Ready to go? Great. Good morning. Thanks everybody for attending. We're thrilled today at the Wells Fargo Annual Consumer Conference to welcome Hyatt. Today we have CFO Joan Bottarini, and VP of IR and SVP of IR and FP&A, and a host of other functions, Adam Berman. Yes. All trades. So look, I think that the way I'm hoping to structure this, I have obviously a preset list of questions, and then we'll leave the last five or 10 minutes to open up to the audience. If that works. Great. Let's start with an easy one. High level, you know, it feels like the U.S. outlook is continually evolving, at this point, day by day, rate environment, the macro, the U.S. consumer. I guess, as you look across your portfolio, I mean, where are the pockets right now in the last, you know, six, 12, you know, six, 12 weeks, that you're seeing the greatest overall strength? And what areas in lodging do you maybe envision, as you look out, having the most growth for 2025? I mean, are there any areas where you, you know, you would call it trends starting to normalize or, or soften? Just kind of start high level, please. ... The conference. This is our first time to your conference, so it's great to be here and nice to meet you all. Our portfolio, we have over 1,300 hotels in 76 countries around the world and a large concentration today in the U.S. with our pipeline, which is significant, industry-leading as a percentage of our existing base, with a lot of that growth internationally. But your question was on the U.S. and the demand that we're seeing in the U.S. You know, as we over the past couple of years have seen recovery to you know very elevated levels above you know kind of pre-COVID on the leisure side. Last year, well over 20% greater than those levels that we saw pre-COVID on the leisure side. So a big surge and leisure kind of leading the recovery. So where we are now is a bit more of a normalization to last year's levels, which is really encouraging. So really great demand from leisure and continuation of that demand that we're seeing this year and that we reported through the second quarter. What has the customer segments in the U.S. that have, you know, been slower to recover has been the business transient, that individual business traveler, and group had, through last year, reached about flat to pre-COVID levels, and so that was the next segment that we saw really gaining momentum into this year. For this year, we're seeing mid-single to high single digit growth in group business and that's in the U.S., really great for us because we have 35% of our business plus- Yeah ... in group revenue with large group hotels. So, that's really been strong for us, and we continue to see that with pace through the rest of the year into the mid-single digit range. The business transient traveler has been the last customer segment in the U.S. to recover. And within the individual business traveler segment, you have your small and medium enterprises, you know, smaller companies that kind of came back first, and the large corporates have been coming back this year. The momentum that we've seen from large corporates, which is, you know, we in the industry serve that guest base to a larger degree because of the quality of our asset portfolio guest base, you know, the mix of upper upscale and luxury properties that we have. So we've really been able to capture a lot of that growing momentum on the business traveler side, and we've seen it actually into you know the post Q2 continuing to gain momentum. So it's really encouraging. We're back to school, back to the road in a lot of urban markets for the business traveler. So on all dimensions, you know, pretty healthy and solid growth. As we look into next year, we see a continuation. Group pace for next year is in the high... I think we reported- Seven. 7%-8%, the high single digits for next year. So, you know, continuation on corporates, a big proportion of the group business continuing to book, and rates, meaning average daily rates at the property level for group being strong, still a significant proportion of the group revenue that we're realizing. Business transient going into next year, you know, we have less visibility, less booking. You know, the booking windows are shorter, but we have no reason to believe that there's any slowdown there. Our corporate customers are telling us they continue to prioritize travel and leisure. You know, some of the important data that we look at is what's booking into fiscal, you know, into the fourth quarter and into the holiday season. And we're seeing growth into the fourth quarter and the holiday season. So we've got a lot of data that continues to give us encouragement about ongoing growth and, you know, resiliency on each dimension of our customer base. Yeah, and maybe just one thing to add, too, is that when you think about next year especially, we have easier comparisons from some of the big renovations that have been taking place this year. We talked about on our last earnings call, we've had a number of very important resorts in the U.S. that are undergoing renovations to be up- branded. The Confidante in Miami Beach will become an Andaz. Hyatt Regency Scottsdale at Gainey Ranch, and Hyatt Regency Indian Wells in Palm Springs will both become Grand Hyatts. So definitely some disruption that we've seen to our leisure domestic results this year that we'll be lapping next year. And then, as the situation in Maui continues to evolve and hopefully improve, that could certainly be a tailwind for us from a leisure standpoint in the U.S. Do you think that, you know, from what you're seeing today and obviously the leisure booking windows are, you know, not necessarily as long as group, but, you know, do you feel like next year could be better in terms of the leisure setup, just given some of the idiosyncratic, you know, things you're lapping as well as, you know, maybe kind of coming off of a normalized base this