Welcome to the Wyndham Hotels & Resorts Second Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing the pound key. Lastly, if you should require operator assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to turn the call over to Matt Capuzzi, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. With me today are Geoff Ballotti, our CEO, and Michele Allen, our CFO. Before we get started, I want to remind you that our remarks today will contain forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risk factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. These risk factors are discussed in detail in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and any subsequent reports filed with the SEC. We'll be referring to a number of non-GAAP measures. Corresponding GAAP measures and a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to GAAP metrics are provided in our earnings release, which is available on our investor relations website at investor.wyndhamhotels.com.
We are providing certain measures discussing future impact on a non-GAAP basis only because without unreasonable efforts, we are unable to provide the comparable GAAP metric. In addition, last evening, we posted an investor presentation containing supplemental information on our investor relations website. We may continue to provide supplemental information on our website in the future. Accordingly, we encourage investors to monitor our website in addition to our press releases, filings submitted with the SEC, and any public conference calls or webcasts. With that, I will turn the call over to Geoff.
Thanks, Matt, and thanks everyone for joining us this morning. We're pleased to report another very strong quarter, where global RevPAR grew 23% to last year and 3% to 2019. Here in the United States, RevPAR grew 15% year-over-year, and internationally, RevPAR grew nearly 60%. July month-to-date, domestic RevPAR is running 6% ahead of where it was back in 2019. Internationally, our EMEA, Canada, and LatAM regions are all running ahead. Our guests are staying longer and spending more at our hotels than they did in 2019. Importantly, our booking windows continue to increase. Consumer intent to travel and their willingness and ability to spend remains healthy despite the broader economic concerns. We grew net rooms by 3% and our development pipeline by 9% to a record 208,000 rooms.
We delivered $175 million of adjusted EBITDA, more than we delivered in the second quarters of both last year and 2019, generating nearly $100 million of free cash flow. We returned $170 million to our shareholders, bringing our year-to-date capital return to approximately $240 million or 3% of our market cap. We grew our development pipeline this quarter by 2% sequentially and by 9% versus prior year. This marks the eighth consecutive quarter of sequential pipeline growth as we awarded approximately 125 new contracts domestically and over 60 contracts internationally, which in total account for more than 22,000 new rooms. The number of domestic contracts signed was approximately 75% higher than what we awarded both last year and back in the second quarter of 2019.
Importantly, we awarded contracts to develop another 22 hotels for our recently launched new construction extended stay brand, which brings the total number of Project ECHO contracts awarded to 72 since its launch four short months ago. We grew our overall system by 1% sequentially and by 3% versus prior year. We opened more rooms than last year and once again improved our retention rate as terminations were 200 basis points lower than last year. These results were in line with our expectation and position us solidly on track to achieve our full- year net room growth outlook of 2%-4%.
Here in the United States, we grew our system size by 2% year-over-year and by 10 basis points sequentially, opening another 6,300 rooms in the quarter, including our first dual-branded La Quinta Inn & Suites Hotel in Pflugerville, Texas, the Wyndham Moline on John Deere Commons in Illinois, and the Origin Hotel in Austin, Texas, which joined our full- service upscale Wyndham brand this past June. Internationally, net rooms grew 2% sequentially and by more than 4% versus prior year. Notably, our Latin America region grew its system size by 12% compared to prior year, which included the addition of four luxury Registry Collection resorts with over 1,500 rooms in Mexico under long-term franchise agreements with the Palladium Hotel Group.
As part of this strategic alliance signed just this month, another 5,000 franchised rooms will be added to our portfolio throughout the remainder of 2022, bringing the total to 15 upper upscale and luxury Palladium Hotel Group in Mexico, Brazil, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic, joining our Registry Collection and Trademark Collection by Wyndham. Our China direct franchising business grew its system size by 12%, including the opening of the beautiful new construction Wyndham Garden Kunming, our first Wyndham Garden in Yunnan Province. Our Southeast Asia and Pacific Rim region grew net rooms by 3%, which included the introduction of our Microtel brand in New Zealand with the opening of the Microtel by Wyndham Wellington, and our first Trademark Collection by Wyndham in Vietnam.
