Welcome to Ryman Hospitality Properties first quarter 2017 earnings conference call. Hosting the call today from Ryman Hospitality Properties are Mr. Colin Reed, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Mark Fioravanti, President and Chief Financial Officer; Mr. Patrick Chaffin, Senior Vice President of Asset Management; and Mr. Scott Lynn, Senior Vice President and General Counsel. This call will be available for digital replay. The number is 800-585-8367 and the conference ID number is 99281836. At this time all participants have been placed in listen only mode. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Scott Lynn. Sir, you may begin.

Good morning. Thank you for joining us today. This call may contain forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act Securities of 1995, including statements about the company's expected financial performance. Any statements we make today that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Words such as believes or expects are intended to identify these statements, which may be affected by many factors, including those listed in the company's SEC filings and in today's release. The company's actual results may differ materially from the results discussed or project today. We will not update any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or any other reason. We will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures today. We reconcile each non-GAAP measure to the most comparable GAAP measure in an exhibit to today's release. I will now turn the call over to Colin.

Thanks, Scott. Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining us on the call today. So two months ago, we laid out for you, aspects of our long-range vision for '17, '18, '19 and beyond and the investments we are making to drive our business, that is to build a sustainable, focused, upscale, all under one roof large group hotel business that brings with it better visibility, lower volatility, and far less competitive supply pressure than other segments of the hospitality industry. Simultaneously, it is also to build a global multichannel country lifestyle business around our iconic Entertainment assets. The first quarter of this year was yet another successful step along those two parts. I will take you first through the highlights of the quarter and how they illustrate what we've been working towards as well as give you an update on forward progress we're making on our investments. Mark will then walk you through our financial results, confirm our guidance, and outline the cadence of the remaining quarters of the year as well as our current refinancing transactions. We said on our fourth quarter call in February that we expected the first quarter to be one of the strongest of this year, due not only to the volume of group business on the books going in but also to the easier comparisons to Q1 of last year, which contain the Easter holiday and winter storm Jonas impacts. And that is precisely what we delivered with industry-leading RevPAR growth of 7.6% across the hospitality portfolio roughly balanced between occupancy and ADR. Now, the overall mix of groups in the first quarter was more heavily weighted towards associations versus corporates, compared to Q1 of '16. So outside of the room spend, grew slower than rooms revenue delivering total RevPAR growth of 5%, which…

Thank you, Colin. Good morning, everyone. In the first quarter, the company generated total revenue of $276 million, up 5.6% from the first quarter of 2016 and net income of $32.6 million or 23.8% increase from the first quarter of last year. First quarter consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $80.6 million represented a 9.7% increase over the first quarter of last year and an improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin of 110 basis points. AFFO in the quarter was $62.8 million up 11% from the first quarter of 2016 and amounted to a $1.22 per fully diluted share. As Colin outlined, our hospitality segment posted very healthy RevPAR growth of 7.6% due to a strong book of group business going into the quarter and the additional benefit of an easier comparison to the Easter Holiday and winter storm Jonas. Specifically, we believe the Easter ship favorably impacted Q1 by approximately 10,000 room nights or little over $3.5 million in rooms revenue across the portfolio. For those curious about the inauguration impact of Gaylord National, we estimated and contributed about $1 million to other revenue related to banqueting and events. As Colin mentioned, the increase in rooms revenues at National was primarily attributable for the strong book of group business already on the books for the quarter rather than to the MGM casino or the inauguration. In the year, for the year cancellations increased by approximately 4,400 room night versus the prior year quarter. This increase was driven solely by a single large group cancellation at Opryland. The organization made the decision to host the meeting in a different market, the contractors associated with this group includes our standard cancellation fees and we anticipate collecting these fees in the third quarter of this year. Attrition across the portfolio, in Q1 of 11.3% was…

No, Mark. I think we'll get straight on to questions. But thank you. And Stephanie, if we can open up the call to questions, please, that will be good.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Chris Woronka with Deutsche Bank.

Hey good morning guys. Wanted to ask if you've seen any changes and I guess, I'm talking more about in-the-year, for-the-year which you have less of than a lot of your peers. But as some of these other companies have talked about grouping up, given an uncertain transient environment, have you seen any of that impact the year? Then conversely, we don't know, we're still early days in the Marriott Starwood merger and integration, but we might see some changes in the composition of the group hotels on the Starwood side. Do you see any positive benefits from that down the line?

