Good morning, everybody. Welcome to day three of the Eat, Sleep, Play, Shop conference. I will say it's a bittersweet moment for me, as I'm joined here by Leeny Oberg, the CFO of Marriott, and it will undoubtedly be her last time sitting up here with me. She's retiring in March. So I'd just like to say thank you, Leeny, for the years, I'm not going to choke up. I know you can hear it. It's actually, it's just I didn't have my coffee yet. The years of amazing leadership within this industry, you will be missed.
Thank you very much, Brent, and it's been a pleasure to work with you, and I know that you'll be in very good hands as we move forward, and really appreciate all the support, and great questions.
Oh, well, no pressure. Let's dive into those questions. So we'll start with the U.S. Maybe if you could just walk through the year, how we got here, and then what you're seeing in the demand environment post-third quarter earnings. How are bookings trending post- and the government shutdown as well.
Sure. So that's a good long question, and I think what I'll do is I'll try to answer it fairly briefly, and then you can pick at what you'd like to. If you remember, as we started the year, we were kind of imagining, first of all, we had an environment where we were looking at overall RevPAR for the company globally that had a midpoint of 3%. We are now where the midpoint is 2% for the year. So we started out the year with a view of not knowing whether there would be a fair amount of uncertainty, kind of where things would go, uncertain topics, everything from tariffs to kind of how the new administration would come in, et cetera, how the business would roll out, and GDP. And I think what you've seen as you've moved through the year is that leisure has been quite sturdy.
When we began the year, we kind of imagined that leisure would prolong positive RevPAR, and group probably have the highest RevPAR, and BT somewhere in between. I think where we've ended up is that group and BT have ended up underperforming a little bit relative to the beginning of our year expectations, although I will say group RevPAR is still expected to be positive. That leisure has completely and utterly held up exactly where we thought it would be, and that for the year, group bookings is where we saw things not fill in quite the way that we'd hoped at the beginning of the year, rather than cancellations and attrition.
Then the other part on BT, which I'm sure we'll get into at some point, is, I think, in many respects, more a function of the government cutbacks, a government shutdown, uncertainty in general, smaller businesses trying to deal with margin pressures, et cetera. So then, as you get to the end of the third quarter, as we talked about, we expected fourth quarter RevPAR to be a little bit better in many respects, with some shifts in holidays for the fourth quarter. And we still do expect to see our RevPAR kind of be that way, but I think probably more at the lower end of the range that we gave for one to two for Q4, and that's really overwhelmingly because of the U.S.
So when you talk about October, October RevPAR was globally 2%, and that was absolutely right on the money relative to what we expected when we gave guidance at the end of Q3. The reality is, though, at the margin, the U.S. was a little bit lower than expectations, and international was a little bit higher. The U.S. was actually 20 basis points down in the month of October, and I think you clearly saw that connected to continued uncertainty around the pace of the economy and kind of decisions around possible government shutdown, et cetera, and then also the reality that international continued to be quite sturdy. International was 7% for the month of October, and as we get into November, clearly, the government shutdown extended longer than anyone expected, and I think that is part of what you're seeing when you think about Q4 RevPAR overall.
Okay, great. And maybe we can just roll that right forward, right into 2026. You gave a preliminary look at 2026. I think you said one and a half to the two and a half area. You gave 30 basis points for the World Cup for the global, which we assume would be something like 50 basis points for the U.S., right?
Yeah, I'd probably say 40-ish.
Okay. Got it. And any further color on 2026, maybe by region?
You know, we're smack in the middle of all the budget work, so I can't really, we're still wrapping that all up together, so I wouldn't have all the data pulled together that has a comprehensive view. I think the trends that we've talked about before, Brent, about U.S. being better next year, but still not as good as international, all those things, I think, will continue to be what we would expect. And that, again, as we talked about, the 1.5%-2.5% is the right range.
Great. Okay, let's drill into maybe leisure. You said bang on what you thought it was going to be. We have seen a noticeable decoupling, right, from the high end versus the low end. You guys see a whole swath of types of consumers. You've got a little bit more mid-scale than you've had in, let's say, past decades, right? You moved a little bit down chain scale, maybe not material, you'd say. But what are you seeing across the database, and are you starting to see further decoupling from those sort of upscale brands? We can clearly see what's happening in the lower, like the mid-scale and below, but what about the sort of upscale and those mid-scale?
