Hersha Hospitality Trust (NYSE:HT) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Bryan Maher: Thanks. That’s helpful. And maybe just a quick follow up for Ashish. In 2023, where in your expense items are you thinking you’re going to have the most margin pressure? Is it still labor or might it be elsewhere? We’re seeing across our coverage companies, real estate taxes continuing to push higher. Any thoughts you can give us on that would be great. And that’s all for me.

Ashish Parikh: Sure, Bryan. Yes, I think, labor is our single greatest expense on the operating side, so we do forecast that to be up in the mid single digit range for the year. So that €“ that certainly puts pressure on margins. I think other areas that we are €“ we would be concerned with is utilities, which have gone up a lot in the last few years. Natural gas prices are down pretty significantly because of the mild winter. We’re going to look at hedging some of those costs as we always do. Insurance expenses, property insurance expenses are generally in line except in hurricane prone markets and wildfire effective markets, where we’re seeing €“ we’re not seeing it yet. Our insurance is locked up through mid-year, but we are hearing that those could be pretty significant increases this year.

So utilities, property insurance, taxes are going up, but in markets like New York where you’re backwards looking and it’s a five year average, our property taxes are still forecasted to be lower than 2019 in 2023, 2024, and even 2025 at this point. So those are some of the puts and takes.

Bryan Maher: Okay, thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Woronka of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Chris Woronka: Yes. Hi, good morning guys. I wanted to drill down a little bit on the €“ what you’ve talked about is the opportunity that kind of get back to prior occupancy levels. I mean, how do you think rate plays into that, right? I mean, I think, there seems to be if we triangulate everything, as we see occupancy recover, we see rates particularly at the higher end going negative year-on-year. And I know there’s a mixed shift component to that, but, I mean, is it really reasonable to expect that if we get back closer to peak occupancy, that it’s going to be at these same rates? Or do we have to kind of trade occupancy for rates?

Neil H. Shah: Chris, obviously, that’s the million dollar question for the sector if you’re trying to make like kind of a thematic call on that answer. But if you look at €“ I think if you break it down to exist to your portfolio and your market positions and your assets, I think that you can get a little bit more confidence in the ability to drive rate in and a market of increasing occupancy. Like if you take the example of assets like the €“ our Ritz-Carlton in Coconut Grove, that’s an asset that has enjoyed leisure transient business really driving the hotel for 2021 and a lot of 2022, but then it was €“ as the back half of the year group really started to pick up. And by the fourth quarter, we were up very meaningfully on group ADR.