United Parks & Resorts Inc. (PRKS) Q2 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Hello, and welcome to the United Parks Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I'll now turn the conference over to Matthew Stroud, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to United Parks and Resorts Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is being webcast and recorded. A press release was issued this morning and is available on our Investor Relations website at www.unitedparksinvestors.com. Replay information for this call can be found in the press release and will be available on our website following the call. Joining me this morning are Marc Swanson, Chief Executive Officer; and Jim Forrester, Interim Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. This morning, we will review our second quarter financial results, and then we will open the call to your questions. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that our comments today will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to be materially different from those forward-looking statements, including those identified in the Risk Factors section of our annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These risk factors may be updated from time to time and will be included in our filings with the SEC that are available on our website. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. In addition, on the call, we may reference non-GAAP financial measures and other financial metrics, such as adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. More information regarding our forward-looking statements and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measure is included in our earnings release available on our website and can also be found in our filings with the SEC. Now I'd like to turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Marc Swanson. Marc?

Thank you, Matthew. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We are pleased with the continued progress we are making across certain initiatives. Results in the second quarter were impacted, as expected, by the shift in the timing of Easter. The earlier holiday meant fewer holiday days in Q2 compared to the prior year quarter and a continued decline in international visitation. Adjusting for these impacts, attendance would have been flat for the quarter. We delivered another quarter of growth in total revenue per capita, driven by continued strong in-park execution. During the quarter, we again grew in-park per capita spending to a record for the quarter. Looking ahead, we continue to see strength in our forward indicators for Discovery Cove and our group business with advanced bookings revenue for both up double digits versus prior year. We continue to repurchase shares in the second quarter, buying approximately 3.3 million shares for nearly $125 million. These buybacks emphasize our strong cash flow generation, our long-standing commitment to returning excess cash to our shareholders and our belief that our shares are materially undervalued. While we faced first half headwinds across international visitation, weather impacts and holiday shifts, we are fully focused on executing against our strategic priorities and driving growth in revenue, adjusted EBITDA and total shareholder value. Our exciting summer event lineup continues for the next several weeks as we close out the season with Red, White, & BBQ at SeaWorld Orlando and SeaWorld San Antonio. Summer Spectacular at SeaWorld San Diego and Bier Fest Brews & BBQ at both Busch Gardens Tampa Bay and Busch Gardens Williamsburg. In September, we will kick off our award-winning Halloween events, which will run through October, followed by our Christmas celebrations in November and December. These seasonal offerings continue to resonate with our guests, and we are excited to introduce new intellectual property elements to our Howl-O-Scream event, something we have done very little of historically, but believe represents a significant opportunity for the business. This year, we have partnered with Sony Pictures to introduce popular horror films, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Anaconda to our Howl-O-Scream lineup at our SeaWorld and Busch Gardens parks, respectively. Early forward booking ticket sales for our Howl-O-Scream events are already running ahead of last year's across our parks. I want to thank all of our ambassadors for their hard work and dedicated efforts to produce these events and deliver memorable guest experiences. Before I move to some updates on strategic initiatives, let me briefly provide an update on July performance. As you all likely know, the weather in July was pretty tough across the country, including in some of our markets, including wildfires and related air quality issues, excessive heat, untimely and extended rain. We had a little bit of everything. This poor weather, not surprisingly, impacted our attendances in the month. Fortunately, though, we saw good admissions and in-park per capita growth during the month. Our preliminary view has revenue being down approximately 2% in the month of July. We have a little more than half the quarter ahead of ourselves and amongst other things, are looking forward to hopefully more normalized weather. Now let me give a brief update on just some of our strategic initiatives. On real estate, we are happy to have received significant interest from serious parties to acquire some or most of our real estate. We have been actively engaged with these parties over the past months to clarify and negotiate terms that can meet our requirements. While we don't want to share too much as we are in current discussions, I can tell you that the valuation being offered for our real estate compares very favorably to the valuation in the public equity markets assigned to our enterprise. When and if we transact with one or more of these counterparties will be determined by the ultimate terms we negotiate, our view of the future value of the business as currently situated, general market conditions and other relevant factors. A key takeaway from this exercise to date is that multiple highly credible third parties assign significant value to our real estate that we do not believe is currently reflected in the public market price of our common equity. On sponsorships, based on our current pipeline, we still expect to realize over $15 million in sponsorship revenue in 2026. As previously discussed, we expect this business to be at least a $30 million line of business in the coming years. We are very excited for this opportunity. On international, we have continued discussions with multiple partners, and we expect to be able to share more in the coming quarters. On IP partnerships, we -- recently announced a partnership with Sony Pictures to bring two of their horror IPs to our Howl-O-Scream events across our parks. We are in multiple active discussions to bring additional compelling and well-recognized IP into our parks to innovate in innovative and exciting ways. We expect to have more to share related to these opportunities in 2027 and beyond. On marketing, as we've previously communicated, we have had less than stellar execution in our marketing activities this year. It's an area that has been, frankly, quite frustrating. We are evolving our strategy, our partners and our teams. We are making investments to reach new and incremental audiences and to provide more compelling visuals and messaging and related awareness. There's more work to do, but we are confident the changes we are making will help strengthen how we communicate and position us to engage a broader audience more effectively. On cost, we continue to be on pace to achieve our $50 million gross cost savings target for 2026, and we are actively working on our 2027 objectives. Regarding capital allocation, as we've discussed in the past, our strong balance sheet provides us with the flexibility to allocate capital to maximize the long-term value of our enterprise. Our Board is focused on maximizing long-term value for shareholders and we'll act dynamically with that objective as opportunities are presented. Let me briefly comment on our balance sheet. As of June 30, 2026, we had approximately $658 million of total available liquidity, including approximately $19 million of cash on the balance sheet as we head into the peak of our summer season where we generate a significant amount of our cash flow. The strong balance sheet gives us flexibility to continue to invest in and grow our business and to opportunistically allocate capital with the goal to maximize long-term value for shareholders. During the second quarter, we repurchased 3.3 million shares for an aggregate total of approximately $125 million. I'm excited about the opportunities we see ahead, the significant investments we are making and the many initiatives we have underway across our business that we expect will improve the guest experience, allow us to generate more revenue and make us a more efficient and more profitable enterprise. We are building an even stronger and more resilient business that we are confident will deliver improved operational and financial results and increases in value for our stakeholders. With that, Jim will discuss our financial results in more detail. Jim? Thank you, Marc.

