomic and supply variables since those buckets are unfavorable. They can do this by scrolling down to see each top impactful variable that was listed on the homepage graphed against their respective benchmarks. These graphs help contextualize why variables are having notable impacts on performance. The hotel supply pipeline tool is very powerful because it shows the pipeline dynamically in relation to Host properties.
For example, we can filter to see Host's existing properties and only what's in construction, then can take it a step further to filter to only see upper upscale and luxury properties since that's more relevant to our portfolio. Finally, we have our word clouds. The first identifies the most common buzzwords in articles about a market, and the second does the same thing, only utilizing travel-related articles. This is one of the ways we visualize insights gathered from the natural language processing that occurs. There are a few more capabilities of the dashboard we have hidden to keep proprietary, but this provides a high-level look at how we leverage IBM Watson to inform decision-making at Host. Thank you.
By the way, the voice you heard is not the man behind the curtain, but he's actually one of our esteemed strategic insight members of the team. I know we could probably spend an entire session going over IBM Watson, but since we're almost out of time, I'm just gonna pose one last question to the panel, and I'm stealing it from Raj. You know, what are each of you most excited about for the future? Mark?
I guess I can't miss out the opportunity to talk a little more about technology. I think, you know, mobile check-in and mobile key is a massive opportunity for the future of the operating model. All the brands have this to some degree, you know, unfortunately, to date, the experience has been somewhat lacking and the utilization remains too low. What I'm really excited for is some of the innovations in that space to become more mature, make it much easier for guests to check in on their phone. I mean, can you imagine, you know, going to the airport and having to stand in line just to check in and get a ticket for your flight? I mean, that's 20 or 20-plus years now, we're all used to using mobile technology to enable that.
I'm really excited to see, again, the front desk of the future emerge, and again, taking away those transactional tasks to allow the associates to focus on high-touch service and upselling.
Great. Eric?
For me, it's always just pricing top-line revenue opportunities, right? Just always. This is really hard for me. There's a lot to get around behind here. First, it's really just how thoughtful our properties and our asset managers have been about pricing. Really ensuring rates are maintained, they're sticky, and they're continuing to grow. It's really also for me the just this continued focus on ancillary revenue streams, right? I just think this is really the opportunity for the future and for revenue management teams just to kind of get in there and revenue manage all areas of the hotel: spa, golf, even restaurants, right? Then recreation. For me, that's just how do we continue to look for additional revenue streams.
I love it. Karina?
I'll keep this short, there's a lot to be excited about. I'll say big picture is about extracting value at our hotels, including the implementation of opportunities we've identified in our recent acquisitions. With regard to MTCP projects, I'm excited about the long-term benefits of the reinvestment. I think these hotels have a lot of upside, especially with other owners who may be at a capital disadvantage. Mike talked about a lot of the big projects happening. The two that I'm really excited about that he mentioned all relate to monetizing dirt. It's the development of the villas at The Venetian and the expansion of The Ritz-Carlton Naples Beach and the renovation there. Both projects optimize the highest and best use of the underlying land. I'm pretty excited about those.
I love it. You guys have all heard it. Finding upside, even in the dirt, is what Host does really well, right? Thank you, Karina, Eric, and Mark for letting your boss put you in the hot seat, and for showcasing the expertise that this team has, right? This collective group really is a true differentiator, and I hope you all now have a better understanding of why. Now next up, we're gonna tap into the expertise of our executive team. Let's welcome Jaime back to the stage. She's gonna moderate our question-and-answer session. Thanks, everyone. Thank you, Deanne and team, for an inside look at what makes Host so uniquely positioned to help perform. Throughout the session, that has been our goal: to show you what really differentiates Host Hotels & Resorts.
Now it's time to dig in even deeper with the people who drive us forward. You've heard from Jim, Sourav, Nate, and Mike. I'd also like to welcome the other members of our leadership team: Mary L. Swan, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, and Julie Aslaksen, Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary. Come on up, guys. As a reminder, you're welcome to submit a question at any point during the Q&A session. For those of you in the room, please text the number on your tables. For those of you joining us on the live stream, you may submit a question by clicking on the gold Ask button at the bottom left corner of your screen.
