希爾頓酒店 (HLT) 2018 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Hilton Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2018 Earnings Conference Call.

(Operator Instructions) Please note, this event is being recorded.

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Jill Slattery, Vice President and Head of Investor Relations.

Please go ahead, ma'am.

Thank you, Denise.

Welcome to Hilton's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2018 Earnings Call.

Before we begin, we would like to remind you that our discussions this morning will include forward-looking statements.

Actual results could differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements, and forward-looking statements made today speak only to our expectations as of today.

We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise these statements.

For a discussion of some of the factors that could cause actual results to differ, please see the Risk Factors section of our most recently filed Form 10-K.

In addition, we will refer to certain non-GAAP measures on this call.

You can find reconciliations of non-GAAP to GAAP financial measures discussed in today's call in our earnings press release and on our website at ir.hilton.com.

This morning, Chris Nassetta, our President and Chief Executive Officer, will provide an overview of the current operating environment and the company's outlook.

Kevin Jacobs, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will then review our fourth quarter and full year results and provide an update on our expectations for the year.

Following their remarks, we'll be happy to take your questions.

With that, I'm pleased to turn the call over to Chris.

Thank you, Jill, and good morning, everyone.

We appreciate you joining us today.

We're happy to report a good finish to what was a great year for Hilton.

In the fourth quarter, adjusted EBITDA and EPS once again exceeded our expectations.

We continued to prove the resiliency of our business model as net unit growth exceeded our expectations and drove the majority of our bottom line and free cash flow growth.

We also continued to demonstrate the power of our network effect by increasing our industry-leading market share premiums 100 basis points for the full year with all regions gaining share.

Exceptional experiences for our guests drive better profits for our owners, generating higher returns for our shareholders.

Speaking of returns, for the full year, we returned $1.9 billion to shareholders in the form of buybacks and dividends, representing approximately 9% of our market cap.

Turning to results.

Our system-wide RevPAR grew 3% for the year.

Group business performed well throughout the year with RevPAR growth of 4%, slightly exceeding our expectations given particular strength in convention business across a number of key markets.

Corporate transient trends were healthy with RevPAR up 2.6% for the year with some softness experienced in the fourth quarter.

Leisure transient continued to grow, also up 2.6% for the year but fell shy of our expectations given greater-than-expected impact from events and calendar shifts and a bit of softer demand in the later part of the year.

Looking to the year ahead, we expect similar to modestly slower trends versus what we saw in full year 2018.

Macro indicators continued to support generally favorable fundamentals and a good backdrop for continued pricing increases despite modest deceleration and GDP expectations versus prior estimates.

Group trends are solid with 2019 bookings up in the mid-single-digits, and corporate negotiated rates are up just over 2%, slightly ahead of last year's growth.

Given the modestly lower macro forecast, coupled with uncertainties in some international markets, we're adjusting our full year RevPAR guidance range to 1% to 3%.

An area of the business where we continue to have greater visibility is net unit growth.

Our strategic approach to development has allowed us to establish one of the largest and most diversified systems and pipelines in the industry.

In 2018, we open more than one hotel per day and had the best year of openings in our history, adding over 450 hotels and achieving net unit growth of nearly 57,000 rooms or approximately 7% growth year-over-year.

We ended the year with roughly 5,700 properties and 913,000 rooms across 113 countries and territories.

It was also a record year for construction starts and signings.

During 2018, we started construction on more than 83,000 rooms, the best year in our history.

We signed 108,000 rooms, marking our fourth consecutive year of signings over 100,000 rooms and are on track for another year of record signings with increases expected across both U.S. and international markets.

We remain focused on building a presence everywhere in the world our guests want to travel.

With more than half of our pipeline located outside the United States and 35 new countries represented, we have tremendous opportunities to grow our global footprint for the foreseeable future.

Roughly 30% of our pipeline is located in Asia Pacific, a region that continues to benefit from powerful long-term secular trends, supported by a growing middle class in China.

In the fourth quarter, we celebrated the opening of our 50th Hampton by Hilton in China with an additional 200 in the pipeline.

We also debuted our accessible lifestyle brand in the region with the opening of the Canopy by Hilton Chengdu City Centre.

With more than 75% of our pipeline in Asia Pacific under construction, we expect to open approximately 20,000 rooms in the region in 2019 and achieve roughly 20% net unit growth.

The Europe, Middle East and Africa region accounts for nearly 20% of our pipeline and has an increasing number of Hilton Honors members driving demand for our products.

In particular, we continue to gain great traction with our newer brands and expect positive momentum to continue with the recent launches of Motto, our urban, lifestyle micro-hotel brand; and LXR, our luxury collection brand.

We celebrated several milestone openings in the region last quarter, including the Hilton Beirut Downtown; the Lincoln Plaza London, Curio.

And we look forward to celebrating the opening of our first LXR property in Europe, The Biltmore, Mayfair in London in the coming weeks as well as adding several other unique properties to the collection in the coming year.

In the United States, we continue to focus on serving guests for every stay occasion across a variety of price points.

In the fourth quarter, we celebrated the opening of our 50th Tru hotel.

Continuing its momentum as the fastest hotel launch in industry history, this year, we expect to open another 75 of the 500 hotels in the pipeline and under development.

We're also thrilled to welcome the Waldorf Astoria Atlanta Buckhead to our system during the quarter.

This exciting addition enhances the brand's presence on the East Coast and brings our total luxury and lifestyle portfolio to 73 properties opened globally with another 73 in the pipeline.

For the full year, we gained over 14 million new Honors members, bringing total membership to 85 million at year-end, up approximately 20% year-over-year.

Growth is coming from every major region of the world with roughly 40% of members coming from outside the United States.

Our Honors members now account for approximately 60% of system-wide occupancy, which is up 200 basis points for the full year.