During the second quarter, we generated total revenue of $483.3 million, a decrease of $6.9 million or 1.4% when compared to the second quarter of 2025. The decrease in total revenue compared to the second quarter of 2025 was primarily a result of a decrease in attendance, partially offset by an increase in total revenue per capita. Attendance for the second quarter of 2026 decreased by approximately 179,000 guests or 2.9% when compared to the prior year quarter. The decrease in attendance was primarily due to an unfavorable calendar shift, including the timing of the Easter holiday and a decrease in international visitation compared to the same prior year quarter. Adjusting for these impacts, attendance would have been flat for the quarter. In the second quarter of 2026, total revenue per capita increased 1.5%. Admission per capita decreased 1.8% and in-park per capita spending increased 5.1%. Admission per capita decreased primarily due to the net impact of the admissions product mix when compared to the same prior year quarter. In-park per capita spending increased primarily due to higher penetration and the impact of pricing initiatives compared to the same prior year quarter. Operating expenses increased $10.9 million or 5.3% when compared to the second quarter of 2025. Selling, general and administrative expenses increased $2.2 million or 3.4% compared to the second quarter of 2025. We reported net income of $63.3 million for the second quarter compared to net income of $80.1 million in the second quarter of 2025. We generated adjusted EBITDA of $195.5 million, a decrease of $10.8 million when compared to the second quarter of 2025. Looking at our results for the first half of 2026 compared to 2025. Total revenue was $761.6 million, a decrease of $15.5 million or 2%. Total attendance was 9.3 million guests, a decrease of approximately 350,000 guests or 3.6%. Net income for the period was $29.2 million, a decrease of $34.8 million and adjusted EBITDA was $253.4 million, a decrease of $20.3 million. Now turning to our balance sheet. As of June 30, 2026, we had approximately $658 million of total available liquidity, including approximately $19 million of cash on the balance sheet. The strong balance sheet gives us flexibility to continue to invest in and grow our business and to opportunistically allocate capital with the goal to maximize long-term value for our shareholders. During the second quarter, we repurchased 3.3 million shares for an aggregate total of approximately $125 million. For the first half of the year, we bought back approximately 5.9 million shares or 12.1% of total shares outstanding for approximately $217.7 million. Our deferred revenue balance as of the end of June was $211.9 million. Deferred revenue increased approximately 2% when compared to June of 2025. Our deferred revenue balance contains a number of products that include ticketing, vacation packages, annual and seasonal passes and ancillary products. We also continue to see many pass holders who have been with us for at least a year who transitioned to month-to-month payments at the completion of their initial pass commitment. This month-to-month revenue does not show up as deferred revenue but demonstrates continued pass holder loyalty. Through June 2026, our paid pass base was down 1% compared to June 2025. We're now starting to launch our pass product for 2027, which will include our best benefits ever. We have a new dedicated team, a new strategy and approach to pass that we expect will lead to a meaningful increase in pass base for 2027 and beyond. We spent approximately $68.6 million on CapEx in the second quarter of 2026, of which approximately $65.3 million was on core CapEx and approximately $3.2 million was on expansion or ROI projects. For 2026, we expect to spend approximately $180 million to $190 million on core CapEx and approximately $75 million to $85 million of CapEx on growth and ROI projects. Now let me turn the call back over to Marc, who will share some final thoughts. Marc?