Trademark is a brand that has grown to more than 150 hotels globally in the past five years, and it's a brand that now has another 80 hotels currently in its pipeline. Finally, our EMEA region grew net rooms by 2%, including the addition of our first TRYP by Wyndham in Greece. Our award-winning Wyndham Rewards Loyalty Program continues to be recognized as the number one hotel rewards program by both U.S. News & World Report and USA Today. The program grew domestic enrollments by 8% versus prior year, and by 25% versus where it stood pre-pandemic. Total membership now stands at over 95 million members, and awareness of the program increased by another 100 basis points compared to 2021, placing it among the top three most recognized of the industry's 13 major loyalty programs tracked by MarketCast.
Domestically, nearly one out of every two check-ins are asking for their Wyndham Rewards points at check-ins, with brands like La Quinta now approaching a 55% Wyndham Rewards share of occupancy. Revenue generated from direct bookings on our brand.com sites grew nearly 30% in the quarter compared to 2021, outpacing the rate of growth across all third-party channels, driven in large part by the Wyndham Rewards loyalty program. We're making it easier and more convenient than ever for guests to book their vacations through the five-star rated Wyndham app, which has seen a 30% growth in downloads since last year. This quarter, we launched Road Trip Planner on the app, the first ever of its kind. With its real-time functionality, guests can tell us where they want their trip to begin and where they want their trip to end.
The app then provides recommendations for overnight stays along the way based on how long or how far they want to drive each day, or lets the guests choose their desired stops. They can set hotel preferences by price or by brand. They can filter their by Wyndham hotel selections based on multiple criteria like whether or not the hotel accepts pets or has, for example, truck parking. Within minutes, they could book multiple stays in the same booking flow and even pay for their rooms with their Wyndham Rewards points, with cash, or with a combination of both cash and points. We're seeing tremendous adoption since its launch in May, with guests having spent thousands of hours planning their trips. The longest trip planned so far being over 4,700 miles with multiple stays at Wyndham hotels along the way.
From an ESG and a development standpoint, we are building on our commitment to encouraging diverse hotel ownership. We were the first major hotel company to launch a program focusing on women's advancement via our Women Own the Room program. Well, now Wyndham has become the first major hotel company to launch a similar program focused specifically on the advancement of Black entrepreneurs. Two weeks ago, we announced our newest development program, BOLD by Wyndham at NABHOOD, the National Association of Black Hotel Owners, Operators & Developers annual association summit meeting in Miami. While Black employment in the U.S. hotel industry is nearly 20%, less than 2% of the nation's hotel owners are Black. BOLD, which stands for Black Owners and Lodging Developers, aims to engage and advance more Black entrepreneurs on their journey to hotel ownership, and interest in the program to date has exceeded our expectations.
Diversity and inclusion have always been a cornerstone of the Wyndham culture, and these initiatives prove they are also advantageous from a business standpoint. All of the development efforts and awards are supported by Wyndham's dedicated ABGs or Affinity Business Groups, who, along with our DE&I team, continue to drive awareness and allyship throughout our organization. Over the past few years, our teams around the world have made tremendous progress in simplifying our operating model. We negotiated an exit for our Select Service Management business and sold our two owned hotels. Importantly, we were able to lock in long-term franchise agreements at full fees on all of these hotels. In a moment, Michele will discuss our intended use of the related proceeds from these transactions.
At a time when our brands are performing at record levels and continuing to gain market share versus how they performed pre-COVID, our business model has never been more straightforward. 99% of our 9,000 hotels are now franchised, limiting our exposure to operating costs and capital requirements and allowing our teams to focus on the higher margin cash generating franchise business that we've been so successful at over the past 30 years. With that, I'll turn the call over now to Michele. Michele?
Thanks, Geoff, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin my remarks today with a detailed review of our second quarter results. I'll then review our cash flows and balance sheet, followed by an update to our 2022 outlook. During the second quarter, our fee-related and other revenue grew to $354 million, and our adjusted EBITDA grew to $175 million. Our overall year-over-year results are not comparable due to the sale of our two owned hotels and the exit of our select service management business, which we previously communicated. In an effort to simplify our results, I will provide commentary today around our segment performance. Our franchising segment grew revenue by 18% year-over-year, primarily reflecting global RevPAR growth of 23% and higher license fees.