Where do I sit?
You're in the middle.
Before we get started on the Q&A, I'd just like to say that Mary and I are really excited to be a part of the conversation today. If you haven't been paying attention, we've talked about our platform and our portfolio, and I think most importantly, our people. You've heard people refer to our speed and our agility. Nate talked about the collaboration of expertise that is infused in our daily processes. He said it is the magic that makes our platform unique, which actually, as I say it out loud, Nate is really eloquent. Well said. He's right. I just wanna take a minute and just recognize that you've heard from a great group of experts today, but we have a larger employee base that truly are experts in their respective fields.
They are passionate about the business, and they're passionate about our success, and we think that's what really makes us so successful. One thing that I sort of noticed today is there was no legal panel or HR panel, which Jaime Marcus, we're not gonna take personally. It's a little surprising 'cause I think everybody loves to hear.
I know you guys wanted to hear from legal.
Everyone wants to hear from the lawyers, right?
We hear from the lawyers enough every day.
What?
We hear from the lawyers enough every day.
Everybody loves a good HR and legal talk, although I feel like everyone was running from us, you know, whenever we talk. Thank you, Julie. You're absolutely right. We have best-in-class talent that you've just seen just a snapshot showcased today, whether it's our asset management team, our enterprise analytics, accounting, legal, HR, and of course, investor relations. Everyone has a clear, united purpose, and that's what makes us special.
I would wholeheartedly agree. We are all working together to streamline every deal, accelerate every opportunity, overcome every challenge. That is what is special about Host, and for you Star Wars and Mandalorian fans, that is the Host way.
Thank you all. That is really great perspective. Let's start with you, Mari. We heard a lot about our corporate responsibility efforts on the sustainability front earlier today. Can you talk a little bit about how we're thinking about social aspects of our 2050 vision?
Sure. This is actually a really exciting topic for us, and I wanna say first we're gonna start off continuing to build on the success that we've already seen. Over 55% of our workforce is female, 38% of our workforce identifies as ethnically diverse, and as you can see, we believe our people is what sets us apart, and it's truly our differentiator. As an employer of choice going forward, we aim on leading our industry on integrating diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in all aspects of our culture, systems, and processes. We know that fostering an engaging workplace for our employees to build and grow their careers is what's really will make a difference. We will also continue to be a catalyst for positive impact, and I really wanna emphasize impact in our industry and our communities, setting the example of impactful corporate citizenship.
Host has always been committed to supporting the communities in which we work and own assets, and our long-standing commitment to our corporate citizenship and invest in our communities will remain steadfast. We will deepen and expand our reach in key cause areas, and we will continue to inspire our employees to amplify their individual impact.
Thank you, Mari. Very helpful. We've talked about the E and the S in Host's ESG program, but Host has also been recognized for its leading governance practices. Julie, how do we think about board refreshment, experience, and diversity?
It's a great question, and I love to talk about corporate governance and the Host board because I think it's one of our strengths. Let me take each of those separately, and I'll walk through them. Refreshment. The board has a deliberate, ongoing refreshment process, and it's evidenced by the fact that we've added four new independent directors since 2017. Really the approach is to strike a balance, right? You want fresh perspectives and new directors from different industries to come on and lend their insights. You also really have great value in your long-tenured directors who have that historical perspective, who have been through the cycles of the lodging industry. I think if you look at the Host board composition, there's a great balance from a tenure perspective. Experience, pretty straightforward.
You want directors who have diverse backgrounds, different skills, different areas of expertise, different perspectives. I think again, if you look at the skills matrix that we disclose, we spend a lot of time with that with our board. We really do have a broad base of skills and expertise on the board. Then diversity. Diversity is something the board's been focused on the last few years. They really wanna focus on both enhancing the gender and the racial and ethnic diversity. Again, if you look at the numbers, three of our last four directors have brought either gender or racial diversity to the board, and they see the value in that. I mean, listen, diverse perspectives, diverse backgrounds, that really helps them to oversee the strategy that you've heard so much about today.
