Hello, and welcome to the Dalata Hotel Group plc's 2021 full year results call. Throughout the call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode, and afterwards, there will be a question and answer session. Today, I'm pleased to present Dermot Crowley, CEO, and Carol Phelan, CFO. Please go ahead with your meeting. Good morning, everyone. I'm delighted to be talking to you today and announcing our 2021 results. May I just say for the first time we have a webcast, so on the home page of Dalata, you'll be able to see the slides as we talk through them. Feel free to log on to that if you wish. I suppose the very first page we've described as a time to look forward, and that'll be the title for our annual report. The reason for that is we've come through COVID. You know, we've reflected a lot on it, but we feel now it's time to look and see what the world looks like after it in terms of consumer behavior, corporate travel, impact of technology, impact on our cities. On top of that, we've a new senior team in place over the last four or five months. There's been a number of appointments made, and I'm very excited about what that looks like going forward. We're opening seven new properties, or sorry, six new properties in the first half of this year. We've already opened two in Manchester, and we've announced our first hotel in Europe. It just seems to all of us here in Dalata as a time to look forward. I suppose looking at moving on to slide three, and the summary of the results, and then I'll hand off to Carol to go through the trends and the actual financial results themselves. It really was a tale of two halves in 2021. Our revenue recovered quite strongly in the second half of the year. Our total revenue for the year was up, EUR 192 million, which was still 55% behind where we were in 2019. We saw a good recovery as we reopened in June, and that fed right through into the second half of the year. One of the key things I look at in terms of how we're doing is cash, and we generated EUR 49 million in cash in the second half of the year, which is a very positive result, if you think of it compared to EUR 100 million generated for the full year in 2019. However, we were assisted significantly by government supports. Looking into the first couple of months of this year, one thing that really stands out to me is that our RevPAR in February just finished with 91% of the levels achieved in 2019. A gain, that's a big positive for us, and certainly we wouldn't have predicted that even four or five weeks ago. Looking forward, we feel we're in a very strong position as we come out of COVID. We've kept our core teams. You've heard us saying this for the last 18 months, and that has been hugely advantageous over the last six months to us, and we see that as a competitive advantage in having experienced teams in place in all the hotels. We're still lowly geared. Net debt to value of 24% is a really good position for a hotel group to be in two years after the start of a pandemic. As well, as we said on numerous occasions, with a young, well-invested portfolio, which again we believe gives us a competitive advantage as we come out of COVID. Looking forward, strong pipeline of 2,000 rooms. We've already opened two hotels this year. I was over at the opening of our Maldron Hotel in Manchester last week. In January, we opened the Clayton Hotel in Manchester, and that's performing really well for us and again ahead of where we thought it would be. That's really, really positive for us. As I mentioned previously, we've secured our first hotel in Europe with the Hotel Nikko in Düsseldorf, and we're really hopeful now with the relationships we've established over the last number of years that will lead to further opportunities for us in Europe. We've developed our responsible business framework, and we've really started upping our game in terms of the whole area of ESG, and I'll touch on that later again in the presentation. We are ambitious for further growth. We feel we're in a strong position, and I'm gonna hand over to Carol, who will bring you through the next few slides. Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Dermot. Just to reiterate what Dermot said, 2021 was very much a tale of two halves. In line with the government restrictions, our business was closed to all bar essential services until May in the U.K. and June in Ireland. From reopening, you can see on slide five, our occupancies have recovered more quickly and steeply than at any point in the pandemic so far. This is not surprising with the strong uptake in vaccines and the evolution of the virus itself, meaning society has largely moved to a phase of living with the virus. The chart on the slide before you shows the path of RevPAR recovery relative to 2019 levels, which has occurred over 2021, with the recovery naturally sharply accelerating post-reopening through the sixth month. By November, RevPAR had recovered to 78% of 2019 RevPAR levels. Occupancies had recovered to 80%, reflecting the awaited return still of international travel, but encouragingly rate had recovered to 97% of 2019 levels. Omicron led to a slight dip in recovery, but before all the restrictions were lifted in both jurisdictions, and we will see in later slides just how strong the demand has recovered sharply, and Dermot has referenced it there also. On that slide also, we set out the food and beverage revenues. They too have recovered strongly, in particular in the U.K. and regional Ireland following the occupancy returns. Those revenues represent a significant part of our business. They were 23% of the revenues in 2019. Naturally enough, there remains a gap in Dublin due to its recovery lagging the other regions somewhat, but also due to conference and event business which has not yet fully returned, and with events due to be held in December unfortunately being canceled after the emergence of the Omicron variant. Turning to the next slide, it shows the variation in that regional recoveries towards 2019 levels until the end of February 2022. This demonstrates the difference in the recovery profiles between the regions, and also shows the very quick recovery from restrictions we imposed following the emergence of Omicron to the strongest level so far. Dermot touched on they've recovered to 91% of RevPARs, as compared to 2019. We're particularly pleased with how strongly Regional Ireland and Regional U.K. have both performed. These benefited us in early