Adjusted EBITDA grew 11% as these revenue increases were partially offset by an adverse timing impact from our marketing funds. Our franchising margin, which excludes the effects of the marketing funds and is calculated on the same basis as our peers, remained consistent year-over-year at 85%. Fee related and other revenue within our hotel management segment declined $19 million in second quarter 2022, while adjusted EBITDA declined $10 million, principally reflecting the select service management and owned hotel sale transactions, which collectively contributed approximately $20 million less in revenue and approximately $8 million less in EBITDA year-over-year. Within our corporate and other segment, we saw $2 million of higher expenses due to inflationary cost pressures, a reflection of the current environment.
Adjusted diluted EPS improved 13% to $1.07, reflecting the increase in adjusted EBITDA and a benefit from our share repurchase activity, which was partially offset by the impact of the sale transactions, which collectively reduced EPS by $0.04 or 5 percentage points. Excluding the impact of these transactions, adjusted diluted EPS growth was 18%. Before moving on to free cash flow, let me take a moment to discuss current regional RevPAR trends. Global RevPAR surpassed 2019 levels for the first time during the quarter as international recovery accelerated. Pricing power has continued to improve with ADR in all regions exceeding 2019 levels and second quarter global ADR up 117% year-over-year. In the U.S., occupancy reached 96% of 2019 levels. In Canada, 98%, in EMEA, 88%, and in China, 67%.
Overall, global occupancy improved to 88% of 2019 levels, illustrating room for continued demand recovery. Now turning to free cash flow, which was $99 million for the quarter, compared to $104 million last year, reflecting the timing of tax payments. On a year- to- date basis, with this timing impact neutralized, free cash flow was $224 million compared to $163 million last year, up 37%. Our year- to- date free cash flow conversion rate now stands at 67%, and we remain on track to achieve our targeted 55% conversion rate. In May, we completed the sale of our remaining owned hotel, the Wyndham Grand Rio Mar Resort in Puerto Rico, for $62 million.
Based on the resort's 2019 adjusted EBITDA, the sales price represents a 19x multiple inclusive of planned capital expenditures. There was no gain or loss on the sale as the proceeds approximated adjusted net book value. With the completion of this sale, combined with the sale of the Wyndham Grand Orlando Resort Bonnet Creek and the exit of our select service management business in the first quarter, we have substantially simplified our business model and generated $263 million of capital. As a reminder, together with the free cash flow we will generate this year, we expect to have just over $600 million of cash to deploy. Our first priority, as always, is to invest in the business. We are actively exploring both external and organic growth opportunities.
The core tenets of our M&A strategy are for deals to be accretive from an earnings and a net room growth perspective, and to be complementary to our existing brand portfolio and geographic footprint. We will remain disciplined in this approach. We expect to maintain our industry leading dividend payout ratio, of course, subject to board approval and share repurchases, which have been a particularly compelling opportunity given recent pricing will continue to be an integral element of our capital allocation strategy. We returned $171 million to our shareholders during the second quarter of 2022 through $142 million of share repurchases and $29 million of common stock dividends. In the second quarter, we opportunistically repurchased 3.5x the first quarter amount.
We have returned approximately $240 million of capital to shareholders in the first half of this year, which as Geoff mentioned, represents approximately 3% of our market cap. We ended the quarter with approximately $1.1 billion in total liquidity, and our net leverage ratio was 2.5x , well below our 3x-4x stated target range. Our ending cash balance of $400 million is above our normal levels due to the proceeds we received from the select service management and owned hotel sale transactions, all of which have yet to be deployed. Excluding the excess cash on our balance sheet, our net leverage ratio was 2.9x just below the low end of our target range.
With this low leverage, our $750 million revolving credit facility recently extended to April 2027 and no maturities until mid-2025. The strength of our balance sheet provides us with tremendous flexibility along with the means to fund strategic growth initiatives over the coming years. Now, turning to outlook. We're updating our full- year 2022 outlook to reflect future projections related to the license fees received from Travel + Leisure based on their full- year 2022 gross VOI sales outlook provided in April, as well as a lower share count due to our second quarter repurchase activity. We now expect fee related and other revenues of $1.29 billion-$1.32 billion, an increase of $6 million from April's outlook, reflecting the incremental license fees from Travel + Leisure.
