Though overall optimistic, executives at publicly traded hotel companies weren't uniform in revising guidance and expectations for full-year 2023 performance, as they were a quarter ago.

Generally strong travel demand forecasts for the remainder of 2023 led some companies, particularly those with international exposure, to raise their revenue guidance.

Others, however, took a more cautious approach, citing macroeconomic concerns and rising costs.

Here are some of the highlights from recent third-quarter earnings calls with hotel brand companies and real estate investment trusts in which executives explained their guidance strategies.

“With the better-than-expected second-quarter results and robust global booking trends, especially internationally, we're raising our full-year guidance. While there is still a level of macroeconomic uncertainty, as we look into the third quarter, the consumer is generally holding up well and our forward bookings remain solid.

“In the U.S., it now seems more likely that the U.S. economy could have a soft landing. Our updated guidance range assumes relatively steady global economic conditions throughout the remainder of 2023 with continued resilience of travel demand. Growth is expected to remain higher internationally than in the U.S. and Canada, where we're seeing a return to more normal seasonal patterns and year-over-year [revenue per available room] growth is stabilizing.

“For the full year, we now expect 7% to 9% RevPAR growth in the U.S. and Canada. We're raising our expectation for international RevPAR growth to 28% to 30%, leading to an expected 12% to 14% increase in global RevPAR. Total fees for the full year could rise between 16% and 18% with the non-RevPAR related component increasing 4% to 7%.”

“For the third quarter, we expect systemwide RevPAR growth to be between 4% and 6% year-over-year. We expect adjusted [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization] of between $790 million and $810 million and diluted [earnings per share] adjusted for special items to be between $1.60 and $1.65.

“For full year 2023, we expect RevPAR growth to be between 10% and 12%. We forecast adjusted EBITDA of between $2.975 billion and $3.025 billion. We forecast diluted EPS adjusted for special items of between $5.93 and $6.06. Please note that our guidance ranges do not incorporate future share repurchases.”

“We are updating our full-year 2023 systemwide RevPAR growth expectations to a range of 14% to 16%, compared to 2022 on a constant-currency basis driven by the recovery in Asia-Pacific and improving demand in group and business transient we continue to anticipate RevPAR growth will be in the mid- to high single digits in the back half of the year.

“We are reaffirming our expectations of net rooms growth of approximately 6% for the full year of 2023, driven by our strong pipeline and our ability to execute on conversion opportunities. We are updating our net income to approximately $215 million. And consistent with our estimates from Investor Day, we maintain our guidance of adjusted EBITDA plus net deferrals and net finance contracts in the range of $1.2 billion to $1.25 billion with $1.225 billion at the midpoint.”

“We're refining our full-year 2023 outlook to reflect the impact of second-quarter share repurchases as well as higher interest expense resulting primarily from the Term Loan B refinancing. First, our outlook for RevPAR, net room growth revenue and adjusted EBITDA all remain unchanged. We now expect interest expense to be in the range of $100 million to $102 million, $6 million higher than our prior outlook and as a result, have reduced our adjusted net income outlook to a range of $336 million to $348 million.

“Adjusted diluted EPS is projected to be $3.92 to $4.06, unchanged versus our prior outlook as a result of our second-quarter share repurchase activity. This outlook is based on a lower diluted share count of 85.8 million shares and, as usual, excludes any future potential share repurchase activity.

“Our outlook for free cash flow conversion rate also remains unchanged, as do our expectations for the marketing fund contribution of $10 million on a full-year basis. However, I do want to provide some color on the projected quarterly impact. We expect fund revenues will outpace fund expenses by approximately $29 million in the back half of the year at approximately $10 million to $15 million per quarter to arrive at our estimated full year underspend of $10 million, which will complete our recovery of the $49 million investment that we made back in 2020.”

"Over the past year, our strategy has enabled us to achieve remarkable financial results, complete a strategic acquisition and return over $655 million to shareholders through our share repurchase program, representing 10% of the shares outstanding and significantly outpacing our historical share repurchases. Our future growth is now enhanced by the addition of the Radisson Americas brands to our best-in-class business delivery engine, and we are excited about the new growth vectors we are now able to unlock. As such, I'm pleased to report that we are raising our outlook for full-year 2023 adjusted EBITDA.”

“We are maintaining our guidance for full-year domestic RevPAR growth and continue to expect domestic RevPAR growth to increase approximately 2% compared to full-year 2022. This represents an approximately 15% increase compared to full-year 2019.”

“We tightened our full-year comparable hotel RevPAR growth range to 7% to 9%. The RevPAR midpoint of 8% is 100 basis points less than our prior midpoint but at the high end of the original guidance range we provided in February. We estimate that approximately 60 basis points of the midpoint decline is attributable to second quarter results and the remaining 40 basis points is attributable to our updated outlook for the second half of the year.

