Host Hotels & Resorts, Inc. F3Q08 (Quarter End 09/05/08) Earnings Call Transcript

  • download
  • Print
  • Recommend
  • 0

2008-10-10 13:03:10.0

Tags: Host Hotels & Resorts Inc., Call Transcript, Earnings, UBS AG, Luxury Hotel, Financial Accounting, Finance, Seeking Alpha

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Joseph Greff - J.P. Morgan.

Joseph Greff - J.P. Morgan

I appreciate the comments for ’09 with respect to your upper upscale outlook. Where do you see luxury for next year and where would you characterize urban relative to the other areas on a relative basis?

W. Edward Walter

My guess is that we’re going to generally find that luxury will underperform the upper upscale segment. And the reason why I would say that is I think if you look across the business, the customer base of most luxury hotels typically has a higher proportion of financial and that business is going to, by I think most estimates, decline slightly next year. I also think that in the normal context of things when the economy is tougher, while the true rich continue to stay at luxury hotels, the next level down will often make the switch in terms of segmentation to an upper upscale hotel. Consequently we’ll probably find that even on the leisure side, business at the luxury hotels is a bit weaker. So I would be expecting that they would underperform slightly.

From an urban perspective, I would probably expect at this point that urban perform in line with upper upscale. I’m not certain I would see a big distinction. I think we’ve been finding our urban group has performed pretty well over the course of this year and I would see that that would continue into next year.

Operator

Our next question comes from William Truelove - UBS.

William Truelove - UBS

On the comparable RevPAR you say is only going to include the normal 16-week for Marriott. You also disclosed a total non-comparable RevPAR which is what we use. Is that going to include all the weeks for Marriott or still just the 16 or you haven’t decided?

W. Edward Walter

We’ll put everything in there.

William Truelove - UBS

Maybe you guys can talk about fourth quarter outlook for New York City. The second question is on mortgage debt. Other than the Orlando World Center Marriott, which you disclosed in your 10Q, what’s the next large maturity date on the mortgage debt side? And finally, what would you say would be the minimal amount of cap ex you would have to spend? I know you haven’t done your budget for 2009 but just perhaps if you were to think about say 2008 and you said, ?What would be the minimum we had to spend on life safety issues or whatever?? What is that kind of number?

 

BNET TalkbackShare your ideas and expertise on this topic

Please add your comment:

  1. You are currently: a Guest |
  2.  

Basic HTML tags that work in comments are: bold (<b></b>), italic (<i></i>), underline (<u></u>), and hyperlink (<a href></a)

advertisement
Click Here
advertisement
  • Click Here
  • Click Here
  • Click Here
advertisement
Click Here