Adjusted EBITDA increases $6 million as well, and is now projected to be $611 million-$631 million. We expect adjusted net income of $323 million-$334 million, $5 million higher than our prior outlook. Adjusted diluted EPS increased $0.12 per share and is now projected to be $3.51 -$3.63 per share based on a diluted share count of 91.9 million, which as usual excludes any future potential share repurchases. There are no changes to our prior outlook for global net room growth, global RevPAR, or for our free cash flow conversion rate. Looking toward 2023, we have provided two new slides in our investor presentation to help with your modeling.
Slide 33 provides the historical financial impact of our select service management business and owned hotels, which will need to be adjusted from your base. Slide 35 provides revenue sensitivities. In closing, our business is operating above 2019 levels with continued room for recovery, given occupancy levels here in the U.S. and internationally. We produced another quarter of strong adjusted EBITDA and cash flow, and we completed our goal of simplifying our business, all while strengthening our balance sheet and significantly increasing capital returns. As we enter the second half of the year, we believe our resilient business model and strong balance sheet position us well to deliver on shareholder commitments even in changing and challenging times. With that, Geoff and I would be happy to take your questions. Operator?
The floor is now open for questions. At this time, if you have a question or comment, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing the pound key. Again, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Thank you. Our first question comes from Joe Greff of JP Morgan.
Good morning, everybody. Geoff, I'd love to hear what the mood is among your developers, particularly in the U.S. as well as in China, you know, given a more challenging financing market and certainly uncertain macro. You know, how much has changed, say, here in July and June, versus earlier in the year? Sort of the net of all this is, can the pipeline continue to grow sequentially? If the answer is yes, what gives you that confidence?
Well, the answer is yes, Joe. Thanks for the question. There's a lot of things that give us confidence. I think, you know, look, I don't think back to the beginning of your question, developers are any less confident than they were at the beginning of the year, either here in the U.S. or in China. Our new construction signings very strong. We had 100 signings in the quarter. It was up 10% to 2021, and it was up 32% to 2019. I think what gives us confidence is our economy and midscale select service brands are selling right now here in the States at just record levels. It's reflecting developer confidence that now is a good time to be building.
The belief is that from all of these developers that had a record year last year, that still believe they're going to have a very good year this year, is that whatever happens in the future, I think the belief is that if you could build, now is a good time to build because we're at the very early stages of what they believe in their heart and their core will be a sustained multiyear recovery. We're seeing that in China as well. I mean, we opened 2,800 rooms in the second quarter, and we awarded 25% more contracts in China, despite so many of our team members being locked down, I mean, and doing this remotely, than they did in the second quarter of 2019.
I mean, this was the second quarter, I believe, Michele, that they delivered over 12% net room growth in our direct franchising business. The demand for development contracts over there is really, really strong. We all know that they've got a real good ability to recover quickly coming out of this. Our team has consistently delivered over in China the last few years, including in the first quarter where it wasn't easy. With over 60,000 direct franchise rooms in our pipeline right now, we're very bullish as well over in China.
Great, thanks. Then Michele, I think it was a quarter ago you mentioned M&A is in the company's DNA. Can you talk about if there's anything warm? I know you reminded us of your criteria, but I think a lot of investors were surprised to see that Choice bought Radisson. Not that I would expect you and Geoff to talk about why you didn't buy a specific company that a competitor purchased. If you can talk about the M&A landscape and our numbers, even with, you know, RevPAR declining next year, you know, we still can get to a point where the current quarterly buyback amount is sustainable going forward. Is that something that you would agree with absent M&A? That's all for me.
Yeah, I will comment, Joe, because we get the question a lot on Radisson, and you know, I think it is important. I mean, our teams stay very close to everything that's out there, both domestically and internationally, including Radisson, which we've looked at multiple times over the years. It's just never been for us, over those years, a strategic fit. I mean, I think if you think about Radisson in terms of their portfolio, 3/4 of it is here in the Americas, and it's their, of course, Country Inn & Suites brand, which competes directly with La Quinta, which has two times the footprint.
