H World Group Limited (NASDAQ:HTHT) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Simon Cheung: So I will ask follow up with English in the questions. I think Ronald earlier asked also about the 2023 revenue guidance and the implied RevPar for the full year. Would like to see whether you can provide us the RevPar guidance for the full year and also that going forward in the long run, what is your expectation of RevPar growth in the next perhaps two, three years, given all this master concern over about the over surprise situation in China? That’s the first question. And then the second questions, notice that you have given up accelerations, a guiding of accelerations in the hotel ads from 1,200 to 1,400. Wondering whether you have seen a bit more appetite by the investors, hotel investors to come back into the market and also whether you have any update on the Southern China regional office strategy. Thank you.

Qi Ji: Okay. To answer your first questions as I mentioned earlier, so basically we’re seeing a quite strong holistic demand starting from the year beginning of the year posted the government you know announced the reopening policy. So it was many RevPAR recovery was mainly driven by the ADR growth. And especially from the leisure market, we are seeing a pretty good recovery from the leisure market. So in, in terms of the RevPAR I mean in terms of the blended RevPAR recovery compared to the same period of 2019 the current full year revenue guidance implies, the blended RevPAR will recover to 110% to 115% compared to the same period of 2019. To answer your second questions in terms of the business growth, so yes I think in the first quarter we are seeing a good business recovery and we are seeing the franchises confidence is coming back a bit, and we are also seeing the investments appetite is improving as well especially post the Chinese New Year.

So from the, the number front we are seeing good trends in terms of the new signings and pipeline increase, which is slightly better than our pre previous expectations. And in terms of the less penetrated market development, not, not only the southern part of China like for example, the central area and the Western area were also previously quite weak places for four for H worth. So after we completed our organizational restructuring and regional of office establishment we are seeing a pretty good progress as development in that, that those particular regions, and we are still remain very confident in terms of the growth potentials over there. Mainly leveraging our flagship stores strategy as well as our main brands development.

Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Sijie Lin of CICC. Please proceed with your question

Sijie Lin: So I have just one question about Ni Hao Hotel. Considering it is positioning economy hotels is it quite similar with Orange Hotels positioning in mid-scale hotels? And what is Ni Hao Hotels open target in future? And also what’s the difference in the room numbers and compared with HanTing? Thank you.