Chris Nixon
Analyst · Chris Woronka with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead
Thank you, Deric. For the quarter comparable hotel RevPAR for our portfolio decreased 4% over the prior year quarter to $309. Our urban assets continue to benefit from sustained demand growth with comparable total hotel revenue exceeding the prior year quarter by 13%. While we are seeing a stabilization across our resort properties total portfolio RevPAR was 8% higher than the national average for the luxury chain scale and reflects the high-quality nature of our portfolio. I would like to spend some time highlighting how our team has capitalized on the urban recovery driven performance through increased group demand and implemented successful initiatives to drive performance at our newly acquired hotels. We continue to see strong results across our urban hotels in the portfolio. Last year we capitalized on the opportunity to renovate the guestrooms at Marriott Seattle Waterfront while the hotel is still ramping up. During these enhancements during the second quarter Marriott Seattle Waterfront reported a comparable RevPAR growth of 43% over the prior year quarter resulting in a 91% RevPAR premium to the entire Seattle market. The freshly renovated guestrooms including eight additional keys and the hotel's unique positioning right on the water has allowed us to capture additional transient demand from the cruise lines that are near our hotel. Another recently renovated hotel in our portfolio that is outperforming the market is our iconic Philadelphia Autograph brand hotel The Notary which reported a comparable RevPAR growth of 24% over the prior year quarter and roughly 16 percentage points higher than the Philadelphia market. We have been working to increase exposure to the Autograph upbranding and place an emphasis on the improved services restaurant reconcept and room renovation. To further drive group business our revenue optimization team has partnered with sales leaders and third-party technology providers to develop best-in-class virtual site visit platforms, which have increased conversion rates of group leads. We continue to see acceleration from the group segment where group room revenue for the second quarter exceeded the prior year quarter by 9%. This is a strong quarter for group booking activity. We started the quarter with $81 million, in group room bookings for the full year 2023. During the second quarter, we added over $10 million in additional group room bookings for 2023. As a comparison, on a more stabilized basis, during the second quarter of 2019, we added just under $6 million in same year bookings. Our largest hotel Capital Hilton, finished the quarter with approximately $5.3 million in group revenue, a 63% increase when compared to the $3.2 million, in the prior year quarter. This achievement is noteworthy, considering that the hotel is under a transformative guestroom renovation throughout the entire second quarter. We attribute this success through our partnership with Premier, who has handed the renovation and a successful implementation of their stealth renovation program, which minimizes displacement. All these efforts and more have contributed to the overall success of the portfolio, during the first half of 2023. It is worth noting, how successful this year has been, in terms of hotel performance, with five of our hotels setting all-time year-to-date records and hotel RevPAR including our two most recent acquisitions the Ritz-Carlton Reserve, Dorado Beach and the Four Seasons Scottsdale. Each of these hotels, have a detailed takeover plan, which our team created upon acquisition, to highlight strategic opportunity for creating and optimizing value. At the Ritz-Carlton, Dorado Beach, we have optimized our Cabana rental program, increased luxury villa sales and enhanced our digital marketing strategy. We have also completed a full menu benchmarking deep dive, for all the spa services and food and beverage outlets. These efforts have resulted in year-to-date, comparable spa revenue and food and beverage revenue increases of 15% and 10%, over the first half of last year, respectively. The Four Seasons, Scottsdale has benefited from similar initiatives, as well as ancillary revenue optimization and best use analysis for revenue-generating space. As part of the takeover plan, our team did a deep dive into opportunities at the spa. We recognized an opportunity in the market to satisfy local, residential demand for a luxury salon, with boutique, hair and nail services. We identified underutilized space in the spa, where we partnered with local vendors, to accumulate inventory and build out a retail platform. These initiatives have been successful, propelling our year-to-date comparable spa revenue by 28%, over the first half of last year. Moving on to capital investment. We have invested heavily in our portfolio, over the last several years to enhance our competitive advantage. We believe that those investments have resulted in a competitive edge, for our portfolio. We are currently renovating the guestrooms, at the Capital Hilton, the Ritz-Carlton Lake Tahoe as well as the lobby retail outlet at the Ritz-Carlton Lake Tahoe and spa at the Ritz-Carlton Sarasota. Later this year, we plan to start guestroom renovations at Bardessono Hotel & Spa and Hotel Yountville. We also plan to begin renovating the meeting space at Park Hyatt Beaver Creek, and spa at the Ritz-Carlton Lake Tahoe. For 2023, we anticipate spending between $80 million and $90 million on capital expenditures. Lastly, I would like to emphasize how optimistic we are about the future of this portfolio. As I mentioned earlier, our urban assets are experiencing strong demand. Group business continues to accelerate, with no signs of slowing and a number of our assets continue to break records each quarter. We are already launching new initiatives to further enhance our portfolio, which include transformative whole property renovations, developing underutilized land and key additions. With these new initiatives underway, we are confident that the portfolio will continue to outperform.