Of course, the other fourth of that portfolio here domestically is their full-service Radisson and their upper-upscale full-service Radisson Blu product, which competes with our Wyndham Garden and upper-upscale Wyndham Grand. Both Wyndham Garden and Wyndham Grand are two very strong brands for us that are also performing very well, also with larger footprints. You know, I think finally, we've been successful in exiting our own real estate and our management guarantees, which would have come back with an acquisition of Radisson. Again, having looked at it before in the past, it's never been for us strategically, and it's not brands that we've ever felt we could grow more quickly than our brands, which compete with Radisson in those segments.
You know, I'll let Michele touch on our M&A strategy, but it's really to focus on our brands that are accretive to both earnings and net room growth going forward.
Joe, so from an M&A landscape perspective, we're looking for opportunities both domestically and internationally, particularly in what we consider to be high growth markets with high demand generators out into the future. That probably looks more like smaller, regional brands in the midscale select service or even upscale space. But I'd also say that, you know, nothing is off the table if it meets our criteria. We believe that consolidation in the industry is inevitable, and size and scale matter. They matter now more than they ever have, and we expect that dynamic to continue. I think the last part of your question was with respect to the cadence and pace of our share repurchase volume.
I'll say our Q2 volume was about 3.5x, higher than 3.5x t he volume purchased in Q1. There was a significant uptick this quarter compared to prior. As you know, preference is going to be to deploy our capital to grow the business. We wanna give our teams ample time to find those opportunities. Absent those opportunities, I think the Q2 run rate would be a reasonable assumption for the back half of the year. Of course, we would look to take advantage of any stock price volatility, which could mean we might see higher volumes in one of the quarters versus the other.
Great. Thank you both.
Thanks, Joe.
We'll take our next question from Patrick Scholes of Truist Securities.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, Geoff and Michele.
Hey, Patrick.
Morning. A couple days ago, Walmart called out some pressures on consumer spending. I'm wondering, you know, specifically with your economy brands, such as Travelodge or Microtel, if you're seeing any similar, you know, pressures for those brands as well, or just across your system?
Yeah, we're really not. I think the important differentiation, Patrick, in terms of our customers, they're not lower-end consumers. They're squarely in the middle class. They represent the vast demographic of America. You know, what we're seeing is they're earning more, and they're spending more. Certainly with unemployment near historic lows and their wages up from where it was back in 2019, you know, we believe they have ample savings and resources, and they're wanting to travel more than ever this year. I mean, they're booking earlier. We know that they're driving further this year than last year.
You know, we're hearing from them anecdotally, we're seeing in our research that, you know, they're moving travel and experience up into their hierarchy of needs versus doing anything else with their money. All the survey research out there, you know, over 70% of them are saying they wanna travel the same or more than they did this time last year. You know, look, last summer was the best summer our franchisees in those two brands or any of our domestic brands ever experienced. If you talk to our franchisees, most are feeling that this year will be even better than last year. You know, certainly we're pleased with how the summer is shaping up.
July month-to-date RevPAR is up 6% to last July, up until this past Saturday. We know we do have some tough comps that are coming up, and those comps are gonna get tougher. You know, we continue to see consumer demand out there and very strong. Our web traffic is running 15% ahead of where it was back in 2019 and, you know, is still on pace with last year's record summer.
Okay, great. That's it for me. Thank you.
Thanks, Patrick.
We'll take our next question from David Katz of Jefferies.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions, which I think are, you know, little different versions of ones we've had so far. The first is that you put out some guidance, and I'm wondering, you know, what macroeconomic context are you baking in or factoring into that guidance as we move through the rest of this year? What is your assumption set, basically?
Gosh. Sure, David. Versus our internal estimates, we did have about a $10 million beat in the second quarter, part of that license fees, the other part related to our marketing funds.
We raised for license fees but did not raise for the fund beat, given we have not changed our full- year expectations for the marketing funds and still expect that beat to reverse in the fourth quarter. With respect to what we're building into our back half assumptions, I'd say, you know, last year, with respect to RevPAR, we saw significant increases beginning in July. Comps get really difficult in the back half of this year. Our outlook has always reflected this dynamic. As Geoff mentioned, RevPAR thus far, even in July, has been performing with our expectations. Our back half expectations right now assume some flattening out of RevPAR on the domestic side and then continued recovery internationally.
