Earnings Call Transcript - PRKS Q2 2024

Operator, Operator

Good day, and welcome to the United Parks & Resorts Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Matthew Stroud, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Matthew Stroud, Investor Relations

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to United Parks & Resorts Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is being webcast and recorded. A press release was issued this morning and is available on our Investor Relations website at www.unitedparksinvestors.com. Replay information for this call can be found in the press release and will be available on our website following the call. Joining me this morning are Marc Swanson, Chief Executive Officer; and Jim Forrester, Interim Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. This morning we will review our second-quarter financial results and then we will open the call to your questions. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that our comments today will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Federal Securities Laws. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to be materially different from those forward-looking statements, including those identified in the Risk Factors section of our Annual Report on Form 10-K and the quarterly reports on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These risk factors may be updated from time to time and will be included in our filings with the SEC that are available on our website. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. In addition, on the call, we may reference non-GAAP financial measures and other financial metrics such as adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. More information regarding our forward-looking statements and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measure is included in our earnings release available on our website and can also be found in our filings with the SEC. Now I would like to turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Marc Swanson. Marc?

Marc Swanson, CEO

Thank you, Matthew. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We are pleased to report another quarter of strong financial results. We grew attendance and revenue during the quarter despite not seeing any material improvement in weather during the quarter compared to the prior year. We also achieved a record level for in-park per capita spending, which is a testament to the continued success of our strategies and investment in this area. We're also happy to have repurchased approximately $6.3 million shares since the end of March through August 5th, or nearly 10% of our outstanding shares at what we believe were depressed and highly attractive prices, underscoring our significant free cash flow generation and our commitment to thoughtfully and opportunistically return excess capital to shareholders. Looking forward, we continue to be encouraged by the booking trends at our Discovery Cove property along with our group bookings, which continue to run well ahead of 2023. International visitation, while still down compared to 2019, was again up for the quarter compared to the prior year. We're very excited about our remaining summer events, including Bands, Brew & BBQ at SeaWorld Orlando, Summer Spectacular at SeaWorld San Diego, Bourbon & BBQ at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, Bier Fest Brews & BBQ at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, and Red, White & BBQ at SeaWorld San Antonio over the next few weeks. Later, in September, we will start our popular Halloween events, which will be followed by our Christmas events. These special events have continued to grow in popularity and I expect this year's events to be among the best ever. For the full-year 2024, we continue to expect to deliver new records in revenue and adjusted EBITDA. We have high confidence in our ability to continue to deliver operational and financial improvements that will result in meaningful increases in revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and shareholder value. I want to thank all of our ambassadors for their hard work and dedicated efforts these past few months as we wrap up this summer season and head into our popular Halloween and Christmas events for the balance of the year. Now let me give a brief update on some other items. Let me comment on our debt repricing activity last week. Last week we launched an opportunistic debt repricing on the back of strong credit markets and tightening credit spreads. The repricing was going well and it was scheduled to price on Monday of this week. Needless to say, given the market volatility on Monday, we decided to pause the repricing and we'll come back to market when conditions normalize. During the second quarter, we repurchased 4.1 million shares for an aggregate total of approximately $213.4 million. Subsequent to June 30, 2024, through August 5, 2024, we purchased approximately 2.2 million shares for an aggregate total of approximately $116.1 million. The Board and company strongly believe our shares are materially undervalued. We have significant confidence in our business, our prospects, and the value of our assets. In any reasonable way you look at it, we feel we are materially undervalued and that there is significant upside opportunity in our current share price. Our balance sheet continues to be strong. Our June 30, 2024, net leverage ratio is 2.76 times and we had approximately $605 million of total liquidity, including approximately $232 million of cash on the balance sheet in advance of us starting our summer season where we generate a majority of our cash flow. The strong balance sheet gives us flexibility to continue to invest in and grow our business and to opportunistically allocate capital with the goal of maximizing long-term value for shareholders. We continue to progress with our cost and efficiency-related work and we expect approximately $50 million of realized savings in 2024. We are actively working to build a new list of cost-efficiency initiatives and still have areas we have not meaningfully impacted as much as we'd like, including things like utilities, insurance-related items, and other areas. As you all know, cost management and discipline is a key focus of our management team and we have demonstrated our ability to deliver on cost efficiencies. On the digital transformation front, we continue to make investments in and build out our CRM capabilities and our mobile app. On CRM, we created a pilot program projected to generate incremental revenue and support existing marketing and email strategies while proving out a better, more holistic approach to customer engagement among other things. We expect the CRM will be a component of our growth strategy over time. In regards to the mobile app, we continue to make progress on functionality, adoption, usage, and financial impact. The app is being used by an increasing number of guests in our parks to improve their in-park experience. The app has now been downloaded more than 10.7 million times, up from 9.4 million at the end of Q1. Total revenue generated on the app continues to grow and we are now seeing an approximate 32% increase in average transaction value for food and beverage purchases made through the app compared to point-of-sale orders. Mobile ordering is operating at more of our targeted restaurants. We are excited about the potential of the app and its ability to improve the in-park guest experience, drive increases in revenue, and decrease in costs. On the international front, we have discussions on several new international projects and expect to have more news to share in the coming quarters. On the hotel front, we continue to have discussions with various potential partners on a variety of structures. And as we have discussed previously, we are very excited about the opportunity to monetize a portion of our substantial and valuable unused landholdings and have hotels integrated into our properties. As a reminder, we are very focused on achieving a minimum ROI for our capital projects. I'm very excited about the significant investments we are making and the many initiatives we have underway across our business that we expect will improve the guest experience, allow us to generate more revenue, and make us a more efficient and profitable enterprise. We are building an even stronger and more resilient business that we expect will deliver improved operational and financial results and meaningful increases in shareholder value. With that, Jim will discuss our financial results in more detail. Jim?