I think I'd just say sort of lastly, and it's really fresh of mind because we just came off of a board meeting last week, as you heard, you need directors who are engaged, who are thoughtful, and who bring a wealth of experience to the board and who ask the tough questions. We can assure you we absolutely have that.
Thank you, Julie. That was really helpful. Jim, one of the things that we depend on you for is deeper insight into the complexities that often define our business and Host's approach. I saved some of the hardball questions for you.
Of course you did.
As we heard this morning, Host has dramatically transformed its portfolio over the past six years. Why hasn't there been multiple expansion, and why do we deserve it? You're all thinking it, so we might as well ask it.
Well, you know, that's a question that we collectively talk about a lot as a management team, not only at this level, but throughout the organization. When I became CEO in 2017, rightfully so, there were a lot of questions from investors, "Well, what's gonna be different at Host?" I've been with the company 27 years now. At that point in time, I was a 20-year veteran, and I had been CIO, and I had done a lot of the acquisitions, pretty much all the acquisitions and dispositions that we did over that period of time. The question of what's gonna be different, I think, has played out over the last 6 years. The transformation of the portfolio is real. It's meaningful.
The strategy that was talked about with a lot of you early on has been executed, and it's been executed flawlessly and executed very well. I understand why, you know, there was this timeframe where it was, "Show me." Okay, well, we've shown you. We are truly in a class of our own. There is no peer in the lodging REIT space today that can stack up to the organization we have, the capital allocation decisions that we made and executed on, our fortress balance sheet, and our commitment to continue to drive shareholder value going forward. We've shown you, and we think multiple expansion is very warranted.
Thank you, Jim. That was very well said. Nate, it's your turn. Let's talk about the potential ahead. What are Host's capital allocation priorities in the current macroeconomic environment?
One of the many benefits of our platform and our scale is that we have multiple arrows in our capital allocation quiver, right? We've talked about a lot of them. We are constantly looking for acquisition opportunities, you know, both in the markets where we've transacted over the last 2 or 3 years, but also always looking at new markets to try to find new opportunities as those dynamics change. You know, doing ROI investments, really within those first 2 would be things that drive the EBITDA growth of our company, which is obviously our strategic priority right now.
You know, of course, when we do that, we remain very disciplined, always considering the purchase price multiples and the returns on our investment relative to where, you know, Host stock is trading from a multiple perspective in our corporate co-cost of capital. You know, share buybacks then start to make more sense if Host is trading at a discounted multiple, and the EBITDA growth of our existing portfolio is greater than the growth that we're seeing in the deals that are out there. You know, of course, there are always opportunities to increase dividends, but, you know, we do all of this with a close eye on our balance sheet and maintaining that investment-grade rating that we think is paramount.
Thanks, Nate. I am going to pause for a moment and prompt for questions on the screen, please. Adding on to that a little bit, Sourav, Nate mentioned the buzzword, and current macro and economic environment is uncertainty. We're all hearing a lot about uncertainty. How is that uncertainty playing into Host's full-year RevPAR guidance, and are we seeing any signs of a slowdown in our business?
Yeah, there certainly is a lot of uncertainty, not only macro backdrop, but as you all are reading this morning, the dysfunction that's happening in Washington doesn't help any either. All that said, from just looking at our numbers, you know, what does really give us the confidence of our full-year guidance? What gives us confidence is where we have the most visibility. Where do we have the most visibility? It's group business. You heard me say earlier that we picked up meaningful in the quarter for the quarter pickup that we saw in the first quarter, 102,000 group room nights, which was up 28% relative to now what we picked up back in 2019. What was most interesting is the pickup that we saw for the back half of the year.