This was always the expectation given the tough comp, and we set the range at 12%-16% to reflect this dynamic.
Perfect. Thank you. Second, I just wanted to ask about the deal environment and whether, you know, there is any, you know, macro impact that you can identify or register with respect to deal opportunities. I ask it in the context that you've, you know, repurchased, you know, meaningfully above what we had above 2019 levels, and whether there's a message in that, you know, that the environment is perhaps less fertile, or whether I'm reaching with that.
I think it's a fair assumption to say there's not an abundance of deals coming our way in this environment. If we thought we had a better use of the proceeds to invest them in the business, we would likely be looking to hold on to that cash to complete a sizable M&A. That doesn't mean there's nothing out there. It just means that the chance of getting something done at any, you know, significant level of capital deployment over the next 9-12 months is probably less likely in today's environment.
Understood. It's perfect. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thanks, David.
We'll take our next question from Michael Bellisario of Baird.
Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Just one question on the development front in net unit growth. Can you maybe provide the puts and takes in your 2%-4% net unit growth range? What would need to happen in the back half of the year for you to end up at the low end, maybe versus the high end today?
Sure. I think we would need to see one of two items. Our openings fall significantly below our prior year numbers. We're expecting to trend in line with back half last year, or we would need to see retention fall significantly below our target 95% retention rate, none of which we see any indications of that happening.
Yeah. In fact, we were really pleased with the job all of our retention teams around the world this quarter did, Mike, and continue to do. I mean, our retention continues to improve and our terminations continue to come down. Our Q-t erminations were 2% lower than last year, but 24% lower than they were back in the second quarter of 2019. Our teams retained almost 3,000 more rooms than they did back in the second quarter of 2019, to Michele's point.
Got it. With those terminations coming down, are you providing any more leniency to owners given the macro environment, maybe particularly internationally, or is your view still the same on the termination side as you think about brand quality and clean up going forward?
Yeah, I would say from a brand standard standpoint, it's the same. It's, we're doing everything we can, of course, to support owners, but you know, brand standards are coming back.
Important to note, though there is some concern about the environment, we have not yet seen that play out in our business, and our franchisees are still performing very strongly.
We'll take our next question from Dany Asad of Bank of America.
Hey, good morning, everybody. I wanted to ask a little bit more questions on the consumer. If we're you know, you guys are talking about how, you know, how far along the recovery we are and how we're kind of basically tracking now ahead of 2019. Are we also returning to a more traditional kind of, you know, seasonality and, you know, booking behavior? Kind of can you maybe tell us what you saw around, you know, the couple holidays that we saw in the quarter, and then what does that mean for, you know, your booking patterns in August and Labor Day, if you can see that far out?
Yeah, sure, Dany. Look, Memorial Day weekend, which was the kickoff to the summer, was our busiest Memorial Day weekend ever. July Fourth, we're still running ahead of 2019. July month- to- date is, as we said, up 6% to 2019. When it comes to seasonality in the comps to your question and how it compares to last summer's record demand, you know, we continue to see consumer demand running well ahead of 2019, and we believe that'll continue throughout Q3 and Q4. Yes, the comps do get tougher. I don't think there's any better example of that, Dany, than in Florida. In July month- to- date, this is through Saturday of last week.
Our Florida RevPAR is actually down by 12% to 2021, but it's running ahead of 2019 by 34%. Florida is one of our biggest states. We just continue to see that, you know, demand to 2019 in Florida was our best year ever until last summer. As I said, our web traffic demand is up. We continue to see really strong RevPAR performance in so many of our largest markets and think we'll continue throughout the summer in states like Florida and Georgia and Alabama, which all saw, again, big states for us, double-digit July month-to-date RevPAR growth up through last weekend versus 2019.
If you look out into the national park states like Montana, Idaho, Utah, I mean, they're all running near to above double-digit RevPAR ahead of where they were back in 2019. In fact, I saw a stat yesterday that 47 of our 52 states are running above 2019 levels, which is, again, all keeping our domestic RevPAR growth growing over 2019 as we expect it to run for the rest of the year. As our, to Michele's point, international regions start to recover or continue to recover. I mean, some of them are actually back to where they were in 2019.
Got it. July, so if month- to- date, you know, is down 12% for-
Florida.