year? Like, do you think we could see growth kind of improve off of kind of this lack of low single digit pace for your portfolio for that customer or? I personally believe we can. I think some of what we've seen this year is a changing preferences in location. I mean, Europe has been off the charts this year for us. Double-digit growth, excess double digits. So you know, that is sort of speaks to the resiliency of leisure travel and you know, our customer base. We serve the high-end customer in each segment is traveling, and they've been traveling in droves to Europe. We think a little bit that of that has been displaced from you know, Caribbean markets, in the summer season, which has helped our diversified portfolio, helped it in Europe and you know, we've seen a little bit moderating in the Caribbean. And when you look... So I'll just speak a lot of the comments that Adam and I just made directly in reference to the U.S. When you look outside the U.S., I spoke about Europe, but in Asia, the other data point to provide around resiliency of travel and the leisure consumer is what we're seeing in China. China has been softer. It came out with a boom in the first quarter. We were double digits up in China, RevPAR growth, and then we saw some pullback in the second quarter. And yet, the consumer in China has been prioritizing travel and traveling outside the country. So, you know, the outbound Chinese consumer into other markets within Asia has been very strong and into, you know, leisure destinations. So, you know, kind of on a global basis, that traveler and our particular demographic, traveler that we serve, remains healthy. If you think about China, right? And there are nuances, right, between the Tier One cities and then there's outbound. I mean, how do you think about the health of that customer three months, you know, now versus three months ago? And do you feel like we're at a point where we're stabilizing? Because, you know, we've seen the Autumn Festival, like, there's people traveling in droves. It just doesn't, you know, seem to be driving much because of the mix of where they're staying or if they're going outbound. So, I mean, is the expectation that we can kind of stabilize in terms of, you know, RevPAR at these levels? Or you think we still have to get through some very tough comparisons from the prior year at this point? There certainly were some tough comparisons, going into the second half of last year, when travel started to rebound and of course, we saw the first quarter. There's been this pullback. There's also been, you know, Call it a limitation on spend, ancillary spend. So our business in China, we've been there for well over fifty years in the region, and we have an incredible reputation and very, very strong brand recognition there. So it's also true that half of our revenue base is outside of room revenue. So our hotels operate in markets where it's F&B, you know, the restaurants in those hotels, the banqueting that we provide, the ancillary spend, weddings, you know, all that is has pulled back a bit because of some of what's come from the government around, you know, spending on those types of things from government officials. So recently, there has been more stimulation coming from the government. They've reduced rates slightly and are stimulating demand, consumer demand, recognizing that, you know, we need to help to stimulate the economy. So those. We've seen that time and again, that those types of policies come out, and it takes some time to work through. But, we're long on China, so, you know, we see that they have the ability to actually help to stimulate demand in the economy. And so with our long term and our pipeline in China, we do believe that's going to come back. How do you reconcile, I guess, the health of the development pipeline there in China? Because it seems like signings, you know, are still pretty robust. Buildings, you know, hotels are getting built. How do we reconcile that with kind of the nuances in terms of the RevPAR environment? I mean, it seems like kind of a tale of two cities. ... two cities, so to speak there. Part of that goes to what I just referred to as part of the government stimulating demand and consumer demand, and making sure that state-owned enterprises are well-funded and are building the infrastructure that they have planned. So a lot of our current distribution is in Tier One cities. We also are growing in Tier Two and Tier Three, so a lot of the pipeline, too, is in those locations. And you know, frankly, what's happening with the residential asset class is beneficial to other asset classes because you've got labor that is more available, materials that are more available for other asset classes to build and grow relative to what's happening in the residential market, which has taken a little bit of a change in moderating growth. Yeah, and, and I think, too, when you think about China on a longer term horizon, it's still very undersupplied relative, from a hotel standpoint, on a per capita basis, relative to changes in income demographics. There's, there's a desire for higher-end, especially internationally, branded opportunities. So, while there has been some you know, there, there have been some macro challenges that the country has been facing. I think if you're looking out as a developer at the opportunity, from a supply and demand imbalance, there's a real opportunity there, from a long-term standpoint. So that's why when we sort of think about China, there's obviously the here and now and, and some of the, the challenges that are taking place. But from a long-term standpoint, it's a market where we have a desire to grow and continue to expand our operations. And I sort of liken it to, you know, if the United States goes through a recession at some point, people don't stop developing hotels. In some instances, it's a great opportunity to take advantage of some of the macroeconomic factors that are