on from the staycation trend through the summer, which allowed the opportunity to yield on rate. Also, domestic business has always been the majority of the business in both regions, and domestic corporate travel has resumed to a far greater extent than its international counterpart. Regional Ireland actually reached 97% of its 2019 RevPAR levels in the second half of 2021, led by rate. Dublin and London have recovered more slowly due to the slower return of international travel. International corporate travel has remained subdued as global company workforces continue to work from home in 2021, and international travel is complicated by differing approaches to restrictions and testing. With the excellent decentralized teams at the hotels who have remained in place throughout the pandemic, we continue to maximize on rate and periods of strong demand throughout the second half of the year and into 2022, and you can see that in the chart at the bottom of that slide. Turning to the next slide. We remain encouraged despite the headwinds with the positive recovery backdrop. There is a strong economic outlook for both the U.K. and Ireland. Indeed, throughout the epidemic, Ireland has continued to grow the numbers of jobs in foreign-owned companies. The charts on the bottom show the historically strong correlation between Dublin RevPARs and airport passenger numbers. The chart on the right-hand side of the slide shows the expected return in flights to Ireland, with flights expected to be back to 86% and 98% of 2019 levels in 2022 and 2023 respectively, which also bodes well for recovering RevPAR in our Dublin business. Turning now to slide eight. Of course, there are challenges that face business in our industry, in particular as we recover. However, we believe we are well positioned to deal with these challenges. As the pandemic recedes, it has had an impact on supply chains and demand, which has led to inflationary pressures that are impacting all cost lines. Naturally, as a people business, payroll is our greatest cost and represents 27% of revenues in 2019, the last relatively normal year of trading. Minimum wages in both jurisdictions are typically increased by the governments on a yearly basis, and will have increased since 2019 to 2022 by 7% and 16% in Ireland and the U.K. respectively. We've increased pay rates in line with these and brought forward the April 2022 increase in the U.K. minimum wage, which is also known as the living wage, to October 2021 due to the wider industry pressures. We continue to focus on investments in technology and in innovation, and challenging how we can do things more efficiently and better without impacting on our customer experience. Due to the geopolitical situation in Europe, which has deteriorated dramatically this past week, we've seen huge volatility and increases in the cost of our gas and electricity since late last year. We had forward purchased until the end of 2021, but are now floating. As part of our ESG targets, we are actively working on reducing energy consumption, which will help offset the impact somewhat. However, at 2.4% of our revenues in 2019, the impact of rising costs will affect margins in 2022. Room rates will naturally also have to increase to offset inflation pressures, and our decentralized revenue teams and sales teams are experienced in optimizing pricing and distribution, demonstrating this once again through the recovery period. Another key challenge as we emerge from the shadows of the pandemic is the timing and the nature of the return of corporate travel, particularly international. It is likely, given how work patterns have changed over the last two years with growing levels of concern about climate change, that corporate travel may not return to the same extent. Though we expect that there may well be initial high levels due to pent-up demand as people reconnect and rebuild relationships, and it is incumbent upon us to ensure that we get a greater share. With our well-invested modern portfolio, which has external safety accreditation, which we will continue to maintain despite the pandemic receding, and our stable teams from pre-pandemic, we expect to provide a strong level of reassurance to returning customers as well as attracting new ones. We intend to communicate our sustainability journey and our credentials to meet corporate needs. Always a key focus, we will ensure our teams engage with our customers and remain agile and innovative to respond to any changing needs and travel patterns post-pandemic. The continuing shortage of people being attracted to work in our industry is also a challenge. We've not seen the levels of difficulties that other competitors have in retaining and recruiting people, but we're not immune to its effects. We work very hard here in Dalata together to try ensure that we are a great, inclusive place to work for all our people, and are very happy that despite two years of difficulties for our industry, our employee engagement score at our hotels actually increased. We've also staffed three newly opened U.K. hotels over the last six months despite the backdrop, and recently ran a very successful national recruitment campaign in Ireland to attract more people to work with us. We will continue our efforts to ensure all our people enjoy coming to work, are treated fairly, and can see the career development and upskilling opportunities that are available here. I'm going to now take you through the 2021 financial review. On slide 10, we have set out our group income statement. Whilst we show a loss before tax of EUR 11.4 million, I'm very pleased that we've returned a strong positive adjusted EBITDA of EUR 63.2 million in a year where the business was largely closed for the first half of the year. For 2021, revenue has grown by just over 40% on 2020, reaching just shy of 45% of 2019 levels. With the level of restrictions imposed, particularly in Ireland, government support has been beneficial in protecting the business and supporting maintaining employment. We've seen small uplifts on property evaluations through the income statement and through other comprehensive income. Central costs are up in 2021 as pay was restored for employees in January and directors from April. Our interest and finance costs decreased by EUR 7.2 million. This is largely due to the 2021 accounting gain on the extension of the debt versus the accounting loss in 2020 on the amendment at that time. Higher margin costs