In preparation for MAR's 1Q 2013 earnings release tomorrow, we’ve put together the recent pertinent forward looking company commentary.

POST-CONFERENCE COMMENTS 

  • "New York's always been a dynamic market, continues to be. A lot of supply is coming on, mostly limited service-type branded supply, but that supply is getting absorbed. Probably has the effect of holding down rate a little bit, but clearly occupancy is being absorbed and those hotels are filling up. Right now, there's not much full-service construction anywhere in the nation, except for New York, and that's because developers can get their returns in New York, and that's why it's getting done there. So I think New York will be a great market. The other thing you have is Sandy, you still have some occupancy in there from Sandy that caused some compression in the city and pushed some stuff out."
  • "As of year-end, our Group pace was running about 6%, probably a little more rate than occupancy in that. We feel like we've got about 65%, 70% of our Group on the books for 2013 right now, which is where you want to be. That leaves about 30% to be booked in the year for the year. As you look at that in the year, for the year bookings with occupancy near peak levels, you'll get more pricing in there."
    • "You're seeing the window lengthen a little bit. It's not lengthening a lot, but it's lengthening a little bit which means those groups are saying, I need to book it now for the – or I'm not going to get those dates I want out there because the occupancy has strengthened, so we're feeling good about Group."
  • "At year-end, we were about 85% done... with the corporate, special corporate negotiations. We came in probably just north of 5%. We were hoping to be maybe a point or two higher, but you'd had the whole fiscal cliff thing at the year-end kind of inhibited that a little bit. But we feel good about where we came out, north of 5% is a pretty good rate increase. But the good news was as we talk to our major customers, they indicate they're going to be travelling more in 2013, than 2012. That their budgets for travel were up and that's a good sign. Like you said, it's about 11% to 15% depending on the brand of our total transient mix or total mix and it's good to see that there's going to be a little more volume."
  • [EDITION in London, Miami, and New York] "We'll invest probably in those three properties you mentioned about $900 million in total. About $250 million of that will be in 2013. They're in various stages of completion. London will be finished and opened probably by June of this year. Miami, which is on South Beach, probably first quarter of 2014. And then the Clock Tower in New York City will be probably early 2015, give you kind of timing.  We'll recycle those hotels, sell those hotels shortly after they open, anywhere from six months, three to six months maybe after that, and recycle that capital."
  • "We're a BBB company, investment grade. That gets us into the commercial paper market. That's where we want to be. So we try to stay at a 3 to 3.25 adjusted debt-to-adjusted EBITDA. So as EBITDA grows, that creates debt capacity for that."
  • "What you'll see as we have those growth in rooms outside the U.S. in Asia-Pacific, Middle East, you're going to see an acceleration of incentive fees for those hotels."
  • [Incentive fee] "We're projecting by 2014, we'll be back at that $370 million level. But it'll be more international, less domestic."

YOUTUBE FROM Q4 CONFERENCE CALL

  • "What we've seen over the last couple of years is the government has been much more cautious about travel spending. They've been much more cautious about food and beverage spending when they do hold meetings. In fact, a number of our hotels, we'll talk about how government groups over the last year or 18 months won't order lunch for their attendees at a government meeting."
  • "In Asia, GDP growth has moderated a bit, but continues to chug along at better than 5%. With the leadership transition complete, we think China travel should regain its footing later in the year.  In Asia, we expect first quarter REVPAR to increase at a mid single-digit rate, strengthening a few points as the year progresses."
  • "We expect Thailand and Indonesia to remain strong throughout the year."
  • "In the Caribbean and Latin America region, we expect first quarter REVPAR will increase at a mid single-digit rate, improving to a mid-to-high single-digit rate for the full year. Here, we're more bullish than in October. While economic growth has slowed a bit in Brazil, we've seen lodging demand strengthen in Mexico and the Caribbean. We are pursuing hotel development opportunities in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile."
  • "In Europe, we expect some modest improvement in GDP in 2013, but given the tough comparison to the Olympics and other events, we are still expecting flattish REVPAR growth for the quarter and the full-year, similar to our outlook in October."
  • "In the Middle East and Africa, we are modeling a mid single-digit increase in REVPAR, consistent with our October outlook, with double-digit REVPAR growth in the first quarter. In 2012, we signed 11 new projects in the region, Africa's extraordinary wealth of natural resources drives economic growth and we expect to open our first three Marriott Hotels in Sub-Saharan Africa no later than 2014. The Middle East and Africa region represent 3% of our fee revenue."
  • In the Middle East and Africa, we are modeling a mid single-digit increase in REVPAR, consistent with our October outlook, with double-digit REVPAR growth in the first quarter. In 2012, we signed 11 new projects in the region, Africa's extraordinary wealth of natural resources drives economic growth and we expect to open our first three Marriott Hotels in Sub-Saharan Africa no later than 2014. The Middle East and Africa region represent 3% of our fee revenue."
  • "Worldwide for 2013, we expect to open 30,000 rooms to 35,000 rooms. Most of these rooms are already under construction or under renovation; nearly half of our anticipated 2013 openings will be in the U.S., including conversions to our Autograph brand and newly-built limited service hotels."
  • "Incentive fee growth will be likely constrained by more modest REVPAR growth in Europe and Asia than we've seen in recent years."
  • [2013 Group pace]  "Well, there's a little bit of difference quarter-to-quarter, to be sure, and some of that is driven by seasonality. I think the back half is probably a bit stronger than the front half."
  • [2013] "We would expect to return anywhere from $800 million to $1 billion share repurchase and dividends to shareholders."
  • [Cash level] "I guess, we usually try to stay around the $100 million, and as long as we have access to commercial paper markets, which are robust and our credit rating we do, we kind of finance the business with the commercial paper markets. And that's backed with a $1.75 billion revolver."
  • "F&B is growing notwithstanding and should continue to grow in 2013."
  • "We have seen on a limited service side financing getting a little better, but it's still under terms that are requiring the developer to guarantee the debt, provide credit enhancements. And the leverage isn't what it was way back when, so to speak. But that money is becoming available, especially from regional and local banks as the CMBS market has strengthened providing capacity for those. As to the full-service hotels, especially whether a suburban or even urban full-service hotels, we haven't seen new construction type financing. Now financing is starting to show up for asset sales, but not for new construction."

MAR YOUTUBE - MAR