Thank you, Jim. Before we open the call to your questions, I have some closing comments. In the second quarter of 2026, we came to the aid of 331 animals in need. Over our history, we have helped over 43,000 animals including bottlenose dolphins, manatees, sea lions, seals, sea turtles, sharks, birds and more. And just a few weeks ago, our animal care experts from SeaWorld helped lead an important and inspirational international effort to rescue beluga whales from Marineland of Canada. SeaWorld San Antonio received the first of these beluga whales rescued from Marineland of Canada, and they along with SeaWorld San Diego are set to receive more whales as part of the ongoing multi-facility collaboration and rescue effort. I'm really proud of the team's hard work and their continued dedication to these important rescue efforts. Moving forward, our focus remains on building an even more resilient business, driving guest engagement and delivering meaningful value to our stakeholders. Our growth strategy centers on several key initiatives, including a compelling lineup of new rides and attractions alongside an updated and evolving events calendar, infrastructure upgrades such as improving and monetizing our food and retail locations to enhance on-site spending and finally, a tailored marketing program to increase awareness, engagement and visitation. We operate in a growing industry with a favorable competitive structure. Backed by our irreplaceable brands, strong business model and well-capitalized assets, we are confident in the substantial opportunities ahead to create long-term shareholder value. With that, we can now take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Steve Wieczynski of Stifel.

So Marc, I guess this is probably going to be kind of the same question I asked you guys three months ago. But at this point, I'm probably a little bit surprised you guys think you can still grow EBITDA this year, given what you produced so far in the first half, coupled with your comments around July and how that didn't turn out to be the way you wanted to just due to wildfires and weather and stuff like that. So with international visitation still kind of below ideal levels as well, it seems to us like you would need to kind of have really almost perfect weather between now and year-end to beat last year's EBITDA base. So am I way off on that thinking or are there other factors we aren't properly accounting for at this point?