following their statements were largely offset, though, by lower debt levels in 2021. Turning now to Dublin specifically. We've set out on this slide the quarterly occupancies and average room rates, which demonstrate the recovery of the business. Both occupancy and rates encouragingly increased from Q3 into Q4 despite Omicron, and we're encouraged by the continual improvement of the different segments of the business returns. Our RevPARs in July 2021 represented 37% of July 2019 levels. However, they'd increased to 68% in November and further improved into February with over 76% of our 2019 RevPAR levels. We expect international corporates to resume travel towards the end of March and start of April after returning to their offices, and the portfolio is very well positioned to benefit from this and the very strong pipeline events in Dublin in 2022. With revenues back EUR 170 million on 2019, we are very grateful of the support from the Irish government with wage subsidies and grants of EUR 24.2 million and rate waivers of EUR 5 million. Turning now to regional Ireland. Regional Ireland has had a standout performance since reopening, with very strong vacation demand through the summer and carrying into the weekends in particular thereafter. Domestic corporate business also started to return, and as restrictions on numbers attending events were lifted, this also led to demand increases. The second half of 2021 reached 97% of the 2019 RevPARs, as despite occupancies remaining at 80%-85% through Q3 and Q4, rates significantly outperformed. Revenue through the year overall remained 37% behind 2019, and government wage subsidies and grants of EUR 16.5 million helped to mitigate the impact of this on our EBITDAR and to continue to protect employment. Turning now to the U.K. It also had a very strong performance following the full reopening in May. Restrictions there tended to be less extensive and lifted more quickly than in Ireland, and consequently government supports were also lower. Performance improved month-on-month, apart from a dip due to Omicron in December, led by the regional U.K. properties where domestic business is always a major component, with both domestic leisure and domestic corporate business returning very strongly. In H2 2021, regional U.K. and Northern Ireland RevPAR reached 92% of 2019, with London behind at 60%, as like Dublin, it too awaits the meaningful return of international business. Turning now to our cash flows. Dermot touched on them earlier on. I too am very happy with how the business has protected its liquidity over the past two years to ensure we weather the impacts of COVID and remain positioned for strong growth. We've generated positive free cash flow of EUR 49 million in the second half of 2021, which has obviously been helped by government supports. In 2020, we took early action to bolster liquidity through the sale and leaseback of our Clayton Charlemont Hotel for EUR 65 million, additional debt facilities of EUR 39 million, and completed a very well-supported equity raise for about EUR 92 million. This has also ensured as we came into 2021, we were in a very strong position, which we have maintained through 2021 despite the closure of the business in the first half of the year, or the effective closure of the business. The business also continued to reduce its uncommitted CapEx spend and manage costs very well to ensure cash was protected. We finished the year now with just over EUR 298 million in cash and undrawn facilities despite the impact on the business in the early part of the year, and we spent over EUR 36 million on largely commissioned CapEx programs. We're very pleased with this outcome. Last, but by no means least, I'm really delighted about how our balance sheet remains in excellent shape. We have EUR 1.2 billion of hotel assets in prime locations with a conservative net debt value of 24%. We've just over EUR 276 million of net debt, which includes cash of EUR 41 million. We've also limited exposure to potentially increasing interest rates as over 66% of the debt is hedged until October 2024. In addition, we will receive the proceeds shortly of the pre-sold residential element of the Merrion Road development project. As I mentioned on the previous slide, EUR 26.3 million of deferred VAT and payroll liabilities under Irish government COVID-19 initiatives will be repaid within the next 12 months. All in all, the business is recovering very strongly, and this balance sheet continues to offer strong protection, but just as importantly, as we look forward into the future, a very strong base for future growth. Which will now hand over to Dermot to take you through in the coming slides. Thanks, Carol. Just moving on to slide 17, where we just look at our model that supports our growth. In the first kind of column there, you can see where we are currently. As Carol mentioned, EUR 1.2 billion worth of assets on our balance sheet. We've got some really quality long-term leases with strong rental covers. T hen finally, and most importantly, really an excellent reputation as a hotel operator and really experienced, talented at acquiring and developing hotels as well. Moving to the next column in terms of looking at our financial potential and our flexibility, which we showed during the pandemic, where we did a sale and leaseback of the Clayton Hotel Charlemont in April of 2020, which gave us EUR 65 million at a critical time for us. Pre-pandemic, we generated cash flows, free cash flow of EUR 99 million, and that shows you what the potential of the pre-growth portfolio is as we move out of COVID. Looking at our portfolio growth and what that can deliver for us, we've two freehold hotels currently under development, the Maldron Marylebone Road and the Maldron in Shoreditch. When we look at our pipeline, including recently opened hotels, there's a EUR 30 million potential EBITDA post-rent. What does that give us all? It gives us a potential for further growth when we look at potential new opportunities around Europe and in the U.K.. As you can see, as we demonstrated, our covenant and our reputation was key in securing Hotel Nikko in Düsseldorf last month. Moving on to the next slide, looking at what our growth strategy is and our competitive advantages. Ireland, we're really more or less done in Ireland. We want to consolidate our position in the main cities of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, and Galway. We would have a big