taking place. So I think we feel really good about China long term, and it was one of our largest contributors to our pipeline signings in the second quarter, and we expect it'll continue to be very important for us. Just another tailwind there is. We are still flight capacity. We talk about this actually every quarter, that you know, flight capacity has been building. But that international traveler, when you think about the health of the industry in China, it's a significant contributor to the revenue base, and we're still down. Flight capacity is still down double digits, 20%-30%. So that building back is a real tailwind for us in China. Can you just remind us what percentage of your business in China is inbound versus intra-country? Yeah. On a stabilized basis, we're a little over 30% international. Yeah, that's about right. Yeah, it matters, but it's getting better. I mean, this has been a slow recovery. Obviously, some of the challenges with restricted airspace over Russia for U.S. carriers is not making flight capacity any easier. But you are starting to see some improvement and some increases in direct flights from the U.S. into major markets like Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, but it's taking time. And the other thing I'd add, too, is, you know, you've probably heard a lot from us, but ourselves as well as other industry teams talk about the outbound travel that's taking place from China. China, historically, has always been a big exporter of travel, and so that's really not an abnormal sort of dynamic that we're seeing. But you don't have that international inbound traveler offsetting it, so that's where you do see some domestic weakness that we highlighted in our second quarter call and have talked about more recently. But there's nothing that we see that points us to believe that it's anything other than temporary, and will eventually that imbalance will sort of work itself out. I just want to circle back, on one thing with the U.S. outlook. The fourth quarter, obviously, there's an election. It's pretty close, it seems. I mean, have you seen, you know, any changes in the kind of, appetite for travel in the second half of November? Like, are we gonna hit this, basically, window where it's just nobody wants to be out because there's so many unknowns? Or has the demand for that kind of, you know, back end of the quarter, the fourth quarter, late fourth quarter, been pretty stable? Yeah, I think the travel in November, it's really a tale of two halves, right? The first half of the month has been weaker than we would have expected. You know, election week is generally not a great week for travel. People tend to stay home at least the early part of the week. What we have seen more recently, going back to kind of our second quarter call, is that the week after election week is historically a strong association group week for the industry, and we're just not seeing the pickup that we would've expected. I think some of that is probably a reaction to the fact that the race, you know, at the beginning of July, looked like it was not gonna be a contest, and maybe now is. I started out as a poli sci major, but I gave that up, so I'm not gonna... I won't try to model out what I think is gonna happen, but certainly I do feel like we are hearing that people are kind of just staying home, wait and see, and then, obviously, you get into the second half of the month, it typically tends to be strong and, you know, over Thanksgiving week from leisure, and then you kind of have that last two or three-week period heading into the middle of December, where everybody gets the last conferences and business travel in before they kind of shut down for the holidays and flip back to leisure. So, I think when you think about Q3, Q4 dynamics... You know, there are four weeks in the fourth quarter that are more challenging because you've got the two Jewish holidays, Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, that fall in the fourth quarter this year. Last year, they fell in the third quarter, and then obviously, you've got this two-week period in the beginning of November surrounding the election, where it does look like people are not traveling as much. With that being said, you know, business travel is so short-term that you may see, so you know, we're probably not even in the window for some markets like New York, Chicago, other kind of major urban cities, that the second week may you know, sort itself out a little bit better than what we're expecting. But nothing, nothing structural or, anything that really gives us cause for concern, more just, timing shifts, which these are good things, right? We've talked about more recently that we have to start, you have to start thinking about when holidays fall, big events, things of that nature, that we used to talk about all the time pre-pandemic, that really didn't matter for three years, and now they do matter again as, as we've reached full recovery and beyond, and just start to see growth, at more, historical levels. On capital return, you recently completed the sale of Orlando, reached your $2 billion gross asset sale goal, so congratulations there. Exceeded our goal. Yeah. Exceeded. 2.6 is certainly exceeding it. You increased your expectations for capital return this year. You know, you're giving it back out. Your leverage is still sub two turns. I know you know, you expect to continue to be investment grade, and that- Mm-hmm ... that's meaningful, but is, you know, should investors expect this, you know, $1.2-$1.3 billion type of annual capital return? Is that sustainable going forward, or is 2024 just kind of an outsized year because you had that benefit? 