Yes. Chris good morning. This is Colin. So let me give you sort of a 30,000 foot view of group because we know there has been some commentary of recent that has led to speculation sort of there is been sort of a weakening here in group. So for us, we do not look at group as sort of a homogenous bucket. Group types can behave very, very differently and our hotels understand that and as does Marriot and that is my we have a very different sales structure by group type. So what we're seeing in group by category will be as follows and this by the way relates to forward bookings. So large groups looking to book for 2018 forward, and I know you didn't ask that question, you've asked about short-term stuff. As you'll have seen from what is occurred in our first quarter, what occurred last year is that this sector is very, very we see it as very strong. And what this has led to is we’ve outlined this morning in our earnings call, which we've just done here, our inventory of forward room nights has grown over the last 12-months by over 600,000 room nights, which is an awful lot of room nights. I mean that is a staggering amount of room nights that this forward inventory has grown by, and by the way, if you remember the Smith Travel analysis of last year, where Smith Travel looked at between the years of '13 and '15, what they pointed out is that large groups are growing very, very healthily. So there's no change to that. We're very, very happy with what we're seeing. Now in the short-term small groups, particularly Corporate, we have seen some volatility in the willingness to book. But frankly, this was a pattern that emerged in the second quarter of last year which we pointed out, I think, Patrick in our second quarter earnings call last year. But from our perspective, this is not something that's keeping us up at night. We have seen two or three months where we book at historical pace and then one or two months, where we are slightly below it. The first quarter of this year, our in the year, for the year, short-term stuff was there or thereabouts to historical pace. I think I'm accurate in the analysis, Patrick. So, in terms of current group behavior, I would describe it as steady as she goes. In terms of current group, steady as she goes, where we're not seeing groups change their behavior in terms of attrition. We're not seeing groups change their behavior in cancellation. We did have the one cancellation that was 7,000 room nights at Opryland, but as Mark pointed out, we're going to collect $1.2 million to $1.3 million of cancellation fees and we think.

And that group is traveling.

And that group is traveling. So we are not -- we listen to the earnings calls of our peers, all those companies that we tend to get lumped with and try and analyze what they are saying to what we are seeing and I would say to you that yes, we've seen a little bit of volatility in the short-term small group. But this is being dramatically offset by the strength of the large group business that continues to show-up in our business. Patrick, is there anything else I've missed on? And then we'll talk about the Marriott Starwood pieces in a second.

Chris, this is Patrick. Just to add-on to what Colin's already said, I would emphasize that it's nothing new that we've seen since Q2 of 2016. We've talked about that we've seen some lead declines in pharmaceutical business. We've seen some lead declines in medical and we attribute both of those to some of the current administration's discussions around what might be changing in the short-term for both of those industries. But I would tell you that we have a really good patterns for the remainder of this year, as particularly, Gaylord Opryland. We've made some improvements in our sales teams since last year. So we are feeling better about their capabilities. We have the new Riverview Ballroom opening-up, which will help short-term business secure National and quite honestly as we've already alluded to, we've been talking about this since Q2 of 2016, some of this volatility. So our comp as far as bookings, actually it's a little bit easier for the short-term, because we're now lapping some of this volatility that we saw early in last year.

In terms of the Marriott Starwood merger, I think, this is -- Marriott is working diligent and this is continue to keep them gainfully focused. But we only believe that this would be helpful to us in the long-term once those large convention hotels get merged into the Marriott convention network, and apply a far greater focus of sales processes and not the way it's been historically where you've got two businesses beating each other up in terms of room rates and competitively bidding for business. So, we hope that over the next one year to two years, this is a positive experience for the businesses that we own.

Okay. That’s great color. Thanks guys.

Thanks.

Your next question is from the line of Smedes Rose with Citi.

Hi. Thanks. I just wanted to ask you mentioned in your press release that you saw a change in the mix of group bookings that favored association over corporate. And I was just wondering if you continue to see that in the pickup that you saw in the first quarter of bookings? Or do you think that was just sort of unique to the first quarter?

The business that traveled in the first quarter was business that was booked a year, two, three, four years ago, and it's just -- that's just the way it was in terms of the profile that -- we booked strong association business, two, three, four years ago that arrived in this first quarter. But Patrick, do you have the dissection between corporate and association on that.

That was booked in the first quarter.

Yeah.