focus though on the U.K. We continue to look for opportunities in the U.K. We still have no hotel in places like Edinburgh, and we'd like more hotels in cities like Birmingham and Bristol. One of our key focuses continues to be London, a difficult place to get very attractive opportunities, but we've been successful in the past, recent past with Shoreditch and the Clayton Hotel City of London, and I've no doubt we will be again in the future. In Europe, we are looking to target the large cities right across the mainland Europe that have got a strong combination of corporate and leisure demand, and Düsseldorf fitted right into that category. Why can we achieve this in terms of our competitive advantages? Well, obviously, we've got a very robust balance sheet. Critically, we've got very strong teams of people. We're experienced and skilled, and we've proven our expertise in terms of acquisitions and development. We have maintained a really excellent and actually enhanced our reputation with real estate investors over the last two years. We continue to pay our rent throughout. We never threatened not to pay our rent, and we provided our fixed income investors with far more information than what was even required under the leases we had with them, and that has enhanced hugely our reputation with them. Obviously, Maldron and Clayton are leading brands here in Ireland and developing in the U.K. Moving to the next page, I just wanna focus a bit on our U.K. growth strategy because I don't want the announcement of one new hotel in Germany to take away from what we're doing in the U.K., which is really exciting. It remains our primary growth strategy for now. We currently have over 3,500 rooms in the U.K. with a pipeline of a further 1,400 rooms. That's a 40% increase. We will nearly have doubled the footprint in the U.K. from the middle of 2020 to the middle of 2024. That's a very significant increase in the size of our U.K. portfolio. We opened a new official opening of our new Maldron Hotel in Manchester last week, and we opened our Clayton Hotel in January. The Clayton Hotel has performed really well over its first six or seven weeks. Very early days in Maldron, only open for two weeks, but even that has been encouraging in itself. What this does in terms of an overall strategy, it reduces our reliance on Dublin and diversifies our geographical risk. That's not to say in any way we're not confident about the future of Dublin. We just think it makes sense to diversify that risk. Moving on to page 20, where we've got some lovely photographs of all the new hotels. I mean, the key thing to say here really is that these are just excellent properties in prime central locations. You know, when I was in Manchester last week and walking around our Clayton and Maldron, you know, these are new generation in terms of the type of facilities we can offer to our guests. In many cases, they're competing with much more older and tired products. That makes it easier to attract customers, and it makes it easier to attract employees as well. We're very confident about what this portfolio is gonna do for us as it opens over the next six months. You can see as well what an exciting time it is for us all in Dalata. To think we're just coming out of COVID, we've opened our first hotel in Europe, and we're opening six hotels across Ireland and the U.K. Moving on to page 21. What I love about Clayton Hotel Manchester, apart from going there and experiencing the hotel and our team in there, is that it really is a great example of our stakeholder model. As I said, centrally located four-star hotel with great people who are very focused on our customers, a key stakeholder. When I look at sustainability and the standards to which the hotel has been built, that ties in very much with how we want to engage with the community and take care of our environment. When I look at the strong partnerships we've built up in terms of the people like Aviva, who are supplying the finance, and the developers, who helped construct, and contractors who've helped build the hotel, that's another stakeholder we've had a huge focus on over the last two years. Finally, if we achieve the target rental cover of one point eight five in year three, we will deliver a very strong financial return to our shareholders. Sorry, finally, in terms of our people, when I look at the number of internal promotions that this has generated, another key stakeholder in that model that we talk about a lot at the moment. As I said, Clayton Hotel Manchester City Centre is just a super example of our stakeholder approach. It is very exciting to be announcing last month, our first move into continental Europe. It's something we flagged for a couple of years that we were interested in doing it, and it was great to be able to do it so early in 2020. Again, sorry for repeating myself, a great example of how we build relationships. Art-Invest, who own the building, had heard at a conference about our strong reputation from another one of our landlords, and actually made contact with us directly as to whether we'd be interested in this hotel. You live and die by the reputation you create. It ticks all the boxes. Its prime location, well-invested property, and a city that has a strong combination of leisure and corporate demand. We're currently in the process of introducing the Dalata culture into the hotel, and we're excited about the opportunities we can provide for the team at the Hotel Nikko. Business has to be rebuilt post-COVID, as you'd expect. We're enthusiastic about the challenge ahead in that respect as well. We're very hopeful that this will lead to more deals with Art-Invest and other fixed income investors in Europe. If I could just move on to sustainability and our commitments generally around ESG. The first thing to say is that we are on a journey here. We don't have all the answers, and it actually feels like we're early in the journey. We've lots more to do and lots more to consider. What our aim here really is, we want to use this as a competitive advantage. People often say to me, you know, "Is ESG really important to you? And if it is, why is it?" Well, it's first of all, it's the right thing to do, and that is actually really important to us here in Dalata. It's the smart thing to do. Our corporate customers are demanding it. Our fixed income investors reward us for it. Our equity investors reward us for it. C ritically as well, it opens up to a greater