Ryman Hospitality Properties, Inc. (NYSE:RHP) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Patrick Chaffin: Yes. So on the first question, you were asking about how we expect attrition cancellation to flow across the year. Honestly, given the length of time that it takes to communicate on these issues, I would expect it to be pretty evenly laid out across the year. So if we said $25 million, it should be $5 million a quarter, roughly $20 million, $4 million a quarter. The second question was around the second half of the year. Mark, did you want to take that or do you want me to?

Mark Fioravanti: Yes, I mean, Bill, generally, as you work your way through the year, if the comps get right tougher and tougher in 2019 or in the fourth quarter of ’22, we essentially traveled the same number of room nights as we did in 2019. So we’re really back to more normalized level. So to your point, as you work your way through the year, you’ll — what the guidance indicates is that, that comp gets tighter and tighter.

Bill Crow: Yes. All right. And then if I could just one more. Colin, you talked about how your pulse on the demand side of things. And I’m just curious whether you’re seeing anything in forward booking activity that might reflect some of the macro concerns and the layoffs we’ve seen over the past month or 2, at least as it has — as it concerns corporate meetings.

Colin Reed: Yes. We really haven’t seen that in our lead volumes. Patrick, will just take them.

Patrick Chaffin: Yes, I would say that when the tech sector started to see some challenges, I think everyone kind of took a pause and got a little nervous, but I think they’ve realized that what’s going on in tech is not necessarily the macro situation as much as some hangover from COVID and some of the actions taken by tech during that period of time. And I would say that just even the past four or five weeks, we’ve seen media planners start to relax a little bit. And they’re still a little gun shy, but the lead volumes are very promising in the year for the year looks very good. And so we feel that recessionary fears are abating a bit among meeting planners.

Bill Crow: Great. I’ll yield the floor. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question will come from Patrick Scholes with Truist Securities. Your line is open.

Patrick Scholes: Great. Good morning, everyone. How are you thinking about wage and benefit cost increases this year? And related to that, just overall operating cost increases year-over-year. Thank you.

Colin Reed: Do you want to take it, Pat?

Patrick Chaffin: Yes. I mean we are expecting to — let me pull up to make sure I get the exact number, but we are expecting there continue to be headwinds as it relates to average wage rate increases. I would say that we’re expecting somewhere in the 5% to 6% increase as we move through 2023. So not quite to the level that we’ve seen in the past two years, but continued headwinds there, and we’re planning for that. If it’s less than we are currently planning for, then that will help us. But we’re trying to be realistic and make sure that we take into account that it has been a challenging couple of years from a wage rate perspective.