2024 is definitely benefiting from the proceeds that we have realized this year. Just maybe to put a summary around the capital allocation strategy since we embarked upon the disposition program. We have announced commitments to sell down towards our goal to be an asset-light company, which we've now reached. We are an asset-light company with over 80% of our earnings being in asset-light businesses. We have sold, over the course of 6 years, realized proceeds of $5.6 billion from our asset sales at a fifteen times multiple. We've reinvested $3.4 billion into asset-light companies at a nine and a half times multiple. When you just think about the value creation from those two elements of our capital allocation strategy, significant shareholder value. And along the way, we have returned, bought back, shares totaling $4.5 billion and maintained investment grade status. So that is an accomplishment we are very proud of. We said we would execute on each of these dispositions in a timeline that... And at a valuation that we felt like we could successfully execute on, and we have. So we said what we were gonna do, and we've done it, and we will continue on that path of balancing our capital allocation strategy between a portfolio of assets that, although we're not putting in place a target as far as what we expect to realize, we actually have some assets that are under contract, under redevelopment. A couple that we've disclosed previously are just taking some time because they're joint ventures and not our joint ventures, but the venture itself is redeveloping those projects. Once those close, in the next couple of years, we'll have proceeds from those. Investing in inorganic opportunities is something we've done really well and driven a lot of shareholder value. So we want to grow the company, and we will continue to do that and return to shareholders. So I think that's the balance, the amounts from which we go forward with on an outlook perspective, we'll keep you posted on. But yeah, that is. When we look at shareholder value creation, I think all of those elements have to be balanced well on behalf of our shareholders. I mean, it's been a year and a half since your Investor Day. I mean, since then, you've executed on a lot of your goals, but I mean, what are the kind of, I don't know, changes or tweaks as you, you know, look out today versus a year and a half ago to the long-term thesis, or to kind of, you know, the puts and takes to achieving some of those? You know, where do you feel an increased level of confidence, notwithstanding, obviously, the asset sale program, which we've ticked the box on, but you know, where do you feel better about? What are the kind of areas of those long-term targets that you feel like, you know, there's still more wood to chop? Sure. Well, I'll comment on maybe some of the structural items, and then I'll ask Adam to just also comment on performance. So you mentioned the disposition program so well in excess of what we modeled and presented at Investor Day. We had every confidence that we were going to achieve the $2 billion that we announced in 2021 by the end of this year, and we've exceeded that, which has an impact on earnings. You know that replacing those earnings is what we have to do over time and what we intend to do into asset-light businesses and with our growth strategy. We also undertook a transaction with UVC, the Unlimited Vacation Club, which changed a bit the economics, our adjusted EBITDA definitions. And so that is a simpler model for us, recognizing fees now from our management of the club, which is exclusive to our all-inclusive platform in the Americas. So a great deal all around for us. So that was post Investor Day. And, you know, I would say so those are really, I think, important structural elements for investors to keep in mind, 'cause this is the trajectory that we're on now, is realizing the benefits of the asset-light model. One thing on the growth front is, you know, right now there's a temporal slower advancement in the pipeline that we have been seeing. And, you know, what happens with interest rates? How does that help to accelerate what our developers are going through, which is evaluating their underwriting and saying: "Look, I've gotta come up with more equity right now." And if this situation with interest rates and spreads contracting provides some relief combined, we'll see an acceleration through the pipeline, which is absolutely what we anticipate. Because if you look at our pipeline, we are industry leading as a percentage of our existing base. So we have been growing faster, and we expect to continue to grow faster than our peers. Yeah, I think the other thing, too, is if you go back to our Investor Day last year, we've just seen performance sort of pull forward at an accelerated rate. So I think the midpoint of our outlook was, Ryan, correct me if I'm wrong, 14% for RevPAR for 2023 over 2022. We ended up growing RevPAR 17%. So part of it was just a faster recovery than what we anticipated, and a lot of that was driven by what happened in China last year, kinda going from zero to a hundred pretty quickly. The other thing, too, that I've kind of talked with investors about is if you sort of think about the targets that we laid out at Investor Day, we're such a fundamentally different company, even sitting here today, as Joe noted. That if you kind of go back and rethink about it through the lens of, like, free cash flow per share, we're actually tracking very nicely to what we expected. You know, if you look at the midpoint of our outlook for this year and kinda do the math on the shareholder returns, it implies a slight increase in free cash flow per share, despite the fact that we've sold off a substantial amount of EBITDA this year that we will replace over time. So when you think about the profile of the company being more asset-light, driving more free cash flow, as well as the growth opportunities that we have, I wouldn't be so focused on the absolute numbers that we put out at Investor Day, but think about more along the lines of the opportunity to grow kind of those key metrics and what they'll look like this year, next year, and then beyond. Because