pool of potential employees. Our purpose and strategy sets out what we're about and what is important to us. Our governance shows how we're embedding ESG right across the organization. In terms of our commitment, and understanding, we've taken a really big step in actually outlining some short-term targets for the first time. We think we're stepping up significantly how we're gonna report our ESG performance going forward. The great thing about Dalata is, though, ESG is consistent with how we believe we should be doing business. In any case, we now just need to start selling our story better, setting ourselves targets, and reporting against those targets. If I move on to the next page, in looking at our progress to date, the targets that we set out there in terms of near-term targets are very much the top of the agenda for the senior team throughout Dalata, and work streams are underway to see how we'll actually achieve those targets. If I look at our starting point, where we are currently, we were early adopters of the principles and provisions of the U.K. Corporate Governance Code. We took that on since we listed, even though we didn't meet it at the time. We established an ESG board committee back in January of 2020. As I said previously, our company values are built on the ethos of ESG, hospitality, and our people. We submitted our first CDP return in 2018 and achieved a score of C. If I look at what progress we've made to date, we've reached out to our suppliers. We had a half-day webinar with them on sustainability in September last year. We've achieved gender balance on our board. We've identified non-financial metrics for 2021. We've engaged consultants, sorry 2022. We've engaged consultants t o assess the carbon impact of our buildings, very exciting project that's currently ongoing. We've achieved and maintained in 2021 our CDP score of B. We also, for the first time, put a question on our employee engagement survey just to test how people are feeling generally about diversity and inclusion, and 91% of our people believe that people from all backgrounds are treated fairly, and 95% feel respected and included by their colleagues. We're determined to keep that at those high levels. If I look at the next steps for us, we're assessing medium-term targets as we look to science-based targets and net zero. We want to fully understand what we're committing to before we actually make that commitment. We won't just say something for the sake of saying it. We want to understand it and believe we can achieve it. We're in terms of what we're doing on the ground, we've just finished installing meters throughout the portfolio for water and gas that allows us to look at quarter-hour data and make real difference to our consumptions. We're currently deciding on what other KPIs that we need to measure and publish in the future. We're developing a three-year action plan for all our key themes on our ESG reporting roadmap. Looking at our responsible business framework, you can see we set out there our purpose statement for the first time in our annual report this year. Our purpose is to grow. Not surprisingly, we use the word growth and evolve as an innovative and sustainable international hotel company. Carol mentioned the importance of innovation as we're faced with increasing costs and reduced revenues since COVID. Sustainability is something I've touched in the last few pages, and we're delivering an excellent customer service driven by ambitious people flourishing with a culture of integrity, fairness, and inclusion. That's very much in line with the stakeholder model that we're using. If I look at it in terms of people, I'm not gonna go through the everything there, but our priorities are those four pillars of governance, people, planet, and society. You can see we've had a number of recognitions of the efforts we've made over the last 12 months. We've identified eight, or sorry, seven of the SDGs that we believe are most relevant to us, and we've tied our pillars around those SDGs. A lot of work has been done on the whole area of ESG over the last 12 months, but we recognize there's a huge amount more to be done. Finally, looking into the outlook and looking what the future holds for us. Well, trade is recovering well since the removal of restrictions at the end of January. As I said, 38% occupancy in January and 62% in February. You know, and I'll say it again, if someone told me five or six weeks ago we've reached 91% of our 2019 RevPAR levels in February, I just wouldn't have believed it. W e're really, really excited by the recovery in February and hopefully what it means for the balance of the year for us. Domestic recovery in the third quarter of last year, and even in 2020 when restrictions were lifted, demonstrates the amount of pent-up leisure demand that's there at the moment, right? We saw that again, as I said, in February. I'm very excited about the fact that flight capacity is recovering probably faster than what we expected, so that'll be a big positive for us. Companies will hopefully, as Carol mentioned, the large multinational companies will start returning to offices at the end of March, early April, and we're hoping that will lead to a return of international corporate travel, and we're already beginning to see the return of international leisure travel, which is very positive. We have a strong, really strong calendar of events in 2022 in all the cities we operate, and we've already seen with Rugby Internationals during February what that can generate in terms of room rates and revenue for us. Looking forward, sorry, looking beyond that and what does the future hold for us, it is critical that we remain agile and we continue to manage the business because we still operate in a certain environment. We have to be cognizant of the fact there could be another COVID-19 variant, which although may not lock us all down, could lead to restrictions which would have a direct impact on our industry. We're also very aware of the current conflict in Ukraine and the potential wider global implications for us. Although, you know, as I said earlier, when you see some of the stories on the news at the moment, the impact on Dalata seems quite insignificant compared to what the tragedy that's happening over there. Looking beyond that, we do need to manage a large recovery opportunity within our existing Dalata portfolio. Very conscious of not focusing here internally on our new properties