So in the first quarter we’ve booked an increase of year-over-year of about 32,000 room nights in associations. So, associations are really healthy increase. Corporate was up, not as much as association, so to the discussion we’ve been having, some of the short-term volatility was showing up in the corporate side and then our SMERF, or the other categories, social military, education, religious and paternal groups, were essentially a little bit down year-over-year. So, association was the big winner as far as groups being booked in the first quarter for future periods.

But both association and corporate were up?

They were both up. That's correct.

Okay. Thanks. And then just, I guess you're sort of RevPAR guidance as you kind of work through the year, it seems that zero seems pretty -- would be difficult to achieve. And I'm just wondering, is there one quarter where you are sort of least confident is it a tough comp in the third quarter? Where you think you could see maybe more downside? Or I'm just trying to think what got you down to zero? Or are you just being conservative?

I would answer this, this way. Let me answer it this way. We put out guidance two months ago in February. It's about two months ago, right. 2.5 months ago, right at the end of February. And we just think it's inappropriate for us to be changing it one way over the other. If we thought that there was downside risk, we would have changed it. I mean, it's not one way or the other. We would have changed it. But, I would say to you that the third quarter is the quarter that we will see a down RevPAR and it's simply because we had such a strong third quarter of last year. But, I -- at this stage, I would say that the zero is we’ve being cautious here. We get no benefit from you guys if we change stuff like this. We just don't. So we're in good shape with the first quarter and we think the fourth quarter is going to be pretty good.

Okay, thank you. Appreciate the color.

You're next question is from the line of Shaun Kelley with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Hey good morning guys. Thanks for taking my question. I was actually probably going to ask the same thing that was just asked. So on the mix shift, but maybe to switch gears, we could talk a little bit about just the CapEx timing. Could you just give us an update on when exactly you expect the additional rooms at Texan to open or how this will spread across '18 and then similar for Rockies. How do you think that's going to kind of phase in? Is it going to be all in one, that's one big opening, is that going to be meaningful in 4Q '18 or is that really a '19 scheduled opening?

Yes. So Shaun, right now, we're thinking that the Rockies, we're trending a couple of weeks ahead of our plan. But it is sort of December timeframe of 2018. So I would for caution's sake just open the Rockies January 1 of 2019. In terms of Texas, we're hopeful to have this expansion and this meeting space up and running sometimes in the I would say in the June, July timeframe.

Great. And then a similar question for SoundWaves and also I think the restaurant concept you're working on. What's the just general view on, pretty sure your SoundWaves is going to be opened in phases. Because I think that was mentioned last quarter.

Yes. That is one thing we're trying to figure out. We're trying to figure out how we structurally open the outside to coincide with the summer of next year. The issue is getting folks into it and out of it in an orderly fashion. And that's what we're working through right now. We're expecting to open the hard construction piece, the enclosed piece of all of this on I would say, early in the fourth quarter, sometime around October. I think that's right, Patrick, right?

Sorry, 4Q '18? For the indoor piece? Okay.

Yes. Fourth quarter next year and in the beginning of fourth quarter of next year, we're hopeful that we can use some of that beautiful pool expansion in the early summer of next year. But don't take that as definite at that stage, we’re still trying to work through the logistics of all that. In terms of the restaurant projects, Ole Red should open up in Nashville sometime around about I think May, we want to open it in time for the CMA Festival here in Nashville in May of next year. The one in Tishomingo, which is from an EBITDA perspective, its sort of inconsequential that, that will be ready, we think, in September, October of this year and the one in New York City, we’re hopeful to have that in sometime in September, October timeframe. That one's being delayed a period. Unfortunately, there was a workplace accident that occurred, there that has caused that project to be temporarily suspended while the web-based accident by the contractor is being investigated.

And just the last question on this would be the -- that these restaurant projects are all going to flow through the Entertainment segment. I would assume is that sort of what we should expect from a just the modeling perspective?

Yes. Shaun, that's correct.

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

Your next question is from the line of Bill Crow with Raymond James.

Let me just start by following-up on that last question. Are you undertaking these entertainment projects with the ultimate thought that you're going to divide the company up and are they being structured in such a way that, that would make it would make sense, be easy to do?

