Chief Financial Officer & Head of Strategy, WYNDHAM HOTELS & RESRTS
Wyndham Hotels & Resorts earnings: ‘We are really happy with our performance,’ CFO says
Wyndham #youtube #stockmarket #yahoofinance Wyndham Hotels & Resorts CFO Michele Allen joins Yahoo Finance Live ...
About Michele Allen
Michele Allen, CFO and Head of Strategy at Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, said in a September 2023 interview that the company was "really happy with [its] performance" in 2022, citing strong interest from hotel owners and guests and a 12% increase in its pipeline. She attributed growth to strong leisure demand in the U.S., continued occupancy recovery in Europe and Latin America, and a double-digit increase in infrastructure-related business travel, which she described as travelers "wearing hard hats and work boots" rather than suits and ties. Allen said the company expected this trend to continue due to anticipated spending from new infrastructure and the CHIPS Act. Allen stated that Wyndham is investing in digital innovations such as online booking, contactless check-in, and text messaging to meet guest preferences and drive bookings for franchisees. Regarding human trafficking, she described it as an "industry-wide issue" and said Wyndham is partnering with the American Hotel and Lodging Association to provide training to hotel staff, while also deploying proprietary initiatives to track and monitor complaints, adding that the company has a "zero tolerance" policy.
Transcript (13 segments)
R
Rochelle0:01
Wyndham seeing a big boost from post-pandemic travel demand in its earnings. The hotel and resort giant now looking to build out its footprint, capturing demand by adding more than one hotel every day of the year. For more, let's bring in Wyndham Hotels and Resorts Chief Financial Officer Michele Allen. Good to see you, Michele. So talk about this growth, more than one hotel per day. How is this possible, especially when you look at things like currency concerns and inflation and things like labor shortages as well?
M
Michele Allen0:31
Great to see you, Rochelle. Thank you for having me again. Yes, we are really happy with our performance this year. There's a strong interest for our brands from hotel owners and guests alike, and we've just seen incredible growth in not only our openings volume this year but also in our pipeline, which is up 12, which will eventually turn into incremental system growth for Wyndham.
R
Rochelle0:57
So let's talk about some of these results. When we look at Revenue per Available Room, up 15 in the fourth quarter, 20 for the full year, also still particularly strong growth in the international market as well. What do you attribute that to?
M
Michele Allen1:10
We attribute it to a few things. One, there's really strong leisure demand here in the U.S., there's some continued occupancy recovery internationally, particularly in the European and Latin America regions for 2022. And then we've seen midweek business also improve pretty significantly, with our infrastructure category up double digits all year long in 2022. And of course we're seeing some rate improvement with inflation being passed on in average daily rates to guests.
R
Rochelle1:45
And I mean, we've seen domestic travel volume recover to about 96% of its pre-pandemic levels in 2022, according to the U.S. Travel Association. How is Wyndham positioning itself strategy-wise as we do have this roaring comeback?
M
Michele Allen1:59
Yes, we are. We continue to make investments in digital innovation to meet our guests where they are, where their preferences are. They want to book online, they want to be able to check in and contactless solutions, they want the convenience of text messaging while they're on property. So a bunch of digital innovation projects that we continue to invest in to help drive incremental bookings to our franchisees and our hotel owners. And then in addition to that, we have a very strong media campaign and budget strategy to again meet guests where they are and where they want to be traveling.
R
Rochelle2:39
And I want to talk business travel here, because that hasn't recovered at the same rate as leisure travel, but it's interesting that you talk about infrastructure-related business travelers, not what you typically think of as your business traveler in a suit and tie. Talk about that aspect of the business and what that's doing for the business.
M
Michele Allen2:55
That's so true. You know, our business travel never stopped. Our business traveler is wearing hard hats and work boots, they're not necessarily in suits and ties. And we've seen a double-digit increase in this type of business coming into our hotels in 2022. And that's a result of the investments that we're making to capture share. And that is all in anticipation of this significant spend we expect to be hitting the market beginning in 2023 from the new infrastructure and chips act. So this is a trend that we expect to continue. Not only will we see the size of the pie increase, but we should also continue to see our capture rate of that pie increase.
R
Rochelle3:34
And of course we have to talk about things like headwinds. One of the industry challenges that Yahoo Finance spoke to with Marriott's CEO was talking about what they're seeing with trafficking issues there, and the role that hotels play. Just take a listen.
A
Anthony Capuano3:49
Yeah, human trafficking is a scourge on humanity, and unfortunately a lot of it happens using hotels as an environment. So several years ago we developed an intense training program for our associates, and as you point out, we've trained now a million Marriott associates. It's such a critical global issue that in partnership with the American Hotel and Lodging Association, we actually made the Marriott training available to all of our peers in the industry.
R
Rochelle4:19
So what is Wyndham doing to combat this, being that this is something that does happen on a global coordinated scale?
M
Michele Allen4:26
Yes, this is an industry-wide issue. We are partnering with AHLA just as Marriott is and all of the peers are to make sure the training is available to general managers, hotel owners, and staff at the hotels. And then a number of proprietary initiatives that we are deploying here within Wyndham to make sure that we are tracking and monitoring any type of complaints or indicators that would suggest there is human trafficking at a property. And we take it very seriously, and we have zero tolerance for human trafficking at Wyndham.
R
Rochelle5:05
We do appreciate you commenting on that. Wyndham Hotels & Resorts Chief Financial Officer Michele Allen, thank you for joining me this morning.