No, it's a great question, and I think it's not going to surprise anybody that leisure has been particularly strong in the luxury and in the premium sectors, as you see higher income travelers continue to spend and feel confident about their net worth. The stock market has continued to be strong. You've seen interest rates a little bit lower, so as people think about their borrowings at the margin, perhaps a little bit more comfortable. So clearly, on the leisure side, you are seeing a very good, solid, steady pace of demand across the markets. And I think when you then look at the RevPAR, terrific on that front for leisure at the luxury and many of the premium hotels. And then I would say in select-service, flat. So that's better, right? In select-service, that's better than what you're seeing overall, so leisure is roughly flat.
On the mid-scale, that would be a universe of six. So it's probably not enough hotels to be able to talk about a trend. Now, I'm happy to say we've got 150 in the U.S. pipeline, and they'll all be rolling on very soon, and we continue to be really pleased with the pace of demand for new signings in mid-scale, but there's really not enough to kind of make any comments, but I think on the select service side, kind of the fact that leisure is steady is good and clearly better than some of the other segments.
Yeah. You mentioned luxury because it really shows no sign of cracking. It looks bulletproof. I hate to use those words, but, and maybe given where the stock market is, that's not expected to change anytime soon. But in past cycles, that segment wasn't immune to shocks, and in fact, it was usually more sensitive because of all the business, higher-end business travel, as well as some group, because those are generally big box, right, full-service amenity hotels. Is that still the case? I mean, is it still, in the next cycle or the next downturn, is it going to look more like last cycles, or do you think it's kind of changed to this day and age?
So I think the answer is yes to both. Clearly, when you have a meaningful recession, there is bound to be an impact. We've all been talking about a possible recession for the last four years, and we've continued to kind of move along. I think this year, while GDP hasn't turned out to be quite as strong as hoped for, we're still not in a recession, so it's kind of bumped along, and hopefully, next year, GDP will be a bit higher in the U.S., and so I think that would continue to emphasize this continued spending on the leisure side and on the luxury side. But I do think it's always a good reminder of what's happening with U.S.
Household net worth, which has grown faster than GDP over the last 20 years on a compound basis, and it is increasingly in the hands of people who are 55 and over. And even if you end up with a softer stock market, et cetera, in many cases, you've got people who are starting to think about retiring, thinking about how they want to be with their families. Experiences are only stronger than they were, call it, 15 years ago. So I do expect that there will, on a relative basis, perhaps be less sensitivity. Will you always have the reality that business travel can be impacted by a real recession? Of course, and that would impact some. The best thing that can happen at a luxury hotel is where you've got strong demand, strong business across all three segments: group, BT, and leisure.
And so I think that's where you'll continue to see the hotels that have that base. I mean, we'll look at New York as an example, where you've got that robust demand across three. You can have one be a little bit weaker, and the other helps fill in. I do think they're going to continue to outperform, but obviously, if you have a meaningful recession, of course, you're going to see them in.
Yeah. It still feels like the sort of possible variability within greater branded lodging really goes with corporate transient. There's low lead time to bookings, et cetera, but it's just more sensitive. So when you think about that segment going forward, I mean, what are sort of the top factors? We've got potential interest rate cuts. We have a policy that could shift more domestic next year. You have, obviously, easy comps, but then you have structural changes like Zoom and those things still sort of weighing on the overall picture. How do you look at that?
It's so funny. I know you probably remember way back when we had the Great Recession, there was just an immense amount of talk about how group business would fall by the wayside because everybody was going to hold all their group meetings kind of over the computer. And the reality is that I think, if anything, group has only become more important, especially with the emphasis of COVID, is that the value of getting people together and what that does for culture, for getting things done faster and better, kind of family get-togethers, et cetera, it's only been emphasized by COVID. And so I can still remember back when I was doing investor relations at Marriott, group was about a quarter of our business, and sure enough, today, group is still about a quarter of our business and continuing to really thrive.
