Steve Moster
Analyst · Northcoast Research. John your line is now open
Thanks, Carrie and good afternoon, everybody, thanks for joining us on today's call. 2016 was a year of strong growth for Viad and significant progress against our strategic goals. I am proud to say that we finished the year in line with our prior guidance, with growth of 63% in income per share before other items, and revenue increase of 10.6%. This strength was driven by positive share rotation, underlying growth at both business groups and contributions from the four businesses we acquired during the year. Both business groups delivered strong financial results and took important steps to accelerate our growth strategy. At GES, we reported fourth quarter and full year results that were in line with our prior guidance. Full year revenue grew 8% driven by positive share rotations, continued business strengths and our acquisition of a leading audio-visual service provider. We continue to benefit from new business wins and solid growth across the events we produced, with U.S. base same show revenue growth of 4.1% versus 2015. GES also delivered strong margin improvement of 200 basis points versus 2015, reflecting the strong operating leverage that exist within the business and our focus on driving growth in higher margin areas like event technologies, audio-visual services, and corporate events. 2016 was a milestone year for GES, as we expanded our presence in the strategically important $2 billion U.S. audio-visual event production market, through the acquisition of ON Services in August. Not only does this acquisition increase our mix of higher margin AV services revenue, but it also enhances our ability to gain share in the large and higher margin corporate event market where audio-visual services represent about half of the typical spend. The team at ON Services is working very closely with the rest of the GES team to capture revenue synergy through cross-selling and cost synergies from in sourcing. For 2017, we expect to generate about $76 million to $79 million in revenue from U.S. audio-visual services, which represents an incremental $45 million to $48 million versus 2016. And we expect the adjusted segment EBITDA margin on that revenue to approximate 20%, which is significantly accretive to our current EBITDA margin. We are excited about the long-term impact on growth and profitability that this acquisition brings. Another highlights for the year was the launch of our data and registration platform in the Middle East and the U.S. markets. Event technology is another important element in our growth strategy as event organizers and corporate marketers increasingly leverage technology to drive improved ROI and enhance the overall event experience. GES's data and registration platform is an end-to-end SaaS solution offering event management tools, attendee engagement solutions and data and analytic. With the U.S. launch in late 2015, the platform is now available in all four -- all of our major markets and our teams are working with more than 600 clients in over 42 countries. Event technology services are an important part of our value proposition as we continue to position GES as the preferred global full service provider for live events. With an enhance set of services our teams are finding success in the marketplace by attracting new clients and expanding the scope of existing relationships. For 2017, Snow Show in January longtime exhibition client Snow Sports Industries America expanded the scope of our work to include audio visual services, event combinations and data and registration services. It is the perfect example of the power of our full service offering and just past weekend, GES helped to bring several projects to life for Super Bowl 51. Working with 19 sponsor organizations and a variety of partners GES produced Houston live [indiscernible] experience for the Houston Super Bowl Committee including the provision of audio visual equipment, lighting, staging, sound systems and technical support. We also partnered with media and experience design firm IDEAS on the event center piece attraction Future Flight, which is a drop tower that incorporates virtual reality to take guest on an extrusion through space tomorrows. It concludes with a 64 per drop, vertical drop that transports riders back to earth landing on the 50 yard line of Houston's NRG Stadium. GES's involvement range from creating the graphic look, the experience supporting the Future Flight and Mission to Mars to organizing logistic and assisting with the development of the site. Overall, I'm very pleased with the progress GES has made in 2016. With enhanced service offering and strong sales pipeline we are well positioned for continued growth in 2017. Now, let me switch gears to talk about our Travel & Recreation business. Our Travel & Recreation Group also delivered fourth quarter result that were in line with our prior guidance and posted full year revenue growth of 36.7% and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 32.5%. These results reflect the power of our Refresh, Build, Buy strategy and revenue management initiatives that are driving