Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Chris Woronka - Deutsche Bank
Chris Woronka - Deutsche Bank
I was wondering if maybe you could touch on a few of the factors that contributed to the performance at National this quarter. I thought it was pretty impressive both on the RevPAR and margin front and maybe if you can share what’s going on there and also how did cancellation or attrition fees impact National this quarter.
Colin Reed
David do you want to take the improvement in the operations there and Mark if you want to deal with the attrition costs, maybe you have that too David.
David Kloeppel
We were pleased with the way the National performed this quarter. The efforts that the team has put in place there are bearing fruit to drive appropriate levels of profitability out of that business. The second quarter in the DC market is the strongest quarter of the year and we had a good book of business on the books for the quarter.
So and we also had a comparison to last year’s second quarter which was a little bit of a messy second quarter given that we were opening, there wasn’t quite as tight a control over the expense levels and anytime you open a property you’re going to have, spend a little bit more on staffing and a little bit more on food and beverage waste than you would have expected to when you’re running at full speed.
So I think the National now is running at full speed. Phil Coffey who is our general manager there and his team have done a tremendous job really focusing on setting appropriate labor standards and managing the business as efficiently and as effectively as possible.
I will, I do want to make sure that we do reiterate that this was an expected performance and as you can see we didn’t change our guidance for the National and so we’ve gotten now two good quarters behind us at the National really the two strongest of the year, and so I want to caution you and the rest of the investors that you shouldn’t expect that we’re going to take the first two quarters and double them and that’s going to be what the year’s performance is going to be.
As we get into Q3 and Q4 we get into a much more transient oriented period of the year especially when you get into Q4 and this will be the first year with the National having its Christmas program which will be similar to what we have at the other hotels. And those programs typically take some time to develop into good strong demand generators.
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