...a big state like Florida.
Yeah.
What's offsetting that on the other end that's kind of driving your month- to- date number then?
Many of the states that I just talked about. I mean, we have big states that are doing that just that. I'd say July month- to- date RevPAR is probably, you know, 1-2 points down right now to last year with OCC down a little bit and ADR is still really strong to last year.
Got it. I do have one follow-up question on-
Sure.
...your markets. When we think about kind of this, where we are today with gas prices, but you know, you also have a decent amount of exposure to, you know, the oil, like, the oil patch in general in terms of hotels. Are gas prices where they are today, is that a net headwind or a net tailwind for Wyndham's portfolio?
Well, compared to where they were earlier in the summer, I'd say it's a bit of a tailwind. I mean, historically, changes in gas prices have had, as we've talked about in one-on-ones, a very weak correlation to our RevPAR. You know, the last time oil averaged $90 a barrel, you know, our RevPAR back in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 was growing, you know, at a 6% CAGR. What does it mean for gas to go from $4 to $5 for us? It adds about $20 in total direct fuel costs for a consumer's trip of about 350 mi. But we're not seeing, y ou know, we do not believe that factor is materially impacting customers' travel decisions right now.
Understood. Thank you.
Thanks, Dany.
We'll take our next question from Ian Zaffino of Oppenheimer.
Great. Thank you. Hey, Geoff, I just wanted to go back to some of your prepared comments. I know you commented on that whole booking window getting longer, and also longer stays. It sort of kind of stuck out to me because I know you've always talked about booking windows for your business being very short. Now I guess you're seeing them expanded. What necessarily is driving that, or what do you think is driving that? And then also maybe, you know, why are stays longer? Is it just, you know, the customer is better heeled and they're staying longer? What is actually driving that? I've got one more.
Yeah. That's a great question. You know, what's driving it specifically are multi-night bookings. Those 7- and 8-night-plus bookings, those are significantly up. Obviously, we still have a lot of same-day bookings, but those are really the bookings that have pushed that 12-day advance booking window to 15 days. People are willing to drive further. I mean, with the chaos at the airports this year, they're in their cars. They're looking to vacation. They're willing to drive further.
They have the flexibility that they've never had before in the past in terms of, you know, checking in on a Thursday and checking out on a Sunday or, you know, using all of the unused vacation days that, you know, groups like U.S. Travel say are at record levels. You know, I think those are the big things.
Okay, perfect. Maybe for Michele, you know, we talked about some of the comps getting tougher, but if we look into 2023, can you maybe talk about some of the tailwinds you're expecting into 2023? You know, just as a reminder. Thanks.
Sure. And Geoff, I'm sure you're gonna wanna add on here, but I'll get us started. I think from a 2023 perspective going into the year, we're gonna be looking at continued recovery internationally. We still have occupancy yet to fully recover in the U.S., and something we're really excited about is the growth we've been seeing on the infrastructure side of our business bookings, which I believe are up 10% year to date, and that's a number we expect to continue to grow with the new infrastructure bill out of the Biden administration just now needing to get allocated down to the state levels. Geoff, anything else that I missed or you wanna add to that?
No, I think that's a huge upside and tailwind as you point out, Michele. I mean, there is just so much significant opportunity for us on the weekdays. Ian, I think if you look at the industry data over the last eight weeks, you know, the weekends are still 20% running ahead of 2019. Weekdays, there's such an opportunity there at +5% versus 2019 through the last eight weeks of STR data. Our brands are gaining share on the weekends versus 2019, but they're gaining more index during the weekday for exactly the reason that Michele points out.
I mean, we are attracting more of our fair share of that everyday business traveler, and we're adding more sellers, and we're signing more infrastructure related accounts. There is so much good news out there, coming in daily from our global sales offices, who are focused first and foremost on all of those companies contracting for the public work projects first. I mean, that $600 billion of public work project is meaningful, and our GSOs are finding and identifying the general contractors for airport expansions across the Midwest, and they're securing the room nights. That's gonna be a tailwind for us, as we head into the fall.
