In preparation for MGM’s Q1 earnings release tomorrow, we’ve put together the pertinent forward looking commentary from MGM’s Q4 earnings call.
Q4 YOUTUBE
- “2010 for the city, visitor growth was about 3% and for this year, the LVCVA is predicting another 3% increase. We think there is upside to those numbers based on increased scheduled flights into Las Vegas, a stronger convention calendar, and the early booking pace that we are seeing already this year, particularly in the year for the year.”
- "We saw increased spending across all of our Strip properties in January with a 17% tick-up in net non-casino revenues. Looking at it for the full year, we have approximately 1.6 million convention room nights on the books, which is a double-digit increase from the same time leading into last year."
- "In January, for example, we were up 33% in inquiries and 150% in bookings in our incentive business, as compared to the prior year. So we’re on a good pace for 2011, and we expect to see our overall casino mix to be about 14%."
- "And we have good experience as to what happens when our convention business grows. We saw that in last October. We’re seeing it right now and the convention mix helps us drive much better revenue, and reason why we believe REVPAR will be up all year in 2011 for our company."
- “On the casino side, we continue to see strength in the international play. In fact, we had another all-time record in the city and for our Strip properties in 2010, including Aria, in terms of international volume…. We’re in the tail end of Chinese New Year’s, and we’ve seen very strong volumes here in Las Vegas… We flew about 15% more customers into Las Vegas this year than last. All of our suite product has been fully occupied through the whole period, with high-volume and high-value guests.”
- “In January… we were able to improve our convention mix by four percentage points, and that all came out of the leisure segment…. convention segment has an average $50 to $70 ADR premium over our leisure segment.”
- “We saw increased spending across all of our Strip properties in January with a 17% tick-up in net non-casino revenues.”
- “We’re up in the teens in REVPAR in January, largely due to a very good convention calendar.”
- “January was a great month for CityCenter, all around the campus with strong profitability in every element of the business.”
- “Aria continues to experience exceptionally strong rate of play in baccarat. Year-to-date, through December, Aria has captured 23% of the Las Vegas Strip’s baccarat market share.”
- “January 2011 REVPAR at Aria was the highest since opening, and exceeded expectations.”
- “In conjunction with the opening of Cosmopolitan, and the adjacent pedestrian bridge just off the CityCenter’s footprint, we’ve seen a noticeable increase in foot traffic.”
- Guidance for 1Q2011:
- “Stock compensation expense… is estimated to be …$9 million to $10 million.”
- “Depreciation expense… is estimated to be in a range of $160 million to $165 million.”
- “We still believe… we’ll be able to have good pricing strength going into the second quarter as well.”
- [Strip RevPAR] “We’ll be up, as Dan said, double-digit in the quarter.”
- Q: “Dan, you had mentioned that you’re expecting first quarter 2011 REVPAR to be up 10% or so, including the resort fees. If we were to exclude resort fees, could you help us out with that year-over-year change would be?”
- A: “Excluding resort fees, we would expect it to be up at least in the high single-digits as a percentage.”
- A: “At least. Like 7% or 8% or something”
- "Convention forecast for Aria is about 14.5% for convention."