We expect continuous enhancements to our Honors program, coupled with innovations like Digital Key and Connected Room, to continue to drive more direct relationships with our guests.

Since its launch in 2015, we have scaled Digital Key to more than 4,100 properties globally, and guests have opened more than 40 million doors to date using the app-based feature.

We also rolled out over 1,800 Connected Rooms with plans to bring the technology to approximately 300 hotels by the end of 2019, enabling guests to create more personalized travel experiences through our partnerships with Netflix and SHOWTIME and other customization features.

Last November, in preparation for celebrating our 100th anniversary this year, we announced the release of research that showed the positive impact Hilton has had on the people and communities we serve.

Thanks to The Hilton Effect, during the first 100 years, we've welcomed 3 billion guests, employed 10 million team members and contributed $1 trillion in total economic impact to the world.

As we prepare to celebrate our centennial, we are optimistic about what the future holds for Hilton and believe we are well positioned to continue driving growth ahead of industry trends.

For 2019, we expect RevPAR growth, together with strong net unit growth, to drive significant free cash flow generation, enabling us to execute on our disciplined capital allocation strategy and to continue delivering returns for shareholders.

With that, I'm going to turn the call over to Kevin to get into more details in the quarter and our outlook for the year ahead.

Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone.

In the quarter, system-wide RevPAR grew 2% versus the prior year on a currency-neutral basis, at the lower end of our guidance range.

Slower-than-anticipated growth in transient largely due to softer leisure demand across the U.S. and Asia-Pacific regions, weighed on results.

Group RevPAR exceeded our expectations, increasing nearly 4%.

We estimate the calendar shifts and weather events tempered system-wide RevPAR growth by roughly 40 basis points.

Adjusted EBITDA of $544 million exceeded the high end of our guidance range, increasing 12% year-over-year.

Our performance was largely driven by better-than-expected license fees and upside across our ownership portfolio given RevPAR gains in London and Continental Europe.

In the quarter, management franchise fees increased 14% to $532 million, ahead of our expected 9% to 11% range as results continue to benefit from strong net unit growth and better performance from our co-brand credit card program.

Diluted earnings per share, adjusted for special items of $0.79, also beat expectations.

Turning to our regional performance and outlook.

Fourth quarter comparable U.S. RevPAR grew 1.1%, entirely driven by ADR growth.

Solid group trends supported results, but growth was somewhat tempered by softer transient given weather and calendar-related disruption.

For full year 2018, U.S. RevPAR grew 2.2% given expected upticks in performance in group and business transient and consistent levels of performance in leisure transient.

For full year 2019, we forecast U.S. RevPAR growth consistent with our system-wide guidance range based on expected steady fundamentals and continued pricing increases.

In the Americas outside the U.S., fourth quarter RevPAR grew 6.9% versus the prior year given an uptick in trends across Mexico, coupled with strong ADR growth in Canada, similar to trends throughout the year.

For full year 2018, RevPAR grew 6.1% in the region, and we expect full year 2019 RevPAR growth to be in a range consistent with our system-wide guidance.

RevPAR in Europe grew 7.2% in the quarter driven by stronger-than-anticipated transient trends, particularly in London, as increased U.S. travel to the U.K. boosted results.

For the full year, RevPAR in Europe outperformed expectations, increasing 6.9% as a result of strong transient gains, most notably in Vienna and London.

We expect full year 2019 RevPAR growth in Europe to be consistent with our system-wide range given continued strength in transient trends in markets like Turkey, partially offset by tough comps in Russia following last year's World Cup, and uncertainty surrounding Brexit.

In the Middle East and Africa region, RevPAR was slightly positive in the quarter.

Similar to trends we saw on prior quarters, leisure transient gains in Egypt were largely offset by declines in the Arabian Peninsula due to supply-demand imbalances.

For full year 2018, RevPAR was up 1.8% in the region.

For full year 2019, we expect RevPAR growth in the region to be roughly flat given weaker expected inbound travel to Egypt and continued softness in the Arabian Peninsula.

In the Asia-Pacific region, RevPAR increased 3.4% in the quarter following a broader slowdown in leisure transient demand, stemming in part from decelerating inbound travel, coupled with impacts from weather conditions and natural disasters.

Softening domestic leisure demand in China also weighed on growth in the quarter with RevPAR up just over 5%.

For full year 2018, RevPAR in the Asia-Pacific region grew 6.5%, largely driven by strength in China, particularly in the first half of the year.

In China, RevPAR increased approximately 10% for the full year.

For full year 2019, we expect RevPAR growth for the Asia-Pacific region in the mid-single-digit range with mid- to high single-digit RevPAR growth in China accounting for continued deceleration in economic growth.

Moving to guidance.

For full year 2019, we expect RevPAR growth of 1% to 3% and adjusted EBITDA of $2.24 billion to $2.29 billion, representing a year-over-year increase of approximately 8% at the midpoint.

We forecast diluted EPS, adjusted for special items and under our updated definition, of $3.66 to $3.78.

For the first quarter, we expect system-wide RevPAR growth of 1% to 3%.

We expect adjusted EBITDA of $470 million to $490 million and diluted EPS, adjusted for special items, of $0.73 to $0.78.

Please note that our guidance ranges do not incorporate future share repurchases.

Moving on to capital return.

We paid a cash dividend of $0.15 a share during the fourth quarter for a total of $181 million in dividends for the year.

For the full year 2018, we returned $1.9 billion to shareholders in the form of buybacks and dividends.

In the first quarter, our board authorized a quarterly cash dividend of $0.15 per share.

For 2019, we expect to return between $1.3 billion and $1.8 billion to shareholders in the form of buybacks and dividends.

Further details of our fourth quarter and full year results and our latest guidance ranges can be found in the earnings release we issued earlier this morning.