We've talked about group bookings for next year being up really nicely as you consider the business, so yes, interest rates, obviously, it is really all about economic activity. It really, in many respects, gets down to the pace of business activity across many sectors. The government impact, obviously, very little on luxury, but has definitely this year been something that has had an impact on RevPAR overall, and the other thing I think is interesting to think about is the reality that the U.S. is particularly dependent, if you will, on domestic travel. Many of our other markets outside the U.S. have a broader international cross-border base of customers. We know that travel into the U.S. this year is down a little bit. It's still 5% of our rooms. It's not enough to have a dramatic impact, but that 95% that makes up U.S.
Demand in our business means that as the U.S. economy goes, it has a real impact on U.S. RevPAR. So I think we all continue to pay a great deal of attention to the fundamental pace of the U.S. economy. Now, next year, you've got a couple of different events relative to the World Cup, et cetera, which I think will only be helpful, but it's good to remember that the U.S. is overwhelmingly domestic travel.
You did touch on group there. I think maybe the short-term filling of group or the lack thereof in the mid-year, that was maybe the surprise that no one kind of expected because group is so rock solid. There's sort of a demand-supply imbalance, which creates better pricing power that we all know about, and that's not going to change. But maybe talk about the second derivative of group bookings, and as of the third quarter, it was fine, but do you see any stabilization in that second derivative? And when you look next year, if you don't see an economic uplift and a policy shift per se, can group still have a good year sitting here today?
Yeah. Well, I mean, group is up quite nicely when you think about 8% and has stayed strong. That's for the U.S., and that has stayed constant between the end of Q2 and the end of Q3. You normally see that start to revert to what you actually think the group RevPAR will be up, so it tends to come down, and the fact that it has continued to stay strong. Now, you probably can argue there is some grouping up in the industry overall, but I think that's healthy. It's very healthy business, tends to have food and beverage along with it that is relatively higher margin than your day-to-day retail food and beverage revenues in a hotel because the larger groups tend to be a little bit more profitable on the food and beverage side.
So I think maybe at the margin, there's a little bit more grouping up than there was a couple of years ago. But again, we typically begin the year with at least 75% of the business of the group already on the books. And again, clearly, this year, we have seen some changes relative to unexpected changes in pricing for either supply chain pricing, et cetera, for businesses, particularly small and medium-sized businesses. And I think that uncertainty may have weighed on in-the-year, for-the-year bookings this year, while next year, hopefully, there's a bit clearer picture about the economy. The other thing I'll say is, obviously, you've got midterm elections coming on. I think there'll be a lot of attention on the part of lawmakers and the administration about how the overall economy is doing as you go into those midterms.
I think that's another interesting element to keep an eye on.
Okay. Maybe we should shift gears to development. Okay. I mean.
One of my favorite spots.
Let's get the not-so-great stuff out of the way and just quickly talk about Sonder. What went wrong with Sonder? What have you learned from the experience, and how does that experience potentially change the way Marriott will do deals in the future?
Well, so first, I'll say our business is not risk-free. We rarely have a counterparty declare bankruptcy, but it has happened from time to time. This one, obviously, is very unfortunate and one that we desperately tried to do everything we could to not have an impact on the customer. But if you kind of go back in time, you remember there was a recapitalization of Sonder that provided $146 million of new capital in 2024. That was when we signed our license agreement and began with all the appropriate processes of extensive due diligence, various running of different scenarios, running through all the expectations of what was needed to fold them into our system, making sure we had the layout because they have both apartments as well as some small hotels. So really went through all of that. The reality is Sonder management ran that company.
They ran the hotels and the buildings. We were the licensor, and they ran into financial difficulties and did an immense amount of work trying to come up with scenarios that would help them get through it. They were a lease-heavy model, and cash flow became a clear crisis. We were involved in trying to work through that. I'm sure you've seen from the filings that we agreed to defer some reimbursables for a while to help them through this cash crisis.
When things began to look really dire, we actually were willing to pay a little bit of payroll to kind of make sure that we weren't having customers kind of rapidly impacted and really tried to do the best we could to help, but in the end, they weren't able to get to the other side or come up with a way to restructure the business and ended up, as you know, filing a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing. So we're obviously very disappointed. We were pleased with how the system was doing when it was integrated into our system. We were pleased. I'm sure you've heard the occupancy was 86% when they filed.