because our existing properties are key to our recovery. We do have inflationary pressures that Carol has touched on that we need to deal with and manage as best we can. We are focused on the further growth opportunities and delivering an existing pipeline of over 2,000 rooms and very excited about doing that. As I said previously, we're adding seven hotels in the first half of 2022. We do hope to resume dividends when we can, when we're further into the recovery. The last thing I'd want to do for those people listening internally, I want to thank everyone within Dalata for their dedication over the last two years, and since I became CEO in November. Hospitality is all about people, and we have great people. We take questions. Thank you. If you do wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing zero two to cancel. Our first question comes from the line of Colin Grant from Davy. Please go ahead. Thank you, and good morning, everybody. Thanks for doing the presentation. I have a couple of questions, if I can. Just firstly, Dermot or Carol, on staffing. You have a number of new hotels that you've mentioned that you've already opened this year and a number of others coming on stream in H1. Could you just talk about staffing at those and how you've been able to manage that and have you been able to get teams in place and get everybody that you need in terms of staff at those hotels? Maybe just start with that, please. Hi, Colin. Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, look, I mean, like staffing is challenging. There's no point in saying anything else. For our new hotels, actually, we haven't had huge challenges. Maldron Glasgow, which we fully staffed up in June and July before its opening August of last year when, you know, when the pandemic was, you know, really impacting, and then we managed to staff up Clayton Manchester just before Christmas, hold on to all that staff during Christmas, and then reopen, you know, when the Omicron wave was at its height. Likewise in Maldron Manchester, where I think over 70% of our management team there are actually internal promotions. I think really we've gained in, and it's been in the U.K. so far, the new openings have been. We've gained a reputation of taking care of our people. It's well known in the industry that we held on to all our core management teams. That actually we did everything we did to try and protect people below those core management teams as well. We used subsidies, and we used government support to protect our people, which is what they were used for, was what they were intended for. I think people recognize that. Maybe some of our competition didn't do that, so that's given us an advantage. Then we can sell the development programs. We've launched Dalata Academy last year. That's a big selling point for us. We can show to people, you know, we do develop people, we do internally promote people so that you can have a career at Dalata. We look at the simple things. We try and make sure they get good staff meals. You know, whenever we visit hotels, we focus usually on touring the back-of-house services, making sure they're clean, they're well-invested. It like, it really is all about just taking care of your people. I say in the annual report. I ask our staff as I go around, you know, treat your colleagues right as you would and people working for you as you would hope your brother or sister, son or daughter, mother or father are treated. Treat people with respect. I think that's what we're seeing in terms of return when we're staffing those new hotels. Great. Thanks, Dermot. Just the second question I would have would be around inflation, both in costs and in room rates. We've seen some pretty substantial increases in room rates. You've given a lovely chart there showing the trend in room rates through time relative to 2019. Carol also touched on some of the cost inflation numbers on the labor side and utilities. Could you maybe just give us your thoughts in terms of the outlook in 2022 on the interplay between those two things in terms of what you expect in room rates to do relative to some of the cost pressures that exist in the business? Thanks. Hi, Colin. Thanks. It's Carol here. I'll take that. Obviously I have gone through the types of challenges we're seeing across all cost lines, which I think is pretty consistent with everyone is seeing globally. We have very much a dynamic pricing. We operate in a dynamic pricing environment, and you can see that as you referenced in some of the yielding on rates that we've been able to achieve through this recovery period, which is a very strong indication given that our occupancies weren't necessarily back to previous levels. A huge strand of how we achieve that is having decentralized teams at each of our hotels that are responding to the drivers that are in its local market, its local competitors and competitor sets, remaining engaged with its customers, educating its customers even before they return in what we're seeing in terms of the impacts on our business. That is how we will have to move forward in terms of pricing to deal with those costs that have come into the business. The other strand of that that we touched on as well is that innovation. It's doing things differently, doing things more efficiently and not just resuming the previous ways we had of doing things pre-pandemic. Technology has evolved. Our investment has grown in different spaces. We've rolled out, for example, MICROS Simphony across all our hotels, which supports our food and beverage side of things. That allows us to work very hard in terms of understanding our margin, our pricing, and ensuring that we are responding to whatever we are seeing from an inflation perspective. Yes, there are plenty of challenges there. I think we're well-positioned, and I think even through this last six months as we've recovered, we've demonstrated our ability to move that even when things aren't back to normal. Great. Thanks, Carol and Dermot. I'll hand it over to others now. Thank you. Thanks, Colin. The next question comes from the line of Paul Ruddy from Goodbody. Please go ahead. Hey, morning, Dermot and Carol and everyone. Firstly, just to acknowledge a very strong performance this morning or for the year in very difficult circumstances. Just a couple of questions. I may just, if I could just start with a difficult one, just to press further on the cost inflation. You know, the absolute blocks of