Well, the projects, they're not being structured in any way that would somehow benefit us separating the Entertainment business. But as we've talked about, Bill, multiple times, we've got multiple ways in which we can separate this business and at some point in time, it will be. And that's really what we have to say at this stage right. But these restaurant businesses, what we're trying to do here with them is, obviously generate profitability because we want to put these facilities in front of these country lifestyle consumers, whether they would be in Nashville, New York, or wherever else we're looking at. But these are pretty straightforward standard venues from a structuring perspective. They're just being housed within the Entertainment business.

Yes, Bill, they are going to impact for re-subsidiary, and there's nothing about the structure that would impede or limit flexibility in terms of how we might structure the business going forward.

Okay, thanks. It seems like in the second quarter the biggest risk in the quarter might be April given the shift of Easter. Can you give us April results?

Well, we can't give you the results but we will give you the -- will give you the top line. I think, the top line came in, in accordance with they are aware about that plan of operation.

Yes. We do not have results yet, but we are expecting.

Yes. But our revenues, we know. There are whereabouts to our operating plan.

So that was flat to up slightly, is that in the second quarter?

In the quarter, that's right.

Yes. Okay. Two more real quick ones. First one, just curious about the group that decided to move their meeting and absorb the $1.3 million fee. Is there something unique that going on there? What drove that decision on their part?

Bill, this is Patrick. They decided to move to a different city. I can't speak to their decision to do that. But that makes it very clean for us, as far as collecting the contractually obligated cancellation fee. We as always, strive to maintain a positive relationship with them. So this one is pretty cut and dry, but I can't really give you any idea of what their motivation was. It's pretty clearly was not economically driven but it's a decision either they got a better deal or they wanted to be in a different location but they definitely did decide to go to a different city.

Bill, it wasn't because they didn't like the idea of Opryland or Nashville. It was that they wanted to go somewhere else. That was the driver.

Yes. Understood. And then finally for me and I can't remember if you talked about this before. Have any of your hotels benefited from the Moscone Center disruption? We're hearing some of the meetings got moved to Orlando. So curious whether if you have kind of a non-recurring benefit?

Patrick, I don’t..

Yeah. We track who is new to the brands, who's been acquired we track who are the loyal customers that are coming back. And then we've seen nothing in that data that would lead us to believe that we benefit from Moscone being closed.

Okay. That’s it for me. Thank you.

Thanks.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Harry Curtis with Nomura Instinet.

Good morning. I wanted to ask about the pace of booking. And it is relief for the Rockies. And in -- as you introduced the Rockies, is it typically the case that you need to entice meeting planners with discounted rates, or are you pretty pleased with the rates that you're getting relative to the other properties. And then the last question is, has there been any shift away from the other properties as you book into the Rockies?

Well, let's start with the second part of the question first. As you've no doubt seen, we've been booking the Rockies, we opened the Rockies up inventory wise in January of 2016. And for the rest of our hotels, 2000, the other big four hotels, 2016 was by far the best year of bookings we’ve ever had as a company, right. So, we haven't frankly, felt the Rockies as a competitive pressure to our existing portfolio of hotels. What is also interesting is that, I gave you the statistic, Harry, that 17% of the bookings in the first quarter were pieces of business that were new to the Gaylord brand. And if you recall, because you've been following us for some time, this is precisely what happened when we opened Washington. We got a ton of business that we've never seen before that we’re able to capture and then start to rotate. So, we're very excited about that particular feature of the bookings that we're seeing. Both from a rate perspective, Patrick, I don't think that we are feeling pressure, by the meeting planners to heavily discount in order to secure these room nights. That's just not what we're seeing here.

Yeah, I would agree with that. We have a very clear path set out as far as the rates that we want to book each year, the average rate and the number of room nights. And we have been on pace and on target for those targets that we've set out. I would tell you that, quite honestly, in 2016, there was some pent up demand in the first quarter and second quarter as a lot of meeting planners were looking forward to booking Rockies, once the sales office was open. And obviously with that pent up demand, rate is less of a negotiation because you have these meeting planners that are very motivated to go ahead and book. Just to add onto what Colin already said. I would remind you that we always want to see rotation between our properties of groups, and we're seeing that, we are seeing groups that are loyal customers to our existing four hotels, now rotating into the Rockies. To balance that, though we had set some acquisition target goals for the sales team to make sure that to Colin's point they're introducing the appropriate level of new groups into the mix and we put a lot of pressure on the sales team in 2016 to hit those targets. And I would tell you, as we moved into '17, I'm very pleased with the direction that we've been going from an acquisition perspective. So we think it's very balanced, the number of groups rotating versus the number of new groups that are being introduced to the brand and that will rotate from Rockies to other locations, as a result.

