Colin V. Reed
Analyst · Deutsche Bank.
This is a very complicated -- you've asked a very simple question. It sounds a simple question, but it's a very complicated answer. And here's the issue: The way Marriott sort of currently are configured, by and large, is that they manage accounts. They manage large companies. They manage accounts, and so when that account has a meeting, be it a meeting of 50 people or 5,000 people, they manage the account. What we have done, historically in our company, is we believe that the way to be configured is to have a group of hunters that are just purely going after these big annual meetings. And so, what we're doing is we're putting together this group of people. And I think if you read Arnie Sorenson's earnings script from last week, he referenced that they are making changes to the way they go about sourcing big meetings. And a lot of that is because of the dialogue that we've been having with his organization over the last couple 3 months. Here's the good thing. There are probably only 8 to 10 hotels in the Marriott system that can take 1,000, 2,000 room, at peak, groups. And if you look at the rest of the industry, Hyatt has a couple and Starwood have a couple, but the opportunity here is to get this, what I would call SEAL [ph] team that focuses on these big meetings. There's a lot of big meetings that we need to be all over, and I believe it will be good for the World Center in Orlando, because the World Center will be one of those 8 to 10 big hotels, I believe it will be good for the World Center, as it will be good for their hotel in San Antonio, because these customers, by and large, 80% of these 1,000-room-pluses, want to rotate their business, hotel by hotel, year by year. And we believe that this will be a modification, it will actually be good for the Marriott system, as well as good for the Gaylord system. So we're pleased about this and excited that we're moving in this direction, and there's going to be a little bit more refinement over the next month. But we're pleased with this direction, and we think it's going to be good for our business.