Jim Forrester, Interim CFO and Treasurer

Thank you, Marc. During the second quarter, we generated total revenue of $497.6 million, an increase of $1.6 million, or 0.3%, when compared to the second quarter of 2023. The increase in total revenue was primarily a result of an increase in attendance, partially offset by a decline in total revenue per capita. Attendance for the second quarter of 2024 increased by approximately 47,000 guests, or 0.8% when compared to the prior-year quarter. The increase in attendance was primarily due to increased demand. Total revenue per capita decreased a modest 0.4%. Admission per capita decreased 2.9% and in-park capital spending increased 2.5%. Admission per capita increased primarily due to lower pricing on certain promotional admission products and the net impact of the admissions product and park mix when compared to the prior-year quarter. In-park per capita spending, defined as food, merchandise, and other revenue divided by total attendance, improved primarily due to pricing initiatives when compared to the second quarter of 2023. Operating expenses decreased $5.5 million or 2.8% compared to the second quarter of 2023. The decrease in operating expenses is primarily due to decreased non-cash self-insurance reserve adjustments, a decrease in non-cash asset write-offs, and a decrease in non-recurring contractual liabilities and legal costs resulting from the previously disclosed temporary COVID-19 park closures when compared to the second quarter of 2023. Selling, general and administrative expenses decreased $4.4 million or 6.4%, compared to the second quarter of 2023. The decrease in selling, general and administrative expenses is primarily due to an $8.6 million decrease in third-party consulting costs, including approximately $8.3 million of non-recurring costs for strategic initiatives, when compared to the second quarter of 2023. We generated net income of $91.1 million for the second quarter compared to a net income of $87.1 million in the second quarter of 2023. We generated adjusted EBITDA of $218.2 million, a decrease of $6.1 million when compared to the second quarter of 2023. Adjusted EBITDA declined due to an increase in expenses used to calculate adjusted EBITDA, which was in part due to items related to timing and certain expenditures that we do not intend to repeat. Looking at our results for the first half of 2024 compared to 2023, total record revenue was $795 million, an increase of $5.6 million or 0.7%. Total attendance was 9.6 million guests, an increase of 119,000 guests or 1.3%. Net income for the period was $79.9 million, an increase of $9.3 million, and adjusted EBITDA was $297.3 million, an increase of $0.6 million or 0.2%. Now turning to our balance sheet, our June 30, 2024, net total leverage ratio is 2.76 times and we had approximately $605 million of total available liquidity, including $232 million of cash on the balance sheet. The strong balance sheet gives us the flexibility to continue to invest in and grow our business and to opportunistically allocate capital with the goal to maximize long-term value for shareholders under our $500 million repurchase authorization from the Board. During the second quarter, we repurchased 4.1 million shares for an aggregate total of approximately $213.4 million. Subsequent to June 30, 2024, through August 5, 2024, we purchased approximately 2.2 million shares for an aggregate total of approximately $116.1 million. As Marc said, we believe our shares are materially undervalued. Our deferred revenue balance as of the end of June was $230.5 million, an increase of approximately 3.5% when compared to June of 2023. As a reminder, our deferred revenue balance contains a number of products to include ticketing, vacation packages, annual and seasonal passes, and ancillary products. We also continue to see many pass holders who have been with us for at least a year, who transition to month-to-month payments at the completion of their initial pass commitment. This month-to-month revenue does not show up as deferred revenue. Our pass base improved from the end of the second quarter. Through July 2024 our pass base, including all pass products, was down 2% compared to July 2023 but up 26% when compared to July of 2019. We are pleased that we are seeing mid-single to low double-digit price increases depending on our pass products compared to the prior year. We're about to launch what we feel is our best pass benefits program ever for 2025, which we expect will drive additional increases in pass sales and a strong pass base for the remainder of this year and next year. We spent $79.5 million on CapEx in the second quarter of 2024. For 2024, we expect to spend approximately $170 million to $180 million on core CapEx, and approximately $55 million to $70 million on CapEx on expansion and our ROI projects.