This completes our prepared remarks.

We would now like to open the line for any questions you may have.

(Operator Instructions) Denise, can we have our first question, please?

(Operator Instructions) And your first question this morning will be from Joe Greff of JPMorgan.

I'd start off with a question on pipeline and rooms growth and not just certainly RevPAR growth.

When we -- obviously, the rooms growth in the fourth quarter was much stronger than what we had modeled.

And if you look at the pipeline at the end of the year, it was down a little bit sequentially.

How much of that pipeline, that sequential pipeline decreased as a function of just more rooms opening up and to what extent?

Is it just a culling of some of the stuff that's under construction, so we can understand the pipeline change a little bit better?

Yes.

It's a combination of things, Joe, but a good question and one that we've been getting a lot.

So I'm glad you asked it and happy to answer it.

First, I would look at the full year because quarter-to-quarter, there's always noise going on.

If you look at the full year, pipeline was up 6%.

We would fully expect as we think about this year and we go through this year that we will again end the year with pipeline up.

It may vary quarter-to-quarter, but we think that, directionally, it will go up.

I think in the fourth quarter, 2 things happened, both of which you noted.

We came in much hotter on deliveries, which was great, which was why net unit growth, instead of being in the mid-6s, ended up basically at 7%.

But the downside of that is it comes out of the pipeline when it's delivered.

Of course, when it's delivered, they're paying us fees, so we'd much rather get it into that state than in the pipeline.

And then we always -- throughout the year, in this case at the end of the year, sort of look at everything that's under construction and things that we don't think are going to really happen over a reasonable period of time, we clean those up, and so it's a combination of those 2 things.

And the second part of that's an important, not a nuance, in a sense, because when we clean those up and get them out of the pipeline, it allows us an opportunity to replace those deals.

If you leave deals in the pipeline that aren't going to happen, you've sort of -- you've taken a location out of place.

So we try to be really diligent.

We're great with our owners.

If they need a little bit more time, obviously we try and work with them.

But at a point where we think it's not -- really not going to happen, we want to get it out.

So it's a combination of those things, again 6% up year-over-year.

I would think when we end the year, certainly based on what we're seeing, you will see sequential improvement year-over-year through '19.

Great.

And then my follow-up, both you, Chris and Kevin, referenced that later in the fourth quarter, later in the year, you saw some leisure transient softness, I think you referenced, in the U.S. and China.

Can you talk about that?

How much of it may be driven by onetime things that were disruptive to travel versus something that's more macro in nature?

Can you help us understand maybe what some of the drivers there were?

I would say the bigger declines that you saw if we look across the world in leisure transient were in China for the reasons that I think are pretty obvious in terms of both trade war issues as well as the slower economy as well as some weather-related things that were going on.

We did see some of it in other regions as well.

Middle East, Africa, we saw some weakness in leisure transient.

And in the U.S., I would say it was reasonably modest in the U.S. And I would say, not to avoid the question, looking at the end of the year, even looking into January, is very difficult, particularly at the end of the year, with all the noise related to the overlapping weather issues, the change in day of week year-over-year as well as the holiday shifts.

As much as I'd love to say I can give you really scientific hard stats on exactly what happened with leisure transient at the end of the year and in January, it's just hard to do.

I would say we didn't see a dramatic difference.

If you look at the full year, it's interesting.

We went into the year, I think, on this call last year, we said here's what we think is going to happen.

We think group is going to pick up because it's getting stronger and we have a great position.

You'll remember in '17, we had quite an anemic year and as an industry.

In corporate transient, we said we think we're going to see a nice pickup coming out of tax reform, and we think leisure transient is generally going to hang in there.

Basically, that's exactly what happened for the full year.

At the end of the year, when you got into third quarter to a degree and definitely in fourth quarter with all the noise on holidays and weather impacts, it's just the data got very garbled and it got very choppy.

So I think it's -- and I think time will tell.

I think our view is that the guidance of 1% to 3% is that group is hanging in there really well.

I think if there's an expectation that you're going to have broader economic growth that is still good in the U.S. and good around the world but a little bit less than what people thought a quarter ago, that, that will ultimately mean that both leisure and business transient will be a little bit less than what we might have experienced last year.

And that's sort of baked into the 1% to 3% guidance that we gave.

The next question will be from Carlo Santarelli of Deutsche Bank.

I just have one.

With respect to the capital return, the range that you guys have provided is a little bit wider and acknowledging that there were 1 primary, but really 2, exogenous events that kind of beefed up your buyback in 2018.

As you think about the range for '19, with respect to the buyback and excluding the dividends, what are you -- other than kind of the leverage profile that you're looking to target, how are you guys kind of thinking about within that range, what are the key drivers of being towards the high end as opposed to the lower end?

Yes, Carlo.

It's a good question.

I'll start with the range.

The range -- is obviously, we gave it so you could see it's $500 million.

Actually, it's only a touch larger -- only a touch wider than the range we started out with last year.

And at the end of the day, it's a quarter of a turn of leverage on our EBITDA base, not even a quarter of a turn of leverage.

And so the way we thought about giving guidance was we set the midpoint at 3.25x leverage.

So if the EBITDA -- basically EBITDA forecast we have and the capital return at the midpoint, that would leave us at 3.25 at the end of the year, which, as you know, is at the midpoint of our stated range of 3x to 3.5x.

And so -- and then what we try to do is bracket it at 1/4 turn, 2.50 on each side from there.

And the -- and you're right, we did have a couple of events, opportunities last year to buy back an outsize the amount of stock and bring a little bit of stock buybacks forward into the earlier part of the year.

And that, combined with a little bit of extra cash we had at the time, enabled us to lean in on -- particularly on the HNA transaction.