The other thing that happens, Harry, with these big hotels, you know because the gestation period is so long, as these babies come out of the ground, as they become physically you can see the mass and the scale and you can start getting meeting planners driving around the asset. What we tend to see is that the meeting planner enthusiasm for booking sort of rising as the building comes out of the ground. So we are excited about all of that.

So as a follow up, what should investors expect for first year occupancy for a new building like this? And say, how would it compare to the first year occupancy at Gaylord National?

Well, we haven't gotten into that level of granularity. But we would not expect a material difference between this hotel but since it's next to one of the nation's busiest airports that is centrally located. We would not expect to see a difference, one way or the other between, but the problem that we have when we opened Washington is have to get into the middle of 2008, and as the world was starting to go off a cliff. But we expect solid performance with this hotel. We really do expect solid performance with this hotel.

Okay. That does it for me. Thanks very much.

Thanks Curtis.

Your next question is from the line of David Hargreaves with Stifel Financial.

Hi, I'm wondering if you keep an eye on the volume of activity going on in Vegas and if the pricing, room pricing, parking pricing, and everything is starting to get to a point where some of that business might be more easy to get?

So you're saying, because of the volumes of demand for Vegas, there are two hotels that one is the hotel of Ghenting that’s under construction and one is, Steve Win has recently announced that he is going to build on the golf course there, I think 1,500 rooms on the golf course. So I think that was what is was, initially phase one. But you're saying that because of the volume of gaining leisure customers going in there, maybe, and the pricing, that it maybe opportunistic to take customers from Vegas into our existing portfolio. Was that the detail of the question?

No, what I meant was that it seems that the price continues to go up and a lot of the related pricing is getting, the value proposition maybe isn't quite as competitive and I'm wondering if that's maybe if you're able to go after some of that convention business, that group business?

Well, so the answer to the question is this that and we've done a lot of research on this stuff. 50% of the groups in United States of America, there or thereabouts. The large groups in America, want to have Vegas in the rotation. All these groups are a potential acquisition for us because of pricing. The answer, of course, is yes, providing our pricing doesn't escalate disproportionately to what you see going on in Vegas. But we are always bidding against Las Vegas, have been for the last decade. And what we tend to see -- that it's Vegas becomes a competitive threat when the world goes off a cliff 2'08, 2'09. And the leisure customer doesn't turn-up there. So this is one of the things that we, David, that we have been really talking about since the last two or three years. The thing that you're touching on is there is very limited new supply for the groups that want to book 6,000 to 8000 rooms at peak right across the country. There is very limited availability for this. And so as prices go up in one particular market, groups that want -- that have historically traveled to that market, do we have a chance to get them. The answer is, yes. But demand for this 1,000 room plus continues to grow and is very attractive at this stage.

Great. Thank you very much.

Your next question comes from the line of Chip Oat with Tradition Capital Management.

Colin, regarding, theoretically possible properties of the Starwood portfolio that could fit your criteria assuming that the price was right, are there one to five possibilities in there? Theoretical possibilities? Six to 10? What is the number? I mean there are not that many properties out there that are even worth a sniff from you.

Yes. This is what I would say. We don't sort of look at it like how many in the Starwood portfolio. We don't look at it that way. We look at what are the large, really large group hotels in the markets that we've really are attracted to. What are those hotels, who owns them, and is there a potential for them to be disconnected from their current ownership structure. And I would say despite the 10 large, big, beautiful great convention hotels out there, the reason why we look at Starwood is because now they will be within the Marriott armory. And that has been beneficial to us unlike the rest of REIT plan. The reason it is beneficial to us is because we have a very distinctive strategy of rotating customers from one hotel to another hotel to another hotel. So there are a bunch of hotels out there. We're constantly looking at hotels. We're constantly having preliminary discussions. But it's an issue of price. And it's an issue of market and it's an issue of availability.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks, Chip. Stephanie, we will take one more question and then if other folks have questions, prospectively they can call into Mark, myself, or Patrick and we'll do it that way. So if there's somebody else on the line who wants to ask a question, we'll do that.

At this time there are no further questions.

All right, Stephanie, thank you. And everyone, thank you for being on the call this morning. I appreciate it. And we'll be speaking with you over the next couple of months as we find ourselves in these investor forums. Thank you very much.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect.