We'll keep things going here. I know we're a couple minutes behind, but that's only because of, you know, it's just a good chance to get everyone together. So, our next fireside chat will be with the management team from Hyatt Hotels and Resorts. So to my right, Mark Hoplamazian, President and Chief Executive Officer, to his right, Joan Bottarini, Chief Financial Officer. So Joan, Mark, welcome. Thanks. Thank you for doing this with us. Thank you. Thank you for having us. You know, a lot of places we could start, you know, Mark, you know, one place I wanted to- I always like to start with the global hotel company's, you know, kind of, you know, highlight of the summer. Give us one quick... We were just talking a little bit, so I got a little preview, but maybe for everybody else, you know, where does, like, a major lodging CEO travel when he has vacation? Well, this summer took a brief trip to Greece to celebrate my daughter's graduation from college, and Greenland for fishing. I fish with a group of travel people. I know I should get more diversity in my private life, but it just happens. We've been fishing together for many years, and we went to Greenland to fish for Arctic char, which was really a great release, 'cause there's no cell service, and we hiked 10-12 miles every day, and it was, you know, absolute pristine wilderness. So all of those combined for a true break, which was great. How many Hyatts are in Greenland? Zero. That will probably remain the case for at least the near future. We'll see. Not a big development opportunity, at least- No ... not yet. No. Joan, any major call-outs? Exciting trip for us this summer. My daughter turned 21, so she- Lovely ... joined me in Paris, actually- Wow ... earlier this summer. We had an investor meetings and engagement there, so she hopped on the back half of that trip, so it was nice. Little business and pleasure in one week. But not Olympics. Right- Pre-Olympics ... before. Right, but before, so we saw kind of everything being built, and that was pretty exciting, too. So in the investor meetings, did she cover my section? She could. She's amazing. All right, well, let's put that to the test with, let's, kind of start off. If we were to kind of rewind back to, to really the last time I think the investment community was engaged, as we left in the second quarter, the main kind of call-out in late July, early August was, you know, a bit of slowdown, softness, whatever you want to call it, kind of coming out of this, you know, you know, out of tougher comps in, in the leisure, you know, area. So I think the question we, we want to start with, just on that kind of travel and demand side, let's leave it open-ended, you know, how do you feel about the environment right now, Mark? You know, what should we be reading into, you know, a little bit of the concerns that people may have about, you know, the broader RevPAR environment? I guess at that level of you know how many feet above sea level you are, I think the first thing I would point out is that a lot of those comments were really about year-over-year comparisons, and last year was extraordinarily strong for leisure in particular. I think that's really the thing that caught so many people's attention. I think just to put that in context, if you look at the levels that we achieved last year, we're 20% above pre-pandemic levels, and we're maintaining that. We're not down from last year. We'll have roughly the same leisure demand and leisure revenue base for the company globally this year as we did last year. We elevated to a very high level, first segment to recover, and we're maintaining that. The two segments that in business, transient and group, have actually increased over time. Where are the differences? A lot more Americans, and I mean a lot more Americans, traveled to Europe this year, and that's multidimensional. There is a Taylor Swift effect because it was cheaper to go take a flight to Europe, see Taylor Swift, and come back than it was to get tickets sometimes for- Right ... the Taylor concerts in the United States. I still believe someone should do the math. I think she contributed a couple of hundred basis points to global GDP this year. Not kidding. It's incredible. She had a much bigger impact on Hyatt than the Olympics in Paris did. Wow ... just to pick a, you know, reference point. So part of it was events, Taylor Swift, Olympics, the soccer tournament in Germany. Part of it was rotation. Like, people had been to, done the Caribbean, Mexico for the last several years and said, "Okay, time to branch out." So I think that's part of what we've seen. That's why Europe was up for us 12% the second quarter, and, you know, the Caribbean and Mexico were middling, you know, kind of flattish. But I think overall, for the whole year, we expect the leisure total revenue base to maintain itself, and I do think that over time you'll see a more natural balancing out of where people are traveling, and then you'll see a resurgence of Caribbean and Mexico next year. I think China has been a tale of a couple of different dynamics. Inbound has been really weaker than I think anybody expected, but it's also driven by lift into China. Outbound's been very strong, which has driven really good results for us in Japan, and Korea, and Vietnam, and Thailand. Domestically, there's been really an interesting dynamic where our rooms revenue is actually up 3%-4% for the first half of the year, and our F&B revenues are down close to 7% for the first half of the year. I think overall, for the total year, we think our revenue base in China is gonna be down a bit, like low single-digit decline. But you know, I think the dynamics there have to do with some weaker corporate group banqueting activity in our hotels. That's on the group side. But don't forget, for Hyatt, that's food and beverage is, like, 50% of our total business in China. So that's where you might start to see a little bit of a dichotomy, 'cause RevPAR is actually up, and our fees are down, and you might say, "Well, how in the world does that work?" And the answer is, well, half of our revenue is non-RevPAR driven. Wow. Right? So that's just a current dynamic in China. But overall, our segment that we serve is still driving positive RevPAR and room rate progression. Let's kind of break down each of those. Let's start with the U.S. on the consumer side. It sounds like, to summarize back to you, it's a lot more about normalization than it is anything about that's concerning on the consumer side. We have heard a little bit about, you know, low-end leisure pockets where I think there are, you know, some areas of a little bit more concern, but, you know, is it Hyatt's customer base that helps you kind of, you know, it kind of that you may not be seeing that? Are there any segments that you that stand out, you know, when you look high to low or you see a little trade-down? Anything that alarms you on the leisure side? I think you should... The data you cited to me earlier today was really stark in telling that story. When you look at major hotel segments or categories, and we look at it on a global basis, which is what we reported in our Q2 release, the luxury segment is up 7%, upper upscale is up 4%, this is year-to-date numbers, and our upscale is up two and a half, I think, approximately. Upscale being select service. Yep. Yep. And so, you know, that is similar directionally in the U.S., and so, you know, it is our customer base that is resilient, is strong. Back in the U.S., back to the U.S., we also, you know, super encouraged about what's to come. Our owners are making investments, major investments in some of our leisure resort properties, and so we will see the benefits of that. It's. We've got this temporal disruption that we talked about on the call with respect to the renovations, which are, you know, going to be great hotels repositioned. Some of them are closed right now. So that is something that, on the leisure side, we're absolutely excited about into the future. And then we also talked about Maui, which, you know, has been a market that we anticipated would recover more quickly. It's taking longer, but as we look out into the future, we see a lot of positive discussions that we're having with the local government and the way they're trying to bring back tourism more quickly and welcome guests back to the island. So, you know, these are temporary issues for us right now in the U.S. And the resorts that Joan is referencing, leading the Miami Andaz, redo, that Sunstone is doing aside, if you look at, Indian Wells, in California and the, and the Scottsdale Gainey Ranch Hotel, both are being, rebranded as Grand Hyatts. And the only reason I'm adding anything to what Joan said is because it's also interesting to note that about, I'm going to guess 40% of their business respectively is group. So you have- Mm ... very high-end group. Mm-hmm. In addition, a lot of it's incentive trips, right? Sure. Or product launch kind of stuff. So also a lot of out-of-room revenue. So you've got the base of group coming to a brand-new hotel, basically, at an elevated level in markets that not only sustain that but demand it, and then you've got the transient side, leisure transient side, which I think is gonna be much better, much, much more significant. So these are the kinds of things that are causing short-term disruption now, but great long term for us. And maybe just elaborate a little bit for us. I think one area that, as we turn the page from summer and Europe and Taylor Swift, you know, now we have to talk about her showing up at football games, you know? So, that's gonna be the next thing, but which I think is tonight. But even, you know, without that, you know, we're going into kind of back to the business travel environment and a very strong group environment, so just walk us through that. What are your sight lines there? You know, group is in particular a focus for Hyatt. How does that feel both pace-wise and just in terms of its recovery curve, how much can this offset some of maybe the broader concerns out there on the leisure front? I'll cover group, maybe you can cover business transient. Pace into the remainder of the year is about plus four, 60% of that is rate, and 40% of that is occupancy. Cumulatively, we are ahead in rate total for our group business, this is for U.S., by the way, and we are lagging in total occupancy recovery. Next year's pace right now is plus seven, about 40, 60 split, 40% rate and 60% occupancy growth. Now you're starting to see some demand fill out that lag that we've had in occupancy. I think total RevPAR and revenue base growth in the group is super healthy and very well-balanced, I think. On the business transient side, it's the momentum is just super encouraging, which we have been seeing throughout the course of the year. In the second quarter, we reported 12% revenue growth in the business transient segment. And- And- Now- I think by the end of that quarter, we surpassed pre-COVID levels in the United States. With very strong rates, and you know, last night we were obviously staying in a hotel here in New York, 100% occupancy last night. So, you know, very strong in these urban centers where we're seeing a lot of business travelers get back on the road. It's, you know, back to school, back on the road, and while it still remains short term, there is nothing we're hearing from our corporate large customer bases that are saying they're pulling back. The business transient travel that we see leading the pack in terms of growth is the largest customers that we serve. This, it was an SME- Yeah ..story at the beginning of COVID. Now, it's the larger corporations are now back on the road, and since a lot of our deals with them have dynamic pricing elements to it, the rate, the rate increases are significant. So big picture-wise, if we kind of rewind how the portfolio's evolved over the last, you know, five to seven years, big focus on lifestyle, big focus on, you know, I think, you know, increasing your leisure mix, and this was structural, not, you know, not just tactical. So help us think about that, that broader bet, Mark, as we sit here today, and, and really, obviously, this is a bit of a subtext here is Apple Leisure Group, you know, and, and the impact that's made. But, you know, you are more leisure-heavy today. Still the right bet? How do you feel about that structural balance? And then overlay that with, again, you know, some of the decisions were made before we exactly knew what COVID, pre-COVID, post-COVID was gonna look like, so. Yeah. I feel really confident about it because among the data points that you've heard from us already during sitting here, given the customer base that we're serving, I think the leisure demand is relatively assured to be vibrant through economic cycles. Adam was telling me about some new research that had been done, and the correlation, not surprisingly, for the highest correlation to leisure travel demand is the employment rate. And when you look at the category that is coming to our luxury brands, which is the- what Joan cited earlier, let's just say the employment levels are extremely high. So you end up with kind of the demand driver also supporting where we happen to stand in our customer base, and I think therefore, leisure demand for us is gonna continue to be reliable and a good base. We're about 55% leisure revenue in total versus 45%, and that's up from maybe high 30s% through all the different things that we've done. It feels really comfortable to me. Maybe going a bit deeper on ALG, you know, a year ago, this dominated a lot of the investor conversations. Yeah. But it was interesting, right, you know, I think by the fall, and certainly, I think it was right around December, you actually came up with a really unique solution, which maybe saved Joan some sleep on the accounting side- Oh, yeah ... of, you know, what you're able to do on UVC. But again, what you're really doing is finding a way to make this fit, I think the more standard, you know, asset-light, capital-light way we think about lodging businesses. The one piece that's still a little different is the distribution business, so I want to ask about that. You know, how important is that critically to, you know, Apple Leisure's success, and, and your development and brand strategy there, and, you know, any opportunity to, to, you know, work through or change the structure of how that business fits as a bigger part of Hyatt? First of all, in terms of the first part of that question, yes, it's highly integrated because it's a key distribution channel for I would say pretty much all four- and five-star all-inclusive resorts. We don't really have much three-star business through ALG Vacations. That business, when we bought ALG, was a low- to mid-single-digit RevPAR margin business, and now it's a high-teens, mid- to high-teens margin business, and there were very deliberate steps that the team took. We've, since we bought the company, put more and more capital into technology that will have some medium-term impacts on being able to pull margins up further. And it's also true that your, your statement is correct. It operates at a lower margin inherently than the management business. So we're not trying to optimize margin as much as we are making sure that we've got unique selling points and maintaining the vibrancy of and performance of this really important segment for us, which is all-inclusive. It happens that we believe that there may be opportunities for us to strengthen ALG Vacations, maybe by having a partner organization or another company with whom we might choose to do business. So far, we haven't quite found the right fit, but we've had discussions, and we have no current plans cooking. So it's not like there's something imminent. But the platform has really been solid and highly productive, and we get tremendous visibility into the marketplace through the volume of business that they do. So there are some really significant benefits if you, if you say, "Okay, apart from the margin differences, which are observable, what else are you getting out of this business?" And I think the other things are actually quite material. I want to pivot to the broader development landscape. As we take a step back here, obviously rate cuts are on the, you know, possible agenda for Wall Street, which we generally cheerlead. Then combined with inflation's coming down, the driver of the rate cuts. Both those seems like they should be positive ingredients and factors into a supply environment or a development environment that has been, you know, tough since COVID. What kind of what do you say about, you know, the development environment as we sit here today? What are some of your conversations looking to? And I'd love to sort of add on to this a little bit about full service, because I think we know that, you know, people have kind of value-engineered supply growth, you know, to fit what developers can do today. But obviously, a lot of the bread and butter of your brands in particular are gonna, you know, skew to those higher price points where... and more complex capital structures. So what does it mean, you know, big picture, and what does it mean for full service development in particular? ... Big picture, no question that we'll have a positive impact if we see rate cuts and an increase in availability, advance rates. We have been operating at a lower start rate and a lower opening rate for the last several years, post-COVID, and a lot of that has to do with rates and availability, capital, especially for construction projects. Most of the capitals come from regional and local banks that require, you know, personal guarantees and things like that. So there's just some constraints in terms of what developers can actually do. We're starting to see more traction in Studios starts, which is helpful, and the signing backlog for Studios is growing, which is also encouraging. Those are so much smaller projects, and it's a little easier for a developer to over-equitize early 'cause it doesn't cost them a massive amount of their own capital. So I think overall, it will be certainly a positive, and I do think it will have an impact on full service, and when I say full service, I'm not talking about traditional business transient-focused core brands. I'm talking about more lifestyle that serve both business and leisure segments, because you have a more diverse demand base. So I think lifestyle has been the one of the highest growth areas with respect to full service development, and will continue to demonstrate that, which is why we've made such a big bet on lifestyle. I think all that's true, and then in China, encouraging signs there. Right. Just as a reminder, two-thirds of our pipeline is actually outside of the U.S. So when we look across capital formation, you know, is different and unique in different markets around the world. And in China, we're seeing now an acceleration actually of starts, of construction starts. So signings are very healthy, remain very healthy, and we're seeing pick-up now in actual starts, two hundred basis points over what we saw at the end of last quarter. Jo, can you unpack that for us a little bit? 'Cause I mean, obviously, demand has been slowing. You know, writ large, what you're doing, you know, I think broadly is better than the market, at least on the RevPAR side, 'cause the, you know, the broad market statistics are actually down. Tony threw out a number of July down 10% for China RevPAR, so that's definitely gonna be concerning to some people. But, you know, even if you're doing better, we know the environment's tough over there on the demand side. So how do we, how do we put those two pieces together? What is different? Because we also know that the commercial real estate environment, you know, there is different. So how can you have supply accelerating while demand is decelerating? Sure. Well, there's still motivation by the government. They've actually reduced rates recently to stimulate growth. So, you know, they're taking action, and this is something they've continued to do over the course of the last several years, and it's just in how they go about it and what that is, how that leads to the stimulation in the actual consumer demand, which will take some time, but we're in it for the long term in China. And also remember that, you know, a significant portion of our existing assets and our pipeline assets are state-owned. So there's control there from that perspective to help with respect to the stimulation objectives. I would also just add that the decline in real estate development is primarily concentrated in residential, which actually has a positive impact on factor costs. It, you know, that is, building materials costs. So we still have... We had a significant shortage, during COVID, of course, when the lockdowns were absolute, getting skilled laborers to those sites, which is why so many of them shut down. But in some ways, the contraction of new development in resi is gonna actually be a positive for us in hotel development. Just given the time, I wanna, you know, transition a little bit to, you know, the M&A side of what you've been able to do on the portfolio and also your just broader kind of capital-light strategy. So, you've obviously been no strangers to M&A, you know, since even we've spent a lot of time together, you know, $1 billion sale in Orlando. Congratulations. Thank you. That's, that's an amazing outcome on that. You know, Adam and I had a side bet on that, and I lost... I lost pretty significantly. It's back to you on Tuesday, actually. So, but you also, that brings you to last year at this conference, you doubled down on your, you know, achieving your $2 billion, you know, kind of third asset sale program goal, and this put you, you know, over the hump, you know, no doubt on that. So, you where are we at big picture here, you know, on the asset sale, the asset-light transition, Mark? Let's start there, and then, you know, probably want to unpack Orlando a little bit more. Okay. First, I would say I'm not, I'm not gonna use those fateful words that George W. Bush had behind him, "Mission Accomplished," on the aircraft carrier, but I would say we're, we're where we aspired to get to, which is 80%-85% fee-based earnings, and that's the run rate that we're at at the moment, and you'll see for a full year next year, and we've done a couple of deals where we had purchased and sold or otherwise were involved in a transaction, where a third party bought a couple of our hotels. We just talked about it earlier with respect to the Indian Wells and the Scottsdale resorts, where we're seeing significant investment go, which is elevating the brand quality, you know, the quality of our portfolio and so forth. And we have one such project. We bought the Hyatt Regency, what is now the Hyatt Regency Irvine, which was shut down. We completely renovated the hotel, but we also added significantly to what I would describe as leisure activity base, which is a completely redesigned and much bigger pool area with activities around it, and, you know, activations around it, and a new specialty restaurant, which opens up onto that space. So it's really transformed that hotel, and we're seeing the biggest growth right now. Of course, the business demand is coming back now that the hotel is open and operating, but the leisure demand on the weekends has been unbelievable. So and that was part of the design. Like, we thought this could be a business hotel with a resort identity on the weekends, and that's exactly what is proving out to be true. So that's a hotel that when we bought it, we said, "We're gonna do these following things, and we're gonna improve performance, and we're gonna sell it," and that's what you can expect to see over the next year, and the same is true for a couple of other hotels that we own, that we are positioning for sale in the coming year. We have two hotels that are under contract, the Grand Central Hotel here in New York, and the Andaz Liverpool Street in London. Those are both pending entitlements and approvals for the massive redevelopments that are going on, out of which we will get two really great new hotels designed by some of the best architects in the world. Super interesting time for us to be proactively turning the assets that we have into new opportunities, but also having taken advantage of Irvine buying and the recreation of how that hotel should be positioned. You can hear from my description that just because we achieved our goal does not mean that the whole effort and the mindset of continuously scanning what we need to be doing and starting to plan for the future in terms of the disposition process is alive and well. It is gonna remain alive and well. I do not... Now, I will say that I have never said, in fact, I have said exactly the opposite, that we will never, ever get to zero, 'cause it is not an object goal that I think is sensible, nor do I think it is needed. needed. We will never... I promise you, we will, unless it's a freak circumstance, we will not get to zero, that's coming from owned hotels. It'll just be so small that it won't be relevant to the total picture. But the sort of net outcome here was you were also still able to redeploy. Yep ... a material check into Standard- Yep ... asset-light, so maybe you can talk to us a little about that. Yep. And then, Joan, from your standpoint, I believe there was a net to the tune of a number of hundreds of millions of dollars here, which then, you know- I'll give you- ... continues to contribute to the balance sheet. So- Yeah, I'll just recap it for you since 2017. Sure ... and then maybe Mark can touch on Standard. Yep. But on the proceeds side, since 2017, when the disposition program started, $5.6 billion of gross proceeds at 15x average multiple. Our asset-light acquisitions $3.4 billion in investments in asset-light companies at an approximate 9x-9.5x multiple. Significant shareholder value created, and then along with that, as part of our balanced capital allocation strategy, we have repurchased $4.5 billion of shares, and all at the same time, maintaining our investment-grade profile, which is, has always been our commitment. So that's the recap from Investor Day of where we are today. She might need a raise. Great job. So, so- That was fantastic. Now, can we do the lightning round for how that worked for Orlando Standard? 'Cause those numbers are also, I think, really attractive, and there were some press articles that might have done- 13- Yeah, I don't have the right number on standard. So we sold Orlando roughly a 13.3x or a 13.2x or a 13.3x multiple. I think the... I don't know what we've said publicly about the Standard acquisition, but- I mean, we talked about the initial consideration, and then the earn-out consideration, and the stabilized fees, so- Yep ... that earnings release, you know, we, when we close, we will actually provide more information about expectations for 2025, and then stabilized multiples. But in both cases, below 10x multiple, unstable- Stabilized ... fees. Right. That when I say both, I mean initial purchase price, and then- And on, even if the- Or the- ... earn-outs hit. We hope and pray that the earn-outs will hit, like- 'Cause that is the pipeline. Right. Yeah. In terms of capital allocation, we... This is not a match funding thing, 'cause we've got $1 billion over here, of which we got $600 million or so in actual cash proceeds, and we've got $150 million over here. So there's kind of an imbalance there. It's not like we said, "Oh, we'll sell this and buy this." The fact is that a number of the things that we are looking at are relatively smaller purchase prices, whether they be brand or management platforms or big conversion opportunities. The conversion opportunities especially, are, is more like credit support and other financial engagement, but not acquisitions. But even the acquisitions, nothing is in our purview right now that comes anywhere close to the ALG deal. We will continue. We are pursuing additional acquisitions to fill in different places in the portfolio, but you're not gonna see mega deals of the size and nature of the ALG transaction. Unfortunately, we got a couple-minute late start, but that's, again, you know, I think a little bit what we're here for. So as we have time for Mark, Joan- Thanks, John. Thank you for doing this. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, John. Thanks.