Yes. Steve, I can help you with the question. I think what we were trying to point out is from here going forward, we like to set up to be able to grow the business. What -- whether that growth will be enough to offset the revenue and the EBITDA decline year-to-date, we'll have to see. So I wasn't necessarily saying we're going to grow this year for the full year. I think what we're saying is we expect to grow the business kind of these next five months going forward, and we'll have to see where that ends up for the full year. Hopefully, that's a little bit of a clarification for you. But in general, just to talk about growth for a minute, I think what gives us confident that we can grow in these next five months really is the lineup of things we've got coming up in the parks with our Halloween and Christmas products. We're really excited to be introducing the new IP at Howl-O-Scream with -- supported by Sony Pictures with I know what she did last summer in Anaconda. That's something we've not historically done. And we're excited potentially the opportunity there to grow that event more. And so far, when we look at the combined ticket sales for that event, it looks good. It's still a ways to go, obviously. And then our per cap growth in in-park has been strong, and I expect that will continue to be strong going forward. And our preliminary view on July looks like admissions per cap moved into the positive territory. So I'm optimistic we can see that in a better place as well. And I think we've done a reasonably good job of managing our EBITDA cost over the year. So putting all that together, that provides the backdrop to how I think we can achieve some growth here in these next several months. Obviously, if we can get some sort of better weather, that would be great. If we'll have to see I don't control the weather, obviously, but that would be helpful as well, as you know. So hopefully, that provides you some more color on your question.

Yes, exactly. So to summarize that, you're basically saying like the full -- you might not be able to beat the -- you might not be able to grow off the '25 EBITDA base, but the back half of the year, you're kind of expecting growth relative to 3Q and 4Q '25. Is that kind of the right way to think about it?

Yes. I think that's the right way to think about it. We have -- I gave you a little bit of color on July with the revenue down. It's a preliminary number, right? So I would -- I don't have an EBITDA number. We have a revenue number that was down about 2%. That may move around a little bit, maybe -- but I think we're comfortable saying 2%. So we've got to grow now in August and September to see if we can offset that. And then we'd have to grow in Q4 as well. But we like -- I think what I want to stress is that the per cap growth is helping to offset, obviously, some of the attendance decline. So that's something we have not had as much lately.

Yes. And that was my second question. You kind of touched on a little bit, Marc, but it sounds like the admission per cap, you said turned positive for July. And I guess as we think about that over the next couple of months, over the next two quarters or so, maybe wondering if you could give a little more color about how you're kind of thinking that admission per cap line should look given it's -- you start to come off a pretty easy year-over-year comparisons?

Yes, I think a couple of things. One, so you're right. I mean the comparison going forward should be something that we can manage better against than last year, obviously. But look, we like the pricing environment as far as opportunities to grow price. Now as you know, we're always focused on driving total revenue. So there may be times we do things that are at odds with per cap, we like the total revenue play. But in general, as we think about the business over a period of time, we like the pricing opportunities. I think that's strengthened even more so moving into Halloween and Christmas, which are both popular programs with our guests. Having the new IP in the parks, I think gives you another reason to be able to hopefully drive more pricing for Howl-O-Scream as well because you have something new to be able to talk about and people generally are okay paying more for new things that are well done. So there's then -- there's an element of that as well. The thing I want to point out on the admissions per cap though for Q2 is we did have a higher percentage of our attendance was from pass holders than last year. So just as you know, from covering the business for so long, if you have a greater mix of pass holders, that generally just naturally puts a little bit of tension on your admissions per cap. And so controlling for that, that could influence things going forward one way or the other. But we -- we'd rather have more pass visits than less, obviously.

Your next question comes from the line of Arpine Kocharyan of UBS.

I was hoping you could give a little bit more detail on the cadence of the quarter. It seems like we knew before today that April was obviously down with the calendar shift. And then I'm calculating that international maybe drove like 1.5% of decline for the quarter. Does that mean that May and June were up in visitation in attendance? And then just one quick follow-up. Did any sponsorship revenue help admissions and revenue per cap this quarter? And if so, can you quantify it really quickly? And then I have a quick follow-up.