growth through a combination of acquisitions and strong organic growth. Early in the year, we acquires an integrated Maligne Lake Tours and CATC, which increase our total room count by about 40% and added two more leading attractions to our portfolio. These attractions performed exceptionally well under our Travel & Recreation umbrella and exceeded our expectations for both revenue and EBITDA in 2016. With the support of our revenue management, sales and marketing teams these businesses realized passenger volume growth of nearly 25% versus 2015. During the third quarter, we finished the renovation of our leading attraction Banff Gondola. With significant upgrade to the mountain top dining, retail and interpretive experiences we now have a modern first class facility that is nearly as breath taking as the panoramic views it showcases. We are receiving very positive feedback from our guest and our tour operator customers, along with higher passenger volumes and increased food and beverage spend. And we expect very strong year of growth for this marquee asset during 2017. Despite the Gondola being affected by construction-related [indiscernible] for much of 2016, the Travel & Recreation Group realized strong organic revenue growth of 7.2%. Same store passenger count at our attractions were up 10.3% in total year-over-year with growth across all assets. As I discussed last quarter, the Glacier Skywalk attraction was a standout revenue management success story. The introduction of a new combo ticket that pairs the skywalk with our highly popular Glacier Adventure Tour helps to drive a 26% increase in visitors to the skywalk and substantial growth in overall attraction revenue. Our revenue management initiatives also had a positive effect on our hospitality properties. Same store RevPAR grew by 11.3% versus 2015, with increases across every property. Overall, same store occupancy for the year increased to 71.1% versus 67.4% in the prior year and we realized 7% growth in AER. As part of our Refresh, Build, Buy efforts we also took steps to downsize certain lower margin lines of business during 2016 specifically packaged tours and transportation in order to free up capital and other resources for higher return opportunities like the Banff Gondola. Before I wrap up the Travel & Recreation discussion, I'd like to provide an update on two important events that occurred at the end of 2016. The first is the fire that occurred at our Mount Royal Hotel on December 29th. As we previously announced our crisis management team reacted quickly to ensure all guests and employees were evacuated safely. The fire was contained at the top floor and the roof however the property suffered extensive water damage throughout and has been closed indefinitely. Fortunately no one was injured and our losses are recovered by property and business interruption insurance. We are actively working with our insurance carriers and the town event [ph] to assess our options for reopening the hotel, which will likely include I believe some level of upgrading of the property. At this stage we expect the Mount Royal Hotel to remain closed for the duration of 2017, we will provide additional update as more information becomes available. The second event which occurred also on December 29th is our acquisition of FlyOver Canada attraction, which is a virtual flight ride that showcases some of Canada's most all inspiring scenery. The state-of-the-art multi-sentry experience combines motion seeding, spectacular media and specialized effects including wind, sense, mist to provide a true flying experience. FlyOver Canada is rated by TripAdvisor as the number one fun attraction in the robust Vancouver tourism market, which shows more than 9 million overnight visitors annually. FlyOver has an ideal location at Canada place, which also serves as the port for Vancouver's crew ship terminal welcoming over 900,000 passengers each year and houses the East Building of the Vancouver Convention Center which hosts over 300 events annually. Since opening in June 2013 this high margin attraction has been very strong year-over-year growth and has hosted more than 1.6 million visitors. By bringing it into our Travel & Recreation Group we see opportunity to drive meaningful growth at the existing Vancouver location as well as opportunities to expand the concept into additional markets in future years. For 2017 full year we expect it to contribute revenue of approximately $9 million to $10 million with an adjusted segment EBITDA margin of about 55%. The FlyOver Canada acquisition along with the fully renovation -- remodel of Banff Gondola will be key growth catalyst for our Travel & Recreation Group in 2017. Additionally we expect continued gains from our revenue maximization efforts and favorable industry trends. These factors should more than offset expected declines from the Mount Royal Hotel closure and the packaged tours downsizing. In summary 2016 was a year of great progress and growth for the Travel & Recreation Group, and we're poised to continue that growth in 2017. And now I'd like to turn it over to Ellen to provide more color on our financials. Ellen.