cost inflation, we all kinda know about them. We're talking about them every day. The utilities, the new one, labor. You talk about the kinda technology investments and, you know, your management of staff. Just is there any kind of figure you can call out to us as to, you know, what might be the quantum of overall cost inflation in the big lines compared to 2019? What are the potential mitigation, you know, whether it be lower room cleaning, things like that. If I could leave that as just one question, maybe. The second one is just maybe if we could just discuss briefly the move into Europe. Obviously the first move is into Germany. Can we kinda derive that Germany is the key market you're focused on now, or are you still looking at other cities? Do you have, as kind of another part to that, any kind of high-level targets for the number of rooms you might look to achieve in Europe? The final one is just maybe on the trajectory of the ramp-up of the new hotels, the occupancy figures you called out for the new hotels look very healthy. Just kinda how do you think you're tracking right now on those new openings versus your kinda three-year targets to get to RevPAR comparable 0.85x? Okay, Paul, I'll take the second and third questions there, and then Carol. Yes. can answer inflation. I suppose when looking at the move into Europe, like, Paul, you'll know, right, you know, we can wait for years to get the right location and the right city. For instance, we've been trying to get Denver for years, right? We'll only go in when we find the right location. When I look at Düsseldorf and where we're located within that city is absolutely in the city center. That gives us a big advantage long term throughout that lease. As I said, when I look at the hotels we're opening in the U.K. and Ireland in the first half of this year, apart from Maldron Merrion Road, which is attractive location for other reasons, they're all, you know, really well built hotels in fantastic locations. Right? That, that's a big benefit to us, right? As we look at further cities in Europe, right, we will be patient to find the right location. That could mean it's a bit like waiting for the bus, you know, nothing comes along for half an hour and then three come together, right? Okay. I'm not saying, by the way, there's two more on the way next month. Just so absolutely clear. Y ou know, so the cities that we're looking for really are those. There's a big number, right? Because there's a lot of them there, but they have to be strong in corporate and leisure, have relatively high occupancy because that's what we perform really well into. In Germany, there's about five or six of those cities. You know, in the Netherlands, there's probably only one, which is Amsterdam. You know, likewise, in Austria, there's Vienna, right? You go into Spain, then there's definitely Madrid and Barcelona. We need to do all the research on other cities beyond that. There's probably a few in Italy as well. Okay? We are doing research in the background on cities that would suit us. Sometimes we become aware of an opportunity as in a city that we haven't done the research yet, and then that triggers that work. That is ongoing. We're very ambitious for what we can do in Europe. I just want to stress our growth strategy for now is primarily in the U.K. As regards to ramp up of new hotels, it's very early days, right? Okay. You know, I'm slow to make predictions, but certainly in Clayton Manchester, which is open close to two months now, you know, it is performing ahead of where we would have expected. It's doing really well in terms of occupancy. It's doing really well in terms of average room rate. Even Maldron Glasgow had a very good second half of last year. There's no reason for me to believe that we won't reach the targets of 1.85 rental cover in year three, because obviously from the time we did the initial projections, revenues are likely to be higher and costs are likely to be higher as well. I think it's all good news in terms of those new hotels, and our growth strategy generally. Carol, do you wanna touch on inflation? Yeah. Thanks, Paul, for those questions. Obviously, I mentioned it there when I was speaking through the slides, labor is the biggest, or labor cost is the biggest component of our business. In the U.K. and Ireland, they have increased significantly since 2019. There have always been minimum wage increases. To be honest, it's not a bad thing, for our people that our wages are increasing. We work very hard in the hotels. We have a dense decentralized structure, which means our hotels manage the full of their earnings. That means our strong GMs, supported by the finance teams, are always looking at how we can manage all our costs, in the business and proactively. It's not something we're sitting here at central asking our people to do. Some of the initiatives that we're taking, for example, Des, the COO, has a number of projects he's looking at the moment to see and challenge how we are doing things and can we do them better coming out of the pandemic. I think you mentioned it. There are things like room cleaning, looking at how we're doing that. Obviously, technology, looking at some of what we have, we're to some extent forced to do through the pandemic in terms of, you know, online check-ins, maybe reduced interaction with reception for those customers who want that. Make no mistake, we won't be reducing our customer experience in terms of what we're trying to do. This is very much focused on just ensuring things are done more efficiently. Utilities and gas we touched on again. You know, that was 2.4% of our revenues in 2019, which was not negligible. I suppose given how the pricing has moved in that market since then, it will have an impact on our margins. Here we are very much focused not on just recovering to our previous occupancy levels, our previous rate levels. We were also focused on working back those margins in the hotels as we recover. Pricing and price increases will form part of that. I'm hugely reassured, I suppose, that the teams at the hotels, that is the way they're thinking and talking. We may be talking about recovering to 2019 levels in this presentation today as it sets out how we are looking to recover to a more normalized level of trade. By no means will we be looking to recover back to the rates as our targets for 2019. Okay. That's really helpful. Could I just ask one quick follow-on question, if that's