Yes. As far as the cadence on attendance, I mean, you -- I think you've pointed out appropriately that the bulk of the decline was in April. And then -- you had obviously some additional negative in the two months of May and June combined. But the biggest piece was in April. So -- and now it's mainly, as we noted, the Easter shift. The international drag, if you will, kind of occurs throughout all three months. So hopefully, that's helpful. As far as the sponsorship revenue, if any of that is in admissions per cap, I think.

Yes, there's some -- I would say it's a ramp-up. We've entered into some new agreements that will have more impact as the year progresses. There was some in the quarter, but not...

I think she's asking was it in the admissions per cap, right?

There is some in there, but it will grow over time as some of our sponsors purchase some of our tickets for use.

That's helpful. I'm sorry for three questions. I just have one quick follow-up. Addbacks to EBITDA were quite sizable this quarter, I think 3x year-over-year to be back. What is in those buckets? It seems like it's recurring every quarter and not subsiding. And why did it accelerate so much this quarter?

Yes. I would say the biggest driver we had, and I think we mentioned this in our last earnings call was the historic freeze in the Florida markets drove a significant amount of damage to our properties in Orlando, specifically in Tampa. And so we've had to do a lot of replacements of materials, plant materials and equipment and repairs for that period of time. We've also engaged in a number of strategic initiatives that have support that are onetime in nature. And then on some of them, we have our continued amortization, non-cash of our SAP implementation from last quarter.

Our next question comes from the line of Ben Chaiken of Mizuho.

Think about deferred revenue, it's up but the implications of deferred revenue rather, which is up for the first half of the year for the first time in a few years, juxtaposed against first half revenue that's down. Does that kind of suggest some type of pent-up revenue you should get in 2H? Or is there some timing dynamic I'm missing? And then related to this, I guess, somewhat, I think I caught you say that you have a new dedicated pass team. You suggested 27 passes should be up meaningfully. Can you just expand on that or maybe the rationale?

Yes. So your question on deferred revenue, it's kind of how I think about it as well, what I think you described as if your deferred revenue is up, your attendance is down, it would kind of imply, right, you got a higher price on things. Now keep in mind, our deferred revenue bucket has a lot of things in it. So there's all sorts of things in there. But the fact that it's positive is a good sign to your point, and will only help with revenue and the admissions per cap on a go-forward basis. And then as far as the pass question, I mean, look, pass is an important part of our business, right? It's about 40% of our attendance or so across the company comes on some sort of pass. I think we recognize you got to build a really solid team around that, people that kind of live and breathe pass every day of the week. And so we've beefed that up. We've hired some new people that I think are doing a relatively good job. We're going to be kicking off, as Jim noted, that process kind of for 2027 starts kind of now and it starts to ramp up. The first big milestone is really around Black Friday, but we start to sell passes now for next year and then -- but we sell them year-round. And kind of the peak selling season is really spring and the summer. But we're launching for next year. We're excited about the benefits and the attractions we're going to have to support those in the events and things like that. So we're excited about the opportunity to grow an important part of our business.

Okay. And then maybe just a quick one on the July results. It sounds like attendance down the per caps higher with both admissions and in-park higher. I guess what are you seeing on the per cap side that's not translating to attendance? I guess simplistically, you would think that both your admission and in-park is higher, that would lead to attendance being higher as well – directionally. Maybe the answer is just weather and the items you referenced. I mean, how do you think about those variables?

Yes. There's a lot of factors. I don't know that I can point to any one thing. I think the good news is what you alluded to, the people that are coming at least in July and even before that on in-park, they're spending money in the park. And so we've been able to grow in-park again here in the second quarter. It's up in July as well. So I like that backdrop, and we'll continue to try to drive more guests, obviously. But certainly, weather is an impact. There's always different factors, but weather was certainly one in July that I think several of you guys have already kind of telegraphed and written about. But we like the setup we're seeing on the per caps.

Your next question comes from the line of James Hardiman of Citi.