We saw 237,000 group room nights for the back half the half of the year relative to what we saw back in the 1st quarter of 2019 for the back half of 2019, 35% increase. What that effectively is showing is that folks are still willing to book that group business. That has given us more confidence in terms of our midpoint of our guidance, and that booking activity continues. You heard the April numbers, right? The one new piece of news that you heard today, 70 basis points in total group revenue pace, better than what we reported at the end of March. It really is the visibility of group, which is giving us confidence. Obviously, there are things that can change very quickly, when you think about all the transient pieces.
Our business is first based on the group base, and we build upon that and really yield on that. That gives us, you know, pretty good confidence sitting here right now, as to where we are for a midpoint at 9%.
That's great. Thank you very much. As you're thinking about where we're headed this year, what do you think is the timeframe to sort of regain that additional $71 million of EBITDA from the Ritz Naples and Hyatt Coconut Point? Are we thinking about that just in 2023, or is that a multi-year outlook for those assets?
I'll start, and anybody else who has a perspective, please weigh in. You know, one thing I do wanna point out, and I have to emphasize this point, is that we do have business interruption insurance, and we have not included $1 of business interruption insurance in our 2023 guidance numbers. That money will come in. When it comes in is not certain at this point in time. We have received, I think, $98 million in payments from the insurance company that are all related to date for physical damage and restoration work. Keep the $71 million on the sideline from a BI perspective.
you know, we're planning on opening the hotel, unless Mike says something different today, on July 6th, the Ritz Naples. The recognition of the incremental $71 million, I think you should think about that in the aggregate as a 2024 event, you know, assuming the macro situation plays out. As Travis mentioned, the response from meeting planners who have visited this property have been overwhelmingly positive. you know, fingers crossed that we can beat that number, but we'll talk to you about that next year.
Thanks, Jim. Mike, as we're about to see on the Orlando World Center property tour later today, reinvestment in our properties leads to dramatic transformation. How is Host thinking about capital expenditures on a go-forward basis now that the MTCP program is nearing completion?
More. We're just gonna do more.
Listen, we're focused on continuing to grow the EBITDA growth profile of the portfolio. That can include more MTCP-like transformational projects. You know, we completed 24 assets of transformational renovations, with 77 assets in our portfolio, there are more. Of the remaining assets, about 25% of them have more than just a soft goods renovation, there's certainly a number of candidate assets in that grouping. We've got a group of folks working back in the office at Bethesda on a long list of development and redevelopment project opportunities. Entitlement processes take a long time. They can be unpredictable, which is why we've got to have a lot of irons in the fire.
I fully expect between transformational like renovations, redevelopment projects, repositioning projects, we will just continue to do more of what we've done, which should help continue to grow the growth profile.
That's great. Thank you very much. Sourav, let's talk a little bit more about the potential future EBITDA growth bridge. You laid out a path to $2 billion of EBITDA through a variety of different building blocks, which is almost 25% of the 25 above the midpoint of our 2023 Adjusted EBITDA guidance. That is impressive. How should investors think about occupancy growth within that context, and what about rate growth?
Yeah. When we thought about the occupancy growth piece, it really is that $100 million is the value of half of the occupancy gap between 2019 and the midpoint of our 2023 guidance. That's, remember, for the full year, it's about an 8-point occupancy gap relative to 2019. We were somewhat conservative, you could argue. We took only half of that. What we said, if you recall, you know, talked about this multiple times, every point of occupancy is equal to 30-40 basis points improvement in margin. For your 4 points, that's about 120-160 basis points of margin improvement.
For simplicity's sake, we just took the midpoint of our guidance, our margin at 30.2%, which just to make the math simple, and that's how we calculated that value. The rate piece is tricky, and that's why we don't have this an assumption. There are just a lot of different moving factors, variability over time, and there certainly we expect there to be rate growth, quantifying that a little more tough. Think about that as incremental gravy effectively. As you look at that build to $2 billion, rate is something that's not in there and is added value.
That's great. Let's talk about the question on everyone's mind. When? When are we going to achieve this $2 billion of EBITDA? Let's talk about the different building blocks.
Well, I'll just say I'm glad I'm not chief investment officer today.
Exactly.
Hey, this is what we're building. This is what we do.