“While we have not yet seen signs of a macroeconomic-driven slowdown, our guidance range continues to contemplate varying degrees of moderating growth in the second half of the year. As a result, we would expect year-over-year comparable hotel RevPAR percentage changes in the second half of the year to be flat to up low single digits, primarily driven by occupancy. At the midpoint of our guidance, we would expect a comparable hotel EBITDA margin of 29.9%, which is 40 basis points ahead of 2019 and full year adjusted EBITDAre of $1.550 billion. Keep in mind that the midpoint of our revised full year 2023 adjusted EBITDAre guidance is still $100 million above the original guidance we provided in February and down only $25 million from the guidance we provided in May."

“We saw performance weaken in the month of June. That's really when we saw the vast majority of the weakness occur. We went back at the property level and really look at the assumptions that were in the forecast with respect to transient pickup in the quarter for the quarter. You may recall that we had transient pick up as high as 28% in the quarter for the quarter and another quarter with 20%. Well, that didn't materialize for the second quarter. ... We think that is a trend that is normalizing at this point in time. And we were very, I would say, thoughtful and deliberate about how we expected the second half of the year to play out. And we really washed out a meaningful amount of the transient pickup in the quarter for the quarter, and that led to our revised forecast.”

“Despite ongoing strength in Hawaii and an acceleration in group trends, we are moderating our full-year 2023 adjusted EBITDA expectations by 2% at the midpoint to a new range of $619 million to $679 million, largely driven by the continued underperformance of the two Hilton San Francisco hotels, which are now expected to break even in 2023 versus the $15 million of combined hotel adjusted EBITDA that was included in our prior guidance and, to a lesser extent, by some small pockets of transient softness across select markets expected during the third quarter.

“Despite a small change, we remain optimistic that the lodging recovery remains on track and that an improved macro backdrop will continue to support solid consumer trends and ongoing improvements in business travel over the latter part of this year.”

“We now anticipate comparable hotels RevPAR growth to be between 4% and 8%, a 100 basis points higher on both the high and low end, comparable hotels adjusted hotel EBITDA margin to be between 35.4% and 37%, an increase of 10 basis points on both the high and low end. Adjusted EBITDAre [should] be between $470 million and $452 million, a decrease of $5 million on the high end and $3 million on the low end of our previously provided guidance range. Net income [should] be between $163 million and $202 million, a decrease of $7 million on the high end and $2 million on the low end relative to our previously provided guidance, and capital expenditures to be between $70 million and $80 million.

“The reduction in the midpoint of our guidance for net income and adjusted EBITDAre is primarily a result of higher anticipated general and administrative expenses associated with outperformance of a relative shareholder return metrics, which are components of our incentive plan. ...

“Our outlook continues to reflect a broader range of comparable hotels, RevPAR change, and other key metrics for 2023 due to our lack of visibility given the short-term booking window for our hotels, and some continued macroeconomic uncertainty. As a reminder, we expect top-line comparisons to be more challenging in the back half of the year given the strength of our portfolio's performance over the same period in 2022. We're encouraged by recent trends and the strength of fundamentals for our business, and we'll continue to assess guidance in the context of actual performance for hotels and changing consensus views related to the broader economy. As we move through 2023, we are confident we are well-positioned for any macroeconomic environment.”

“We have been slightly above the midpoint [range of our RevPAR guidance]. You know, as we reported Q1, we were slightly ahead at that time. I think from that point forward, we continue to see strength in trends and not indications of a pullback, at least not as quickly as the macroeconomic consensus view was earlier in the year. And I think coupled our year-to-date performance plus consensus slowing, pushing out some gave us incremental confidence to increase at the midpoint. And again, given the trends we continue to see in July, post, July Fourth holiday week, I think are encouraging. So we're optimistic that we'll continue to see strong performance.”

“Roughly seven months into the year, we have seen demand patterns across the industry normalize to more typical seasonal trends. While leisure demand remains strong in any normal historical context, a portion of last year’s highly resort-oriented compressed demand is finding alternatives in urban markets, cruises and abroad.

“And while urban markets broadly continue to recover, several markets within our portfolio continue to experience typically soft demand trends, most notably San Francisco, San Jose and Minneapolis. We are maintaining the low end of our RevPAR growth guidance range while reducing the midpoint by 150 basis points to 7%. The midpoint of our adjusted EBITDAre guidance range is being reduced by approximately 4% after adjusting for second-quarter transaction activity that reduced our full year adjusted EBITDA by approximately $2 million.

“Our guidance range assumes easier expense comparisons in the second half of the year when current operating models better align with last year’s practices, but we continue to operate in a tight labor market that we expect to pressure margins. For the full year, we expect operating margins to be roughly flat at the high end of our guidance range and down approximately 150 basis points at the low end.”

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