So I wanted to circle back to sort of the two call-outs, right? Easter and international, I guess, pretty flattish ex those impacts. I guess help me understand the Easter shift. I just assume that it was a shift from 2Q into 1Q, but there's some discussion that it was a negative for the first half of the year. Maybe first, help me sort of understand that. And then on the international side, I guess, thoughts on when you think that piece may ultimately begin to improve? Is that something we should be thinking about -- we should be thinking about your business ex the international business because there's sort of temporary pressures -- and maybe it might help to think about that, is that sort of a macro United States or Orlando issue or more of a sort of SeaWorld issue? You guys aren't sort of keeping your fair share of the international customers that come to town.

Sure. So I can try to help you on both of those, and Jim can add anything he'd like. So on Easter, the way we think about it, typically kind of the nine days before the actual Easter holiday which was April 5 this year. So if you back up to March 28, that kind of starts like one of the big peak Easter weeks starts kind of that Saturday. So the 28th, 29th, 30th and 31st were in Q1 this year. Last year, with Easter being on, I think it was April 20, all those days were in Q2. So we lost those four days, which are pretty meaningful days, obviously, to lose. And so that drove kind of the impact for the quarter. As far as I think your next question on kind of international, where we started to see the falloff was really this time last year, kind of more the second half of the year. So others, I think, have talked about this. Most of our international attendance is in the state of Florida. And so there's obviously things I'm sure we can be doing better, but I think there's obviously a big component that is more macro related. When that wanes, I'm not for certain. But until then, we've got to do a better job of filling that gap with other attendances. And then when international does rebound, make sure we're getting our share of it. Just to be clear, I mean, I like our setup in Orlando, and I'm confident that when international comes back, we will be in a position to, like we've done for over 50 years here, share in any sort of rebound in international.

Got it. That's helpful. And then there was -- there were some very specific remarks as part of the prepared remarks on the real estate piece, the idea that there are parties that are interested in acquiring, I think you said some or most of your real estate. I guess I'm curious, I don't know how much more you can add to that, probably not much. But curious what's on the table here? Are we talking sort of the sale of unused or undeveloped land? Or are we -- is the idea of a broader sort of REIT spin-off PropCo/OpCo actually on the table as you talk to some of these interested parties?

Yes, James, I'll try to show what I can. I mean just -- I want to be sensitive to just the fact that we're kind of as I said in my prepared remarks, we don't want to share too much, obviously. But -- so we did try to give you guys some more color. But I think what you could have there is anything from one property to multiple properties. And we've heard from people who like the idea of something along that spectrum. Maybe you sell one to demonstrate the value, maybe you sell multiple ones if you can get a really strong value. So I think the point we are making is there could be multiple ways to think about it. And that's probably all we can share now. I mean what I was trying to emphasize in the remarks is that there are people out there, names you would recognize who recognize the value of our real estate. And that doesn't seem to translate to the public equity value. So the valuation they're ascribing to our real estate or how to think about our real estate doesn't -- it compares very favorably, I guess, to the public market value of our stock. So if nothing else, even if we don't do anything, and who knows if we will do anything, there's no guarantee, obviously. But a good part of this exercise is that there are people who are now recognizing the value of our real estate, but we need to -- we'd like to see more of that transfer over, obviously, to our stock price.

Your next question comes from the line of Patrick Scholes of Truist Securities.

First question, unless I missed it, I didn't hear or see in the press release that 3Q saw continued share repurchases. I know the last couple of quarters, you called out that share repurchases continued after the most recent quarter. So question is, have they continued into 3Q?

Yes. I guess -- I'm not going to comment on the third quarter. So if we do anything in the third quarter, it will be in the third quarter press release.

Okay. And shifting gears here regarding the comments on international. Do you think you lost some international visitation due to the World Cup, specifically Orlando, not holding World Cup, San Diego, not World Cup, Tampa, not World Cup. And I'd have to just theoretically think if I was from England or Argentina that's going to a game -- coming in the United States going to a game or even staying home watching games probably is a priority than visiting theme parks. What are your thoughts on sort of that theory and --as it relates to June, July visitation?