Nate, you laid out the potential to acquire $3 billion of assets.
Sourav laid out the potential.
There's a couple of different questions coming in from the audience related to that. First question, what time frame would you expect to complete the $3 billion of acquisitions in the bridge? Over what time frame, and how should we think about the time frame?
Don't look at me, Raj.
There's no easy way to say when we're gonna buy the next $3 billion of assets, but probably Sourav Ghosh said it best. If you look at what we've done, between 2018 and now, that's approximately the amount that we put to work and approximately the multiple we put to work. You know, as I just sort of jokingly said, this team is built to do that. What I will say is, though, although we are not yet seeing, material kind of distress in the markets, as Raj Contractor talked about, we do expect with maturities that are happening and, you know, end of fund life issues that are happening, that that is gonna start to ramp up.
I will say, that right now the team, and again, the entire team is marketed, that are starting to come. We're gonna continue to work through it and, you know, do our best to put the money to work, like we all expect that we will.
The only thing I'd add is that, you know, in the, in the uncertain macro environment that we're living in today, I think as it becomes clearer, with respect to out there today about, the way this is gonna play out as there are commentators on Squawk Box every morning, I think as the picture becomes clearer, that is also going to influence in many ways what happens to the transaction market. We are obviously being very thoughtful, have always been very thoughtful about our... We see a true acceleration, in underlying hotel demand, which, you know, Sourav talked about four points of occupancy. That's meaningful, right?
I mean, if we start to see occupancy begin to grow and business transient continue to evolve and group hold up like it has been, that will influence the way we're underwriting transactions and allow us to get a bit more aggressive going. I think, you know, we'll be looking at more distressed situations than we're currently seeing today. There's a variety of ways that we can play this.
One thing, I think, sort of on a related topic, where I think there probably is a little bit more distress that is happening is in the select service segment. you know, our good friends from Noble Investment Group, and we're sort of very fortunate to have Mit Shah here with us, I believe are starting to see a little bit more of that distressed activity as the owner-operators that they frequently transact with no longer have access to the regional banks who provided smaller loans. you know, I think it's sort of fair to say that they're starting to see that ramp up in distressed opportunity probably even faster than we are.
That's really helpful. As we think about that and potential for deals to come to market more than they have over the past five to six months, how have valuations changed over the last year? Have they changed?
I think it's an open question, to be totally honest with you. Until we see more transactions actually get done. We have seen sort of some retreads, some hotels that were out about, you know, a year and a half, 2 years ago that are starting to come out at reduced valuations. However, the question is: Will there be a buyer that's there even after, you know, a material reduction in the price? Some of that's simply people like to start high so that they can still sell high. But it'll be a process before we really know the answer to that question.
Great. As we think about that $3 billion in acquisitions to kind of achieve one of the building blocks of that potential long-term value creation, what types of assets do we think Host will target? Will we buy more resorts? Will we look in urban markets? How are we sort of thinking about the opportunities?
Keep top of mind geographic diversification. That's served us really well. As the economy is recovering from the pandemic, markets are opening up choppy. Not every market is opening up the same way. We'll keep that top of mind as we look where to deploy capital. It's difficult today to say that, you know, there are gonna be ... The type of asset that we're buying, I say that relative to, you know, I don't know how likely it is that we will find another Four Seasons Resort Walt Disney World to acquire.
If we can buy assets that are underinvested, which is going to be highly likely, and that between our respective teams we can see a clear way to growing the EBITDA growth profile of those properties, such that they will outperform our existing portfolio, that's gonna be top of mind. You know, there'll be properties that you haven't seen us really acquire over the last 6 years or so. I think we're gonna be very open-minded about it. Geographic diversification, the EBITDA growth profile has to be there. We'll look at, in some instances, for an exit, down the road, in the next 3 to 5 years.
Thanks, Jim. This one's for Sourav, kind of building on the $2 billion of EBITDA potential here. We mentioned kind of the 3 to 3.5 times leverage target. How dependent on the macro is that leverage target?