And so as the year plays out this year, we're given a little bit of a wider range, and it will be the same type of analysis.

If we see opportunities to buy a little more, we might do a little more.

If we don't like the way the world is headed or how we feel about the outlook for the economy, we might do a little bit less.

The next question will be from Harry Curtis of Nomura Instinet.

A quick follow-up on Joe's question.

Wanted to get a little bit more detail on the pipeline in China.

And does it stand to reason that as their economy slows that the pipeline refill should slow as well?

You would -- it would stand to reason, yes.

That is not what our experience has been to date.

Our pipeline, we believe, in China is in good shape and we believe is continuing to grow.

Talked with the teams multiple times a week and we still have a lot of activity.

Now the nature of the activity, as has been discussed on a number of prior calls, has definitely been shifting more towards mid-market opportunities than higher-end opportunities.

We're still certainly doing a bunch of Hiltons and Waldorfs and Conrads and DoubleTrees and even Embassy now, but more of the bulk is shifting to mid-market.

And China for us right now, that really is Hampton by Hilton and Hilton Garden Inn.

That stands to reason because what's going on is growth in the middle class, they want to travel and that's what they can afford.

So we -- I think we continue to see that now the bulk of the pipeline growth coming from that.

And so far, so good.

The relationship with Plateno is working out well.

They continue to actually ramp up their activities.

So yes, I mean, if the China economy slows down -- continues to slow and stays growing at a slower pace, I do think, at some point, it will have -- it has to have a ripple effect.

But I want to be clear that we really haven't seen it.

We delivered in China last year about 11,000 rooms in NUG.

That was up -- close to 50% from the prior year.

And based on what's in the cooker right now that I'm pretty darn confident will happen, we'll be up another 30%, 33% this year.

So that -- and some of those are short -- relatively short gestation because the Hampton Inn opportunities move fast.

I mean, they're moving through the pipeline in a 12- or 18-month sort of time frame.

So, so far, so good.

But China will have ups and downs, just to be clear, just like every other market in the world.

The long-term trend is up.

And again, if you draw a line through it over the next 20 or 30 years, it's definitely going up.

But they'll have the ups and downs, just like the U.S. pipeline and deliveries, too.

But right now, we're in pretty good shape, I think, for the next probably 2 years given what we have in the pipeline and what sort of already under construction, in addition to now having conversion opportunities, which is kind of a new thing in China.

I think we'll do more conversions this year in China than we've ever done.

I think we're feeling very good about the next couple of years in China.

Very good.

And then the follow-up question is you're making some nice progress on development of the luxury portfolio.

Can you walk us through what that pipeline looks like and where you are today and thinking ahead maybe 2 to 4 years where you're likely to go with the luxury portfolio?

Yes.

We are -- I thank you for saying it.

We're very proud of what we've been doing in luxury.

We've been at it for a long time.

I've been here 11, going on 12 years.

And one of the first things that we started working on when I got here is making sure that we had the aspirational product in the portfolio for all of our customers, and importantly, our most loyal customers in Honors.

That's the kind of product they want.

As you know, we've been doing it the old-fashioned way.

We have not been out buying things.

I suspect that is not something that will be in our future because there's nothing that, really, we think, is really possible.

And so we've been grinding it out and doing it the right way and focusing on both the existing brands of Conrad and Waldorf but also with adding brands to the portfolio, importantly LXR, which we talked about earlier; Canopy in the lifestyle space and the possibility of other things that are in this concord trade now that would add to our luxury lifestyle brand portfolio.

And I would say my belief, and I've been at it now as long as I've been here, as I've said, is that we've really hit stride in the sense of we have become the fastest-growing luxury brands of the major players.

And we are starting now to really be able to find ourselves with both Conrad and Waldorf and Canopy in the right locations, in the right cities, both from an urban and resort point of view, to where we're creating a real distribution network that matters.

I think these are brands that are really starting to resonate based on the research that we do with our customer base and more broadly.

And I think the next -- as much as I think we've hit stride, I think over the next 3 to 5 years, you're going to see some pretty amazing things happening within both these brands.

We're getting ready to open up a spectacular new Conrad in Washington, D.C., downtown D.C. in the next 30 days.

I was just in the Waldorf New York last Monday doing the model room review.

That is, if you look in that building, there's a lot going on that's happening.

We're hopeful that that's going to deliver in 2021, and it absolutely will be a spectacular product.

A couple of weeks ago, I was touring the under-construction Waldorf in London in the Admiralty Arch building facing Buckingham Palace, which will be an absolute jewel box, and a whole bunch of others that are coming that really add to what is a growing but very special portfolio.

So I feel really good about where we are.

I mean, technically in Waldorf, today, we have 31 hotels open.

We've got another 19 in the pipeline.

I've mentioned a couple of those.

Similar statistics for Conrad, 33 opened and 19 in the pipeline.

And great things happening, San Francisco.

I mean, I won't go through the whole list.

But suffice to say, we've looked at the world and figured out like where we -- where our customer, who our luxury customer wants to be, and we are hard at work, if we're not already there and making sure that we get there in a relatively short period of time.

So I think it's working.

I think if we look at the share numbers in those brands, they've been growing at a really nice pace.

What our customers are telling us is very positive, and I think we're really starting to hit stride.

The next question will be from Shaun Kelly of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Chris, I just wanted to go back in China for a quick moment.

And one thing we've seen in the data is that Hilton continues to pretty meaningfully outperform some of the broader industry data in China as it relates to what we see in RevPAR in that market.

I'm sure this has to do with probably a variety of different mix factors.

But when you guys kind of look at your own experience, I mean, could you just help us maybe parse apart a little bit?

Is -- do you think you're benefiting from city mix, market share gains, brand mix, ramp-up of new properties?

What's helping drive some of the strength that you're seeing there, just on an overall absolute basis?