Yes. I mean I think it's great that the United States hosted the World Cup, obviously, and did a really good job with that. But I don't think we saw, to your point, more people visiting our parks because of that. And so to your point, did people decide to spend their money going to the soccer games in other cities instead of Orlando. I'm sure that's a very good possibility because we did not see an improvement in international visitation from those people being at soccer games.

Your next question comes from the line of Jordan Bender of Citizens.

In-park spending continues to be a bright spot. We've touched on a few times on the call, but maybe just to kind of opine there a little bit. I mean, are you seeing consumers trading up in higher value offerings? Is it growth being driven by the mix in guest spending? Is it purely just pricing initiatives? Any color there would be helpful.

Yes, Jordan, I can help you. Look, I think it's a multiple of things that we're executing well on. And certainly, you've got things around pricing, penetration, new facilities. We talk a lot about like investing in the business with capital to upgrade parts of our parks, whether it's retail or culinary locations or other things that people, frankly, spend money on. And I think that is showing through as well. So I don't think there's one singular thing. We've got a good team leading that group, and I think they're doing a good job of executing on some different things. So probably a lot of things just working well now.

Yes. The only thing I might add, Marc, is we continue to, as you mentioned, invest in technology and some of the things that we have delivered like our self-order kiosks for food and beverage have shown significant improvement in our operation as well as our strategies on things like our photo business and our continued drive on our catering events, I think, are all coming into play to really improve that in-park per cap.

Great. And then my follow-up maybe actually is related to that. I believe your expansion or ROI CapEx budget for '26 went up this quarter. Is that a function of timing, like a pull forward from '27? Or is there kind of incremental spend that you guys just layered in for the year?

Yes. Let me start, and then Jim can add some things. But one of the things I think is important to get across is our Board -- and you obviously know we're significantly owned by a private equity firm, Hill Path, and they have three board seats and exercise a lot of involvement in the company and tremendously involved, obviously. And one of the things they and others on the Board encourage us to do is when we have high conviction ROI projects, whether it's revenue-generating or cost savings opportunities to bring those forward for discussion. And if they make sense and we can demonstrate the return, we will pull the trigger on those type of things. So I think what you're seeing is the spirit of that where we have opportunities to return either expense savings or revenue opportunities with additional CapEx. They're supportive of that. And that's what you're seeing for the most part. But Jim can add anything there as well.

Yes. There -- we have a variety of attractions and sometimes there's timing of those that we have to have going all the way out to 2029 and beyond. And sometimes we have to think about when we make those investments in deposits. But primarily, as Marc mentioned, our biggest focus, as you saw, was the large increase in ROA capital that the Board provided us on. And that's going to take and address things like eliminating many of our lease costs that we have been incurring for equipment we could purchase, the Howl-O-Scream IP that Marc mentioned in his remarks, there is some investment there. And most importantly, the engine to continue to fuel that in-park revenue growth, we've got a variety of technology and in-park improvements that will continue to improve our per caps on the in-park side.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Chris Woronka of Deutsche Bank.

Marc, I know you mentioned back earlier in the prepared comments about marketing mixed execution. I'm curious as to whether you -- if you could share with us what steps you've taken to remedy that if you brought in any new partners [indiscernible] whether I don't know if it could be external third-party consultants? But just give us a sense for kind of where you are in trying to get that turnaround.

Yes. I think, again, as I noted, we're disappointed with what -- how we've done this year. We've made a series of changes really around -- when I step back, like increasing awareness. So one of the, I think, neat things about our parks is they have a tremendous amount of things to do. And whether that's rides or the animal attractions or behind the scenes tours and rescue areas, whatever it may be, the awareness is not -- I think people still don't know all the things we have, and it gets very frustrating at times. So we're taking steps to increase that awareness, reach new people, make sure they understand what we have. And there's multiple ways you can do that with either creative or storytelling and how we market on social media, those type of things. So really just revamping that. I know the marketing world kind of changes often, right? And there's, I think, a lot of people who are learning how to market in this age of AI and other ways people consume media and things like that. So ours is some of the things I just talked about. And I'm confident that going forward, hopefully, this will be a better setup for us. But if we can get more awareness of our parks and what we offer, I think that will be a big step in the right direction for us.