The leverage target is that it's net debt to EBITDA at the end of the day. Obviously, you know, if you have, and God forbid, we ever have an EBITDA challenge again, where for us it's never really a debt problem. From our perspective, you know, we want to really use the balance sheet at the beginning of a cycle. Barring some sort of a black swan event, as we sort of talked about today, how we build up to the $2 billion is using the cash that we have on our balance sheet and really putting that to use, whether that's investing in all the projects that Mike and his team are working on or it is acquiring new assets.
Obviously with all that, where we are investing, we expect that EBITDA growth, so you're, you know, kinda keep all our friends at S&P, Fitch, and Moody's happy at the same time. That's how we think about it. At the beginning of the cycle, you know, you really want to utilize that balance sheet. Obviously we have the balance sheet, where if there is sort of a black swan event, something goes sideways, we are well prepared to take advantage of that as well.
Thank you very much, Saurabh, for that detail. Mike, this one is for you. Still talking about the EBITDA bridge. Can you provide some additional insight into the $100 million of EBITDA potential that we expect to realize from our portfolio reinvestment?
Sure. you know, a number of those projects are already in progress and nearing completion, then I previewed some that are coming. As Saurabh said, I think the numbers are based on investing about $200 million a year. That's kind of our run rate ROI reinvestment over probably the next 3 years with a 12% cash-on-cash return. That's how we get to that $100 million. I think we've got a portion of that kind of already in place in projects that are nearing completion, and going to be opening and contributing next year.
We're getting close to the end of our Q&A session. I'm gonna take a couple of more questions. This entire team will be joining us for the lunch and the remainder of the tour. If your question was not addressed, please feel free to talk with any of the members here. One thing, Jim, I wanted to ask you about. We heard a lot about diversification here today. We didn't hear a lot about chain scale diversification.
Mm-hmm.
How is Host thinking about chain scale diversification, and why do we believe that higher EBITDA per key hotels is the right place to be?
Chain scale diversification on the Host balance sheet, we believed would have been very challenging. That's because you have the opportunity to go out and buy a select servi REIT. If you wanna play the select service segment of this business, you know, you have Summit, you've got Apple, you've got others out there. Our expertise.
The way we create value is in the upper upscale and luxury space, that's a pure play on upper upscale and luxury. We made a conscious decision that was the direction we were going to go. However, we like the select service space a lot. We also like the ability to play the role of developer because we have an incredible resource in Mike and his team to make that happen, supported by Enterprise Analytics, and the asset management group going forward. We also thought that it made sense to diversify our income stream over time to a more sustainable fee stream that is not subject to the cyclicality of EBITDA. Thus, our good friend, Neil H. Shah, is sitting here. We bought 49% Noble Investment Group, we couldn't be happier with that investment.
Those three business lines that I just talked about are three things that we're able to do through the Noble Investment Group platform and keep the Host balance sheet and the Host P&L very clean so that when you, when you're looking at us, you know, you think about our upper upscale and luxury RevPAR, EBITDA. You know, we have the ability to invest with a best-in-class fund manager, who's been around for a long time in select service hotels. We're gonna have the ability to do development deals in a fund structure, and we do own 49% of the general partner, so we're starting to develop a fee stream going forward. We're really excited about this relationship we have with Mit and the Noble team. I think that there are. We just had a strategic offsite, I don't know when that was, Mit.
A couple weeks ago, I guess. There are incredible similarities between the two organizations. We're excited about that going forward.
Thank you, Jim, thank you to all of you for your candor and clarity on what is next for Host. Thank you to those of you joining us in person and on the live stream. We hope you are leaving here today with a much clearer understanding of our people, our platform, and our portfolio. As you heard today, Host Hotels & Resorts is the blue chip in our space, and we are very well positioned to continue to elevate the EBITDA growth profile of our platform. What is next for all of us is a fantastic, relaxing lunch. Please join us at Siro's, the Italian restaurant across the lobby from check-in near Starbucks. After that, we'll tour Orlando World Center and then close the day with a farewell reception. Thank you again for joining us.