I do understand that it obviously slowed sequentially.

No.

It's a good question.

It's -- I would say about a lot of things.

It's a combination of things.

It's not any one thing.

But I think the properties that we're opening are spectacular properties in really good locations.

We've been incredibly disciplined about what we're doing, who we're doing it with, what markets, what brands to get right.

And that is helping us.

If you look at market share numbers, our market share numbers are growing at a very rapid pace.

I don't have the exact China number.

But in APAC, we grew market share numbers, which would be driven largely by China, almost 300 basis points.

APAC, overall, we are now driving system-wide market share of 115, and China would be comparable to that.

By the way, that eclipses our U.S. market share, which also grew in the year.

So we are driving with great properties, great commercial delivery, driving great performance that is taking share from the competition.

There is also -- in fact, even though you're looking at comp numbers, many of the -- in China, particularly at the upper end, less so with the lower end, but if you look at like DoubleTree and above, the ramp periods in China are longer than you would find in the United States as an example.

And so we do get the benefit.

Even though year-over-year, these are comp and they've been in the system, they're still ramping in a way that is more significant than you would find in other parts of the world.

So we're clearly getting a benefit in that regard, too.

But the largest part of it, honestly, is we're driving huge amounts of share growth.

And I mean, that's interesting on the share growth.

So then just to follow up with that.

I mean, you mentioned location being a critical factor there.

Is there also a piece of this that's critical mass of brand awareness?

I mean, I think if we were to rewind a decade ago, Hilton was probably a little in a different place as it would relate to sort of maybe brand awareness in China but obviously been super aggressive there.

So is that a piece of it?

Or kind of how would you measure that or look at that?

Definitely.

I mean, our brand awareness has always been pretty good, honestly, but it is much, much better, so it's partly that.

It's also commercial infrastructure.

We have -- we made the decision years ago, like 5, 7 years ago, to probably -- more than that, probably 7 to 9 years ago, relatively early in my tenure, even though we didn't have many hotels, that we were going to invest in the commercial infrastructure to make sure that we've built the neural network to deliver commercially for our owners.

Because if you want to grow there and we're using third-party money and you open a bunch of hotels and they don't do well and they tell their friends, it doesn't really work out so well.

So we sort of invested ahead of the growth curve.

Remembering 11 years ago, we had 5 hotels in China, so we had a very small business.

Fast forward today, open in the pipeline, we've got 450, 500 hotels.

So we knew what was coming.

And we said, even in -- back in our private days, we need to invest ahead of that.

Right now, we've grown into it, obviously, with the scaling of the business.

But we've built critical commercial infrastructure there to allow us to deliver, in addition to having the right properties with the right owners and the right locations and having brands that resonate.

There's a whole bunch of investment that's gone on over time in the commercial delivery.

The next question will be from Thomas Allen of Morgan Stanley.

Just in terms of distribution, you highlighted that you had seen a good increase in loyalty member distribution.

But can you just talk about the mix between OTAs, property direct, call centers, et cetera, and how that's shifting?

Yes.

I mean, I think the short answer on that is, as you can see with our latest campaigns with Anna Kendrick and a whole bunch of other things, we're very focused on driving direct relationships and direct business.

And if you look at our web-direct channels, they are -- they remain the fastest-growing channels that we have and growing at a much faster rate than OTA channels.

Now we still believe there is a lot more that we can do.

As we have said, our book-direct efforts, which are more than marketing, there's a marketing element to it but making sure that the value proposition is the most compelling value proposition from the standpoint of how we price our products, from the standpoint of the technology and the other things that enable a better experience for folks that are part of our Honor system and have a direct relationship.

We are going to -- we are in a mode of we're going to constantly be reinvesting and focusing on that, so that will be an always-on effort.

But it's working.

And if you look at the numbers for the year, our web-direct channels of all types grew 3x the rate of other channels.

Helpful.

And then you highlighted the strength in the credit card business in the fourth quarter.

Can -- is there a way to quantify it and talk qualitatively or quantifiably how that should benefit or how that should go forward in 2019?

Yes.

Sure, Thomas.

In the -- yes.

The fourth quarter, we had a great quarter in that program.

And the card products have been very well received by consumers.

And it's still a relatively new program, so it's starting to get its legs and ramp up.

Our signings, our card signings in the quarter were up almost 25% with spend in the quarter up kind of mid-single-digits.

And so the way to think about that going forward is as those signings mature and we get more spend and the program gets more popular, we expect that to continue to increase with increases in spend next year expected to be well in excess of that mid-single digits this year.

So we're very positive about the outlook for that program.

The next question will be from Wes Golladay of RBC Capital Markets.

Want to go back to maybe some market share data.

Do you have your overall RevPAR index and how that's trending for the portfolio, your direct bookings percentage and then your share of global hotel supply?

Sure.

In terms of index, here's what I gave you.

I shared a teeny bit of it relative to APAC in my earlier comments, but I can give you across the board.

So U.S. market share ended last year a little over 114%, which was up 80 basis points, system-wide U.S. EMEA has a -- we have sort of 3 mega regions.

So EMEA finished the year at 116%.

Again, I think I noted on the last call, given that we are a capital-light business and depending on third parties to build hotels for us to continue to grow, there's no more important statistic that we look at than our market share because that's what people -- why people are making that investment.

And for the first time ever, these numbers I'm giving you are reflective of the EMEA and APAC, not only having great share growth, and I'll finish giving you the numbers, but eclipsing our U.S. market share.

So reflective of the fact that we are now creating this network effect and have made -- have brands and enough distribution, enough commercial capabilities, as I described in APAC, that the whole ecosystem is working really well.

So EMEA ended the year 116%, up almost 200 basis points.

APAC ended the year at 115%, up almost 300 basis points.