So it was what we viewed as a really terrific strategic license agreement that would offer our customers more choice and more locations than they had before, and one is, as I know you know, that did not have an immense amount of financial exposure for Marriott. So when you talk about lessons learned, we will continue to look at strategic deals of all types. I mean, I think one of the most important things is that you learn from it, but at the same time, you continue on with your strategy on what you're trying to do for your customers and, frankly, for all your constituencies and doing all the appropriate homework, the due diligence, the integration requirements, the financial capabilities of your partners. I mean, all of that work we will continue to do.
But some of the strategic alliances that we've done, like the MGM partnership, we view as absolutely being fantastic and very accretive deals for our system. And from that standpoint, we will continue to do that.
Okay. Great. Looking at the core business, both of you and your, well, actually, both of your major U.S. peers for their net rooms growth for the year, they both brought up to the lower end of their guidance, but you guys give a point guidance. You don't give a range. And so, excluding Sonder, would you say that you are tracking in line or slightly better versus your initial rooms growth guidance for?
Yeah. In line. I mean, again, I think openings this year have tracked along kind of exactly where we thought they'd be. I think you've probably heard us say this before. Hotels that are going under construction, we've seen that number of hotels go up 25% this year compared to last year. Now, that's still obviously down from 2019 meaningfully, but still good to see a little bit greater sense of stability about moving forward on the part of our developers. So obviously, that'll start helping roll into net rooms growth in 2026 and 2027. And the difference, obviously, is on the deletion side as a result of Sonder, which just, again, we've always talked about having deletions in the ballpark of 1-1.5% of our system, and obviously, this year we'll be at the high end of that.
For the last few years, we've really been at the low end of that.
Okay. That actually is a good segue into 2026 setup. I think you just gave an idea of U.S. construction start. It sounds like it's accelerating, but the mix has changed in this industry, and you're more reliant on conversion. So maybe talk about the setup for how momentum can shift into 2026. We're looking at rate cuts that could maybe spur some hotel transactions, and what are the other factors that when you think about how 2026?
I mean, I agree with you on hotel transactions. I think that's one of the kind of hopefully one of the things that will continue to help next year. I think if you talk to the major hotel brokers out there, they will tell you that they're starting to see a bit of a pickup in transactions. Now, it tends to be in markets that are very solid and sturdy, viewed as less volatile, but even seeing some transactions in markets that really were experiencing some real uncertainty and tough times, like a West Coast market, that they are starting to see some pickup there, so that we do see as potential opportunity, and then, obviously, the under construction, but on the conversions, as you know, we've announced series, and we've got a range of conversion options for hotel owners.
And in an environment where there is low supply growth, the opportunity for those owners to do a little bit of investing in the hotel, join a brand, whether it's a soft brand like Series, where we just signed a deal with Five Found Hotels that will, that's an upscale collection brand that will literally, some of those will open this year, even though the deal was just signed a few months ago. The demand side for those conversion brands, all the way from Luxury Collection, all the way down through City Express, we're so pleased, and so, yeah, I think you should expect that next year, even with the continued growth in under construction rooms in the U.S., that you should continue to see a very strong proportion of our room openings coming from these conversions.
Okay. That's helpful. We have 10 minutes left. I have two critical questions, but one of them includes AI, so I've got to keep moving along.
Okay. You do.
The first one is.
Who are you?
The first one is the credit card deal, which you talked about on your most recent earnings call. You're up for your renegotiation with your credit card financial partners next year. Maybe you can share a little bit of additional color. You gave a lot of context. I don't want you to have to go through all that again. Give us a little additional color about when the deals will be, what can be in place, and then a potential upside to Adjusted EBITDA or at least how we can think about that for those deals. If you were us, what you think?
Yeah. So I would think of it in a couple of ways. One is that on the timing perspective, I can't give you any more than we had before, which is that we do expect them to be next year. Can't really be any more specific about exactly when we're in the middle of negotiating right now. We've got two credit card partners. We will have two going forward. This is in the U.S. And from that perspective, they are quite detailed and take some time. But we're obviously incredibly pleased with our relationship with these partners and with, frankly, what we have to offer. Our system has grown dramatically since we—I don't have the exact numbers, but it's probably a 50% bigger system than we had even. That's post-Starwood. So really tremendous growth to be able to offer as part of the Bonvoy proposition to these credit card partners.