it really is comparing kind of apples and oranges for many of the things that have changed over, heck, even this year. Yeah. Yeah, it's a much different structure, like, the model's a lot different. That's why I think it's- Simpler. You know? I can attest to that personally. The credit card, this is not something you talk about as much, but can you maybe give us any details on the upcoming credit card renewal? Is this a material contributor to your overall fees? Kinda, what's the growth been like in this segment? Do you see this as a big opportunity to the extent that your renewal, I believe, is kind of on the come within the next twelve to eighteen months? It is. You know, these deals are long deals that we put in place, so it was about five years ago when our last deal was struck, and we're a fundamentally different company now than we were then, 50% larger in our room base, and our World of Hyatt program has grown threefold, fourfold. Four. fourfold since 2017. So we've got, you know, a very engaged, high quality World of Hyatt base and a very attractive program for people who wanna join or maybe wanna join through the card product. So we're looking at this right now, and obviously, it gives you some more input as we get further down the negotiation path. We do record those fees within our other fees, and it's a, you know, it's a significant portion of that mix. As we think about other opportunities for us, too, you know, we have a large and growing international portfolio, so, you know, card products even outside the U.S., 'cause we basically have two cards now. We have our consumer card and a business card. So beyond that portfolio, we are looking at other opportunities to grow that as well. And then, roughly, percentage of your overall fees, is there any, I mean, kind of ballpark in terms of- We haven't given- We haven't given it out. I'm sure I think we'll provide some clarity or color as we get towards the end of the year to help. I mean, it's not insignificant, but obviously, when you think about our other fees, you've also got UVC fees in there, which is an important part of that mix as well. Got it. We have about five minutes left, so I do wanna make sure I open it up to the crowd, if anybody has a question. ... On the group side in the US, it's actually a pretty big portion of the US, so you have some property. Have you guys changed your thought process or strategy, like, how you're gonna price that group business going forward? I would say that, Or have you seen any of the changes in rates of what you have booked into that? If you just look at where we are this year, like in the near term, and our mid-single-digit pace, so what's on the books? The growth rate between that is 60% rate, 40% occupancy growth. If you look at next year, 40% rate, the 7% that I provided earlier, 40% rate, 60% occupancy. When you say change, our revenue management teams are looking at this every day and every time a group opportunity comes in the door to make sure what the dates that they are. It's a very sophisticated process. What are the dates that this customer is looking for? And making sure that we're protecting those, you know, very important dates that might be super popular and high demand, that we make sure we're maximizing the rates there. If this is a revenue management practice-focused discipline, it does evolve every day to make sure that we're maximizing it, because the more we do that, the more we're able to generate flow-through for our owners. So the proportions that I provided give you a sense of just how successful that we are here in the short term, where you know, a big proportion of it is coming from the rate dynamic. Could you maybe discuss the key money, your environment, your usage, how important it is right now to kind of getting deals over the line? Are there deals you're passing on because of the requirements or it's too competitive there? Or what's kind of the lay of the land as far as it relates to competition? Yeah. You know, the way we looked at key money is. It is a tool that is used in negotiation for management contracts that typically are in unique locations, strategic assets, and it's been a long-term tool for the industry, us and others. Presently, you know, the conversion landscape is quite active and so, very competitive. A lot of these strategic markets or assets are being negotiated with multiple brands. So I think that's the dynamic that we're facing today, and part of that is the actual interest in converting to brand companies. This is independent hotels that are recognizing whether they've been through COVID, whether they're looking at their debt service requirements, and they're saying they had never actually wanted to join a brand because they wanted to retain an identity, and they now are seeing the value of scale and what it can bring to, you know, the cost base of their property. I would say that we believe we are differentiated when it comes to being able to compete for those deals, because a lot of those are independent hotels, lifestyle resorts, that are looking for a very high-quality customer base, which we have. So I wanna tap into the Hyatt's World of Hyatt membership program, because I have that kind of particular asset where I think I can bring that guest into my hotel in bigger quantities. They're gonna be attracted to my hotel, and Hyatt will provide me the benefits of scale. So we compete very well in those opportunities, and it's certainly true that the environment has been, you know, elevated with respect to competition for those types, which does require key money. To answer your question, Dan, we have turned away deals because we underwrite every single deal with capital, and it's got to be accretive for us in order for us to agree to negotiate and execute that deal. Okay. I think we're at time. This was great. Thank you so much, Joan. Thank you so much, Adam. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.