So if you blend all that together, a bit over 114%, just given the heavy weighting of the U.S. In terms of our direct business, our direct channels represent about 75% of our overall business.

If you look at all our web channels, those represent about half of that roughly.

And 40% or 50% of that is sort of on our app, which is growing at a pretty astronomical rate.

Obviously, we like that.

That's where we want to continue to push as many of our loyal customers as we can.

That's our absolute most efficient channel, so we're really pleased with the progress there.

Again, lots of incremental strategies in play, which we won't get into in detail on this call, that continue to give our customers even more reasons they want to go through those channels because it's a better price, a better deal, and the experience will be better because of all of the other things they get with technology and otherwise as a result of being a member and buying that way.

What was the last question?

Share of...

In the global hotel supply.

Share of global supply were like 5% I think, something like that.

So we're almost 4x that in terms of share of rooms under construction in the world.

Last number I saw was about 5%.

And the next question will be from Stephen Grambling of Goldman Sachs.

I guess as a follow-up to your comments on conversions being a new thing in China and also the comments on brand awareness improving there, you've mentioned in the past that conversions tend to ramp during tough backdrops and can buttress softer new construction.

But how do you think about the economics to run an independent versus a Hilton brand and how they have evolved over the past kind of 9 years of expansion and as we think about how that may dictate conversions if the environment stays challenged?

Yes.

Good question.

Thanks, Stephen.

Conversions did ramp up last year.

I mean, we went basically from 20% -- low 20% and changed to 25%.

I've said on other calls, I mean, we've peaked in the -- through the Great Recession in the low 40s.

That was an unusual time.

I suspect we will not get back to those kind of numbers.

But I think clearly as conditions got a little more challenging throughout last year, financing got a little bit more difficult over the last couple of years, we've seen more conversions than I suspect we will again, both, because I think in the U.S., you'll see some ramp-up in the opportunity, but also, as I suggest, in APAC and certainly in EMEA, where we've already had those opportunities, you'll see an uptick.

And of course, we've been adding brands to make that more possible.

In the last go-around of the Great Recession, we basically had one core conversion brand, and that was DoubleTree.

And it was a gift that has given us a lot.

I mean, it really has performed well in every regard.

We still have DoubleTree, but it has broader distribution.

Now we have Curio, Tapestry, LXR, in addition to DoubleTree.

And of course, we have Hilton and other opportunities as well.

So we feel very good about sort of positioning ourselves to take advantage of it.

I do suspect that you're in a trend -- you will see a trend line that is inching up from the low 20s to the mid-20s.

And I think -- I suspect it will keep going.

The value proposition at a high level is pretty straightforward.

The reason it come into the Hilton system, we just talked about, it is really twofold.

We think, in almost every case, we can drive better revenues.

Our system will drive better revenues.

Our average market share around the world is over 114%.

That suggests that versus the average, we're doing -- we're driving 14% higher revenues.

That's a lot of revenues, okay?

And yes, they got to pay us, but that's a lot of extra revenues to pay with.

The other thing that we afford them through both our deals with all of our distribution partners as well as opportunities with our supply management function, we afford them cost synergy opportunities.

So we believe we can significantly, in most cases, lower distribution cost and significantly lower the cost of their buying certain products and services if they attach themselves to HSM, Hilton Supply Management.

And so it's a powerful combination when you put it together, driving a big premium on revenue and reducing expenses means more profits.

And there's plenty enough, we think, in almost every case to pay us our fair share and for them to make a lot more money, which is why a lot of people choose to do it.

That's great color.

I guess as a very quick follow-up, just to make sure I heard you correctly, I guess.

On China, is there any reason why that trend would be different as we think about the potential for conversions...

Yes.

I think that the reason is, first of all, China is weakening a little bit, right?

So they've been in a prolonged expansionary phase.

And while they're still -- by the way, let's keep it in perspective, they're still growing at 2x to 3x -- 2.5x the rate of the United States and the West.

Maybe if you put Europe in there, more than that.

They're still growing at a good pace but at a lower pace than they've been growing for a long time.

So that's one situation.

The other thing that's going on is you had a big boom over the last 20 years but really over the last 10 to 15 of deals getting done, and a lot of those deals are coming due.

So you have relatively new hotels that have been built in this cycle where they're at the end of their term of contract.

You put together a little bit weaker environment in a world where people have optionality and we're driving industry-leading market share, we think that bodes well for our opportunity.

The next question will be from Anthony Powell of Barclays.

You mentioned the 14 million new Hilton Honors members.

There were a lot of changes in the hotel loyalty program space last year.

Do think you may have gained some mind share among the loyalty-focused customer at the expense of some others given some of those changes at your competitors?

I don't -- I mean, it's really hard for us to know.

I mean, clearly, we're experiencing very high growth rates.

We don't think, by the way, those growth rates are going to abate this year.

Our goal is to have over 100 million members when we finish this year, and I'm highly confident that we will be able to do that.

So we think that the pace will continue.

We have done a bunch of stuff, which you can see and that has been publicized throughout the system, both the lower tiers, but particularly at the higher tiers, to make the program more appealing, and it's resonating.

Obviously, we're getting members from somewhere, people that are already frequent travelers.

So to some degree, I suspect that we are benefiting by getting members of other programs that are shifting their loyalty.

What we're focused on is really just creating, as I've said, a hyper-compelling reason why people want to be a member of our club.

Like is that Honors and just about points?

Honors is about getting the best value by points, by price.

It's about getting unique experiences, both with the technology and other ways, like our relationship with Live Nation and Formula 1 and a whole bunch of other relationships that are just things that are hard to replicate and that people experientially like and choose to sort of migrate their way towards us.

So I can't give you hard data on like who's come exactly from where.

And to a degree, as long as they're great customers that we can get engaged with us, we don't care.