okay? Just on supply, just seems like there's probably a lot of challenges for the operators across all your geographies, pre the Ukraine crisis, unfortunately. Now you've got energy prices loaded on top for operators. Are you seeing any meaningful exits from your markets or any major change in the supply dynamics? Well, I suppose, you know, Paul, two things that kind of strike me is that our main competitor across the road in Clayton Hotel Dublin Airport, the Holiday Inn Dublin Airport, which opened only in the middle of last year, is closing down for a year to take direct provision business. T hen on top of that, the new Travelodge that opened in Townsend Street, likewise, isn't going to be operated as a hotel for the first 12 months because again, that'll have government related business. That's like 800 rooms between those two hotels and they're brand new hotels. We've been given an estimate from Savills that about 2,000 rooms, two to two and a half thousand rooms currently are being used in Dublin for alternative use or are closed. I think that is, you know, that's indicative of, you know, smaller operators maybe struggling to get staff and struggling in the current environment. There is a big supply of hotels still coming into Dublin. I f you look at it again, it's in that apart hotel and budget hotel sector. Staycity have close to 1,000 rooms in the apart hotel coming in in this current year. As I said, the Travelodge is close to 400 rooms that's just opened, although obviously won't be open as a hotel. There's a Hampton by Hilton opening as well in the next few weeks, which is 250 rooms. A lot coming in in that budget aparthotel, but quite a lot being used for alternative uses. That's really helpful. Thank you. We have one more question from the line of Owen Shirley from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Morning, Dermot. Morning, Carol. Thanks for taking the questions. The first one, apologies to labor the point, but I just wondered on cost inflation, whether you could give an indication if you were to look at, costs on a kinda like-for-like basis. I f occupancy was the same as 2019, what kind of percentage higher would costs be overall, roughly, even if it's just say, sort of mid-single digit, high single digit, low double digit type, indication? The second one is, I know you've obviously, both been in the industry for a little while, and I was wondering if you would comment on, during prior periods of cost inflation, how pragmatic has the industry usually been when it comes to moving rates in response to that and how quickly does that tend to happen? Thirdly, obviously we've got in the U.K., the rent moratorium kinda coming up in a few months time. I just wondered if you were having any conversations with landlords of other properties ahead of that, you know, that might indicate there's a pipeline of, you know, potential assets that you could be in line to take over. Thanks. Hi, Owen. I'll give Carol a break from the cost inflation questions. It's very hard. Like, when you look at versus 2019, it's really hard to say what it is versus 2019 because it varies hugely from, you know, from sector or cost to cost. We've given some color on labor, and that even varies then between the U.K. and Ireland. Fuel obviously, you know, is again another sector, but like, you know, in terms of cost inflation, that could change today from what it was last week because fuel prices are so volatile at the moment. Then there's other costs which really haven't been so far impacted that badly. On top of that, you know, we're trying to do our business, as Carol outlined, in a different manner. Unfortunately, I'd love to give you an easy answer, but I can't and I won't. There you go. When you look at the cost inflation and how prices react to that, in the hotel industry, typically, it does track inflation. Average room rates do track inflation. Now, sometimes, you know, it can lag us. It depends on the nature of the crisis. Obviously, during COVID, there was a huge collapse in RevPAR and average room rates to an extent. That wouldn't necessarily, at that point, have been tracking CPI. Overall rise, it does tend to be reasonably consistent that you would expect average room rates to rise in line with inflation. It is reasonably efficient in that perspective. In terms of rent moratorium, you know, it's. We haven't seen anything yet, right? It is interesting there's no rent moratorium in Europe, and even though we've only secured one opportunity, we're showing ahead of that more, right? I do believe when that ends at the end of March, you will see activity probably starting to happen, you know, within the next five or six months after that. It doesn't happen that fast unless there's a landlord and tenant really not getting on and they're ready to go. I would expect it to take a number of months and probably into the, you know. I was chatting to Shane about this, who's our corporate development director, and their expectation is gonna happen more towards the end of the year. I would be. I'm not wishing ill on anyone, but I would be hopeful that that might throw up an opportunity for us in the U.K. as well as we get further into the year. Brilliant. Got it. Thanks very much, Dermot. Okay, Owen. Thank you. As there are no further questions, I'll hand it back to the speakers. Okay. Well, look, thank you for your, you know, for your time this morning. As I said, I'm supposed to finish up, we do feel in a pretty positive position. We had a strong recovery in the second half of the year. Really happy with what we saw in February in terms of recovery. We're back generating cash, EUR 49 million in the second half of last year, so that's really positive. We feel we're at a very strong position. As I said, we've got our teams in place, which is giving us a competitive advantage. Conservatively geared balance sheet with 24% net debt to value, strong liquidity. We've just opened two hotels in the U.K., took on our first hotel in Germany, and we'll open four more hotels before the end of June. That is, that's very exciting, very busy. That leaves us looking very optimistically for the future. Thank you very much for your time, and I will be meeting a number of you. Myself and Carol are meeting a number of you over the next couple of weeks, and thankfully a lot of those meetings are face-to-face. Thank you. This concludes our conference call. Thank you all for attending. You may now disconnect your lines.