I think we've also proven. We've really proven the benefit to them from the standpoint of great growth in numbers of cardholders, solid spend on the part of those cardholders. I think those economics will be similar. Obviously, we, of course, hope to improve on our position, and that'll all play out in the negotiations. Part of what obviously you try to do in these is not only are you trying to work out what is the best for the two parties in terms of the product offerings. What are the cards, and what are the offerings of these cards? Where do they fit in terms of price points, etc.? It is not only the actual pricing that the credit card companies pay us.
It's also trying to make sure you're putting into place something that will help accelerate the number of cardholders and the amount they spend. So I think you put that all together, and obviously, we'll be able to talk more once it's done, but we're moving along.
Okay. Okay. That's great. So on to AI.
And adding international cards as well, which I obviously don't ever want to forget that.
So you didn't post that first deal, right? You didn't have, the cards were not abroad, and now they are.
I think we had a couple back in 2017. We probably had a couple, but obviously now 11 countries, many more cards. A couple of countries, we now have two cards. So I think you will continue to see us add additional countries as well.
Okay. Great. So on to AI. We could spend another hour on this. We only have six minutes. This is by design. And there's lots of buckets that you've spoken publicly about where you're using AI internally, externally. I want to focus on the distribution side because that's the most topical for us. And really, given OTA is still a meaningful percentage of your mix, what are the different scenarios with regards to how Marriott can utilize what the LLMs are building in terms of distribution? And what are the most likely outcomes in your mind and timing, really? Yeah.
So I think we all know this is very nascent, right? You've still got the reality of quite a number of AI players, of sizable AI players. And the business models that they are considering is still, I think, kind of under consideration, particularly as it relates to travel. And so while classically now, if you're going on to these AI channels, you're going, and we are working very hard to make sure our content that we have on our experiences and on our hotels are easy for the AI searches to pick up, they will send you to m.com. You're not actually booking on these AI platforms. They will send you to m.com. Now, ultimately, I think they want to be able to do actual bookings.
We recently announced that we're working with Google, along with several other players, to be looking at the design of kind of how they're thinking about it. But honestly, exactly how all those economic models work out and how the OTAs fit in there, it is too soon to say. I think the thing you want to hear from us is that we are very involved. We are talking to all of them. We are paying an incredible amount of attention to it and making sure that we're right in there as this evolves. Exactly where this ends up does remain to be seen. You could see a variety of scenarios where you could be doing those bookings, which I would expect could potentially be cheaper than the OTAs. But again, this is still in formation and for a number of players, not just for Google.
Do all roads lead to either no change or incrementally better for Marriott?
We definitely see this as a glass more than half full. Exactly how much more full? Time will tell. I think, again, the key is that we are very, very involved, both from a technology standpoint and from a relationship standpoint, and being on the front edge rather than kind of watching it evolve for the next two years and then jumping in. I think what is really critical is that we are in lockstep in the process with them as it evolves.
Okay. Any questions from the audience on anything?
I was just wanting to follow up on what you said, that the bookings there could potentially be cheaper than OTAs.
I mean, again, as I said, Brent asked for what are scenarios. The answer is, of course, there is a scenario where the business structure, the economic structure of the deal is cheaper. As I said, it is not possible yet. You don't actually book on these channels yet. Exactly how that plays out, I think, is still very much in formation. As we announced with Google, we are working with them to design a process. It's just one of a number of players, so again, I really strongly urge you not to take this any further than it is at this point, which is that it is very early days. Is there a scenario where it is cheaper than the OTAs? Of course, but the OTAs aren't going to sit still either. I mean, they're very worthy. Both the frenemies term continues to come to mind.
I mean, we have great partnerships with the OTAs, and they are very competitive and great players. So you can be sure they're not sitting still either. But I think this is the key point is it's still early and that we are right in there at the beginning to see where it evolves. But any sort of conclusion about where this ends up would not be what I'm saying.
Any other questions in the room? Leeny, which sport are you going to—which sport are you going to pick up? Or how many sports is maybe the question? How many different sports are you going to pick up?
I haven't gotten that far.
No? It's going to be something.
Yeah. For sure, more hiking. For sure, which I love to do.
Top hiking destination in the world.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking the Dolomites would be a special one.
Awesome. Great. Okay.
Thank you all.
Send us a picture.
It's been a pleasure to work with all of you.
Thanks, everyone.