Okay. I appreciate that, Marc. And then a follow-up question on the real estate front. Obviously, not want to commit to anything today, but use of proceeds, I mean, I think we would probably almost assume that if you get anything done, you might look to share repurchase. Is that a fair general directional statement? And if it's not, what else might be on the table that you'd consider?

Yes. I don't -- Chris, I don't know that I can really comment other than that would be something clearly we would work with the Board on. And I think what -- obviously, we would do what we believe was the best return for shareholders. So it could be a number of things, and I don't want to commit to any one thing. Obviously, we've done buybacks in the past, but not to say that we wouldn't do something different going forward. It would really be a discussion with the Board and driven by them.

Your next question comes from the line of Lizzie Dove of Goldman Sachs.

I just wanted to ask about kind of more specifically on the Orlando market kind of beyond what we've talked about from the international side of things, just given some of the comments we had from Comcast a week or two ago and how you see the market there, whether it's more competitive, less competitive and just how you see things generally?

Yes. We in Orlando. And so -- if you look at our performance in Q2, the performance of the three Orlando parks on a combined basis relative to some of our other locations, we were pleased with. So we like the setup in Orlando. We continue, as we've said for some time now, believe that more high-quality investment in this market is good for everybody. And so the -- having more investment is a good thing. And what I like about this market, a couple of more things. We've been here for 50 years, but us and others in the area are continuing to make investments, and they are high-quality investments. The county supports things around like airport expansion and trying to make transportation improvements. There's an effort. I don't know if it will be successful. There's an effort around trying to bring a Major League Baseball team to Orlando. So everyone in this market, I think, kind of rose in the same direction as far as making this a great market to be in. And I think of all the places we want to be and have three of our parks, I think Orlando is -- it'd be hard to find any place better where everybody is kind of rowing together to support this market. We'll continue to support it. We have a different product and a lot of the other people in the market. We have a different value proposition. And we've been here for over 50 years and have had success over that time. So we are definitely still very bullish on Orlando and like the setup and I'm glad we're here. I think it's going to be a great market for years to come.

Great. And then just on that topic, I guess, as my follow-up, I think you've made some comments in the past about Tampa and I think some of the foot traffic data we all look at. It does show that kind of Orlando has actually been more of a bright spot and some of the attendance at the non-Orlando parks has maybe been weaker. Could you maybe talk more about what you think is driving that? And what's the kind of gating factor there of kind of getting back to some more growth?

Sure. It's a good question. So one of the things -- the question that Chris asked around marketing, I think, clearly, like a park like Busch Gardens Tampa, for example, a lot of people have no idea that, that park has phenomenal roller coasters and a whole zoo component to it. So you can get great rides and animals and shows and all sorts of things. The name naturally doesn't lend itself to describing what it is. So we have to raise more awareness. It's a great name. It's a great equity, but we have to make sure people are aware of what's at that park. There's other factors there as well. We have to obviously deliver on a good experience. We have to make sure people are having opportunities to do things and all that. So those are just things that I'm confident we can turn around. When I look at some of our other parks, you've got a mix of different impacts. Some are impacted at times by weather factors, some are impacted by promotions we may or may not run intentionally. So -- but we like the setup in the regions we're in. We like outside of Florida, the states we're in, the markets we're in generally are markets where growth is occurring. So I think a lot of it comes down to just we've got to market ourselves better and make sure people are aware of what's in our parks and the strong value proposition we offer.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to CEO, Marc Swanson, for closing remarks.

All right. Thank you. On behalf of Jim and the rest of the management team here at United Parks Resorts, I want to thank you for joining us this morning. As you heard today, we are confident in our long-term strategy, which we believe will drive improved operating and financial results and long-term value for stakeholders. We invite everyone to join us at our parks this year to experience the energy and excitement we are offering. Thank you, and we look forward to talking to you next quarter.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.