We want them in the system.

The thing that we didn't say that I'm actually most proud of, it's really important to have a big -- we all focus on like we got 85 million.

We're going to have 100 million, and that's great.

It's a big number, right.

And it's growing, and it's going to keep growing at a great pace.

What's most important is engagement.

It's like how many of those members are actually actively engaged with us that are coming, staying with us.

And I'm going to say -- well, I know what the number is now.

I think 5 or 6 years ago, I think we would have said we probably had 15% to 20% of that number that were really engaged.

Today, 50%.

So half the 42 million, so a teeny bit less than half, we would view as are engaged with us, right, that they are actually -- they have recent stay activity and purchase activity.

That's a big deal, right?

Big numbers are great.

How many people are actually buying?

I mean, we could auto enroll the whole world if we wanted.

We could have 1 billion people if we wanted, but that's a lot -- that's a -- my team doesn't like that idea.

But it's really how do we get people in the program that we can get engaged with us and staying with us and buying our products.

And that statistic, I think, is a really, really important one.

Got it.

And I think you mentioned earlier in the call that you expect rate growth to play a bigger role in RevPAR growth in the U.S. this year.

That's interesting given pricing power has been soft recently.

What gives you confidence in your ability to push rate a bit more?

Well, I mean, if you look at fourth quarter, 100% of our growth was rate.

If you look at the whole year in the U.S., 80% of our RevPAR growth was rate growth.

I think it will be similar this year, so that's what gives me the confidence.

Now you would, I think, argue, well, but it's not a high number.

And I would say you're right, and there -- but there are other reasons for that.

I think the other reasons for that, which I've talked about a lot and I think has come up on prior calls, had more to do with the fact that you're in a sort of low compression environment.

You're not -- the overall economic growth is fairly tepid inflation.

Throughout this period has been fairly tepid.

You had a lot of volatility, particularly in the U.S., around politics and things that create caution.

And so I think as compared to prior cycles, where you had much more robust broader economic growth, that sort of flowed through.

So I think it sort of stands to reason in what has been a relatively low-growth environment that, that's what you get.

The other thing that's going on that I don't think many have focused on is what's gone on is really good in the sense that -- but it affects the rate growth numbers over the last several years, and that is mix of business.

So if you look at the overall occupant -- system-wide occupancy for Hilton, we are over 300 basis points higher occupancy than we've ever been in our 100-year history.

Why?

The bulk of it is weekends and off-peak times.

We've just gotten much smarter about filling up.

Well, is that good?

Sure, it's good because we make money.

Our job is to drive returns to our owners, and they are getting a rate that they make money on and their bottom line profitability on an absolute dollar basis is higher.

What it has -- the consequence of it, though, is when you look at rates, it creates a scenario where that business, by definition, on weekends is at a lower rate.

And so when you blend in that mix at a lower rate, it sort of -- it dilutes the story on rate growth, which I think is an illusion.

Obviously, our owners and we are much better off with that incremental business, even though when you blend it in, because it's a lower-rated business, it sort of -- it dilutes the rate growth story.

And so I think, again, this is super positive for our owners that we're able to do this, and we're not -- we have not been of the mind that there is a big rate issue that's sort of out there.

It's short of what I just said, short of mix and really a low compression environment.

The next question will be from Robin Farley of UBS.

Great.

I wanted to ask about group business because I know it's probably difficult to get visibility, and then there are trade wars and government shutdowns and things that you don't know when you're giving guidance.

But just kind of looking at last year, it looked like initially, you thought group would be up mid-single digits.

And then there was a point during the year, you've got more conservative.

You thought would be up 3% to 4%, and it came in at 4%.

So I guess just thinking about your expectation for 2019, you talked about being up mid-single digit.

Can you tell us maybe what group bookings came in, in Q4 versus the same time last year, just so we can think about sort of the incremental -- like how the outlook is changing most -- in the most recent months?

Yes, Robin.

That's -- it's a good question.

I think what you're referencing is, earlier in the year, we were talking about the business on the books being up mid-single digits, which is what it was.

And for the fourth quarter, it ended up realizing at 4%.

So pretty close to where the book was.

Our book for 2019 is also up mid-single digits.

That doesn't mean that's exactly where it's going to realize because it depends on how many members of the block show up and what they decide to pay and who decides to cancel.

And as you know, there's a lot that goes into it.

But I don't know why -- built into our expectations, as we said, is that group business will remain solid, and so we'll see what the experience ends up looking like in 2019.

But the business on the books is still up in the mid-single digits.

Okay, great.

And then just as a follow-up on the leisure commentary.

I know you've talked about some of the issues in China where the bigger declines were.

But just looking at the U.S. rates, so there was some modest leisure decline.

Is that sort of related to weather or calendar things?

Can you talk about how leisure looks to the degree that you have some visibility so far for Q1 in '19?

In other words, are the -- is that sort of softening?

I don't want to use the word softening if that's not the word you'd use.

But are you seeing about a little bit here in early '19 as well?

I would say it's noisy in -- it was noisy at the end of last year for the reasons that you highlighted, all the movements of pieces around day of week, around holiday, around the overlapping weather.

And it's been noisy.

It was noisy in January, largely to do with the government shutdown.

So again, I'm not trying to be evasive.

We -- it's hard to judge it right now.

I mean, to be perfectly fair, we think our expectation for the year is leisure is going to be fine, that leisure is going to grow.

We think it will probably grow less than last year.

We think business transient will probably grow less because we have an expectation that's based on consensus view of the world that broader economic growth is going to be a little lighter.

When we look at the trends that we see in January, they're noisy, but we look at -- we can get a decent sense of February and March.

We think that they are supportive of the range and outcome that I just described and that we've given you today, which would be a little bit lower than last year.