We're also picking up a lot of significant private work on the infrastructure side that we continue to pick up. You mentioned the oil fields, you know, refineries are undergoing maintenance right now, and we're winning bids for that. Look, I think the big tailwind for us is gonna be on the net room growth side. I mean, our growing pipeline is I think where our biggest opportunity lies. You know, our pipeline composition as you see in our investor deck that Matt put out on page seven has never been stronger. We think that the reason for that is our franchisee engagement, given all the support that we've shown our franchisees and small business owners throughout this pandemic has never been higher.
With the launch of four new by Wyndham brands organically, if you think back to, you know, Trademark, which I talked about in my prepared remarks, Alltra, we're working very well with Playa, who has a pipeline that's now up 10%, registry collection, which, you know, just continues to power on with what we announced just last week. ECHO, these brands are organically growing, and they're under the by Wyndham distribution platform, and they're doing really, really well.
Oh, this is great. Thank you very much for the color.
Thanks a lot, Ian.
Okay.
We'll take our final question from Brandt Montour of Barclays.
Hey, thanks, everyone. Thanks for squeezing me in here. I have two questions, and they're both recession related. I apologize if they seem pessimistic, but I'm just curious on a couple different views of yours, Geoff or Michele. If we did go into a garden variety recession, I'm curious what you think or how you think your retention metric would trend. What I mean by that is, you know, in a slowdown of fundamentals, brands become dearer, right? To the owners of your hotels, but at the same time, they might have less cash to keep up with brand standards. I'm just curious how those two factors could offset each other when out.
No, they're great and fair questions, Brandt, and welcome back to the call.
Thank you.
Matt threw in a slide on, I think it's slide 26, which talks to, you know, how our select service brands have performed in past downturns. I mean, our brands are significantly, to your question, less volatile during the recession. We've been more resilient, and we've outperformed during the past two downturns. You know, the RevPAR for our brands declined, I think 14% in 2009, but it outperformed the higher segments by 500 basis points. We were also, to your question, on both the open and retention side, we were able to grow our system through that downturn by 2% organically, you know, which offsets some of the RevPAR growth.
Look, we think that if there were to be a downturn, 80% of our system additions would come from conversions as independents seek distribution support from our brands, as we've been doing throughout this pandemic. We believe we'd still be very well positioned to grow both our revenue and our EBITDA if there were to be any downturn.
Great. Thanks for that. Then my follow-up is regarding rate, which is by all accounts been very strong and robust, across all segments, especially yours versus 2019. Curious what you think how the industry would react to a slowdown in leisure demand, if you think talking to your franchisees, that they would try and hold rate, at the expense of demand, or if you think that it would be the other way around, or if you think that they would probably soften together, how you think the industry would sort of react to that.
Yeah, it's again, a great question that we talk with our franchisees and small business owners all the time. I think they'll hold rate. I mean, we've been doing such a great job with them driving rate index, and that continues to be our team's focus. Just equipping those franchisees with the knowledge and the tools to pivot and if demand falls, to hold on to rate, to create much more optionality for them around pricing power.
I mean, what we're trying to do with all of our state-of-the-art and new inventory revenue management pricing tools is to allow them to just create more optionality around pricing power and to train them to reduce their reliance, obviously, on more highly discounted opaque rates that might be out there and to realize that what they really should be doing right now, especially as they come into the winter and fall, is responding to those RFPs for contracted business, where it makes sense. Again, just a significant opportunity for us with those everyday business travelers on during the weekday and giving them the pricing and the tools to do that.
We believe we're much better positioned than we've ever been, and that the travel landscape will be much more resilient than in prior downturns because pricing is just shown to be so considerably more resilient.
Great. Thanks for the thoughts. Congrats on the results.
Thanks, Brandt.
This concludes our question and answer session for today. I'd be happy to return the call to Geoff Ballotti for closing remarks.
Thanks, Leo, and thanks everyone for your time this morning. Michele, Matt, and I very much appreciate your continued interest in Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. We look forward to talking with you and seeing you soon. Before we go, we'd like to remind everybody to please tune in to the eighty-third annual Wyndham Championship from August 4th through August 7th, which will be airing on CBS and Golf Channel with live coverage beginning on Thursday of next week. Enjoy your summer, everyone.
Thank you. This does conclude today's Wyndham Hotels & Resorts second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Please disconnect your line at this time, and have a wonderful day.