The next question will be from Patrick Scholes of SunTrust.

I'm curious on what you're seeing out of Europe as it relates to forward demand, especially on the leisure side out of the U.K. Certainly, we're getting some signals from the cruise lines or the floating hotels that some of the European-based cruise brands are really seeing some difficulty as it relates to travel around Brexit.

Wonder what you're seeing for the hotel side.

Yes, Patrick.

I mean, similar to sort of we're saying a little bit on what Chris just said, it's a little bit hard to have visibility.

They have their fair share of noise over there with Brexit, sort of the way we've had a little bit of noise here.

And as you know, the lead time on -- unlike cruises, the lead time on some of our businesses is pretty short in that area.

So we've kind of given you guidance that we think the region is going to be within the range.

We'd expect leisure to be within that, and there's a number of ways it could go.

Obviously, the fourth quarter was quite strong in Continental Europe and London.

Driven by leisure.

Driven by leisure and U.S. inbound to the U.K. and to Continental Europe, in particular.

And so there's a -- those trends could continue.

But right now, we're saying kind of within the range.

The next question will be from Bill Crow of Raymond James.

Chris, if you look at the front end of net unit growth, really talking about application volumes and construction starts, any changes in those, especially as you think about your 3 mega regions?

No.

I mean, overall, it's been trending, as you heard in the numbers in our prepared comments.

Overall, it's been trending reasonably consistently in terms of the deals that we've been signing.

We've obviously been converting those to construction and delivery at a higher rate of productivity.

The makeup of it has shifted a bit.

The U.S., not surprisingly, has been a little bit slower, and the rest of the world has been a little bit faster.

But the net result has been the same, and that's sort of the beauty of a big global business that is diversified the way we are.

And we like to think that we're pretty quick on our feet and that we're good at anticipating sort of the mega trends in terms of what's going on with demand growth, what's going on with the flows of capital so that we pivot in the right ways and the right times.

So I'm pretty confident we will be able to continue to do that, which is why we're saying we think we'll have another record year in signings.

I actually -- well, last year maybe was a little bit lighter in the U.S. and a little bit heavier in the rest of the world.

I think, particularly given some of the momentum we have with Tru and now with the addition of Moxy -- Motto, that the U.S. will probably be flat to a bit up this year.

But the net result will be, I think, for the next year or 2, we're sort of -- we're comfortable that we can assign a similar amount to what we've been doing over the last few years.

I take it you're not merging with Marriott to get the Moxy brand?

No, no, Freudian slip.

Kevin, one for me -- for you.

I would have thought maybe that share repurchases in the fourth quarter would have been a little bit more robust given the stock market selloff.

Were there blackout period issues?

Or what was your hesitation, I guess, at that point?

Yes.

There -- Bill, it's a good question.

There wasn't really hesitation.

We ended up coming in at the top end of the range, so we did -- we think we were down to a range of $1.8 billion to $1.9 billion at the -- as of last earnings and we ended up at $1.9 billion, so we kept it going.

And then, yes, at the very end of the year and leading into the end of this year, you are on a 10b5-1 plan because your blackout period will remain.

But we remain buying, of course, but you're on a plan where you don't get to control it.

So nothing more complicated than that.

The next question will be from Smedes Rose of Citi.

I just -- I wanted to ask you on the production and third-party commission group rates that you put in place, I think, some time ago.

But we have heard that maybe you've put in some additional flexibility on the part of the owners or bookings and maybe you could just provide an update on that front.

No.

I mean, we're not going to get into details on individual deals.

We cut our commissions broadly across the board from 10% to 7% with third-party group intermediaries, which I assume what you're talking about, as we have always had that we have certain of our most important relationships where we have incentives systems built in.

That -- by the way, that was the case back when we were at 10%.

That's the case when we were at 7%.

So that -- those continue on to make sure that we're driving share in the right way and incenting behavior to get disproportionate share of certain players where we think it's really incremental business that our sales team maybe has less access to.

So I would say that's sort of business as usual as we've done it.

I'm obviously not going to get into individual deals here or ever.

Great.

But you're not rolling back that initial...

No, no, no.

Let me make perfectly clear, we are not rolling that back.

We are 100% committed to the change we made.

Okay.

I just -- I wanted to ask you, Kevin.

It looks like the U.S. -- there's increasing evidence that the U.S. development cycle has potentially peaked and starts to edge down.

We've talked about this before, but it's always interesting to hear your thoughts on anything you're hearing from developers in terms of lending or access to capital or just lower return expectations as overall cost -- the cost environment continues to move up.

Yes, Smedes.

Nothing really new on that front.

I mean, I think that over the course of the past year or frankly in the financing cycle over the course of the past year or so, you've seen lenders on the margin get a little bit -- capital get a little bit tighter and a little bit more expensive.

Now that said, for us, the good news for us is we've got -- we fight way above our weight in terms of the number of deals that we do, good deals.

There are still plenty of capital in the world.

Good deals can still get financed, and so we continue to fight above our fair share.

So that hasn't been an issue.

And of course, construction costs have been going up, particularly in the developed world at double-digit rates for a couple of years now.

And so you've seen broadly an overall slowdown in construction starts in the U.S., which is why you see the prognosticators predicting that supply growth is going to peak.

But for us, we continue to -- for high-quality projects, it's still -- they're still readily financeable.

And ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude our question-and-answer session for today.

I would like to hand the conference back to Chris Nassetta for his closing remarks.

Thanks, everybody, for joining us today.

Good discussion.

We'll look forward to talking after the first quarter.

Obviously, early in the year, we'll have a lot more visibility on what's going on out there when we talk next.

But appreciate the time today, and we'll catch up soon.

Take care.

Thank you, sir.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has concluded.

Thank you for attending today's presentation.

At this time, you may disconnect your lines.