Marc Swanson, CEO

Thank you, Jim. Before we open the call to your questions, I have some closing comments. In the second quarter of 2024, we came to the aid of 215 animals in need. Over our history, we helped over 41,000 animals including bottlenose dolphins, manatees, sea lions, seals, sea turtles, sharks, birds, and more. I'm really proud of the team's hard work and their continued dedication to these important rescue efforts. We're certainly excited about the remainder of 2024 with the exciting events we have coming with Halloween and Christmas. I want to thank our ambassadors for their efforts during this busy summer season and their preparation for our upcoming fall and winter events, which are guest favorites. We continue to believe there are significant additional opportunities to improve our execution, take advantage of clear growth opportunities, and continue to drive meaningful long-term growth in both revenue and adjusted EBITDA. We continue to have high confidence in our long-term strategy and our ability to deliver significantly improved operating and financial results that we expect will lead to meaningful increased value for stakeholders. Now let's take your questions.

Operator, Operator

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. The first question comes from Steve Wieczynski of Stifel. Go ahead, please.

Steve Wieczynski, Analyst

Yes. Hey guys. Good morning. So, Marc, I want to first ask about the pressure that you saw in the admissions per cap and wondering if you can give us a little bit more color around some of that, maybe the pricing decisions around lowering pricing on certain, what you call certain admission products? And I guess we've heard some of your competitors in that Orlando market talk about their customers maybe becoming a little bit more price-conscious. So just wondering how you're thinking about pricing your daily tickets. I guess, given Jim noted that you still feel like your pass product can and probably should get pricing increases in that mid-single-digit range.

Marc Swanson, CEO

Yes. I can address that question. As we've mentioned before, our focus is on driving total revenue. We are confident in our ability to increase per capita spending over time through various initiatives, including new events, attractions, dynamic pricing, and CRM strategies. We have indicated that we may use promotional offers, and in the current environment, we did utilize some in the quarter. Additionally, we are influenced by the mix of park and product offerings, which can vary from quarter to quarter. Overall, we believe we can grow per capita spending over time, but our priority remains on maximizing total revenue. This approach contributed to our growth in the second quarter, and while some of the offers may not align perfectly with per capita growth, they supported our revenue goals.

Steve Wieczynski, Analyst

Okay. Got you.

Marc Swanson, CEO

Yes. Sorry. Let me just add, because you kind of alluded to it. The other thing I'd point out is we do have a strong value proposition. I think to the extent you kind of commented about maybe people being more value-conscious, I think we have a tremendous value proposition, especially with our season pass products. You can come to a park for a full year, and when you start to calculate the cost per visit when you buy a pass, it's a great value, especially when we're adding new things. So I think that'll continue to be something that we showcase as well. And I think it also points out kind of the resiliency of the business that even in times that maybe people are looking for value, we provide that, and it's a resilient business.

Steve Wieczynski, Analyst

Thank you, Marc. For my second question, as we look ahead to the second half of the year, you're maintaining your forecast for record EBITDA, which suggests you'll need to generate around $430 million in that period to surpass the 2022 record. Given the unpredictability of the weather, it seems there isn't much flexibility if something goes awry. Looking at the current consensus, which is approximately $434 million for the second half, what do you think the consensus might be overlooking? Where do you find your confidence that achieving over $430 million in EBITDA for the second half is actually feasible? Thank you.

Marc Swanson, CEO

Yes. I think the key is that we are heavily focused on the second half of the year. This includes driving more demand through events like Halloween and Christmas, the new rides opening in Orlando and Tampa, as well as our pricing and per capita initiatives, alongside our cost initiatives. By leveraging contributions from volume, per capita spending, and cost efficiencies, we can better understand our outlook for the latter part of the year. We are making significant efforts in these areas. While any result above last year’s record EBITDA would set a new high, our goal is to exceed what we achieved in 2022, and we will keep working toward that. We’ll provide updates in November to assess if we are on track. Overall, we are focused on our initiatives, events, per capita spending, and maintaining cost discipline.

Steve Wieczynski, Analyst

Okay, great. Thanks, Marc. Really appreciate it.

Marc Swanson, CEO

Sure.

Ben Chaiken, Analyst

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Just to follow up on the per cap one, I believe last quarter you mentioned that April per caps were up on the admission side and then obviously down slightly for Q2. Could you just help us with any cadence through the year? And then if there's any color on early July trends? That'd be helpful as well. Thank you.

Marc Swanson, CEO

Yes. Hey, Ben, I can help you on that. So, look, I'll focus on the quarter. Like you said, they were very slightly positive in April, so you can read into that, that they would have been impacted from that point forward. And again, we're focused on driving total revenue. And so there is going to be times that we run promotions that are at odds with per caps, but we feel good about the volume or the revenue that's associated with that. And it's going to vary again from quarter to quarter. But I think over time, we still are confident we can grow the per caps with all the initiatives, the new attractions, the CRM, the mobile app, new things in our parks. So we'll continue to focus on that. What I can tell you, just preliminary, July, is that the per caps were up a very low single digit.

Jim Forrester, Interim CFO and Treasurer

Yes, Ben, it's Jim. I think as we look at what we spent last year, what we were spending this year, we continue to right size our amount of capital spend. I would say that we continue to make sure that we're in that $225 million to $250 million range this year and then continue to find ways to spend less capital and be more efficient with that. That does not include any hotel expansion in those numbers.

Ben Chaiken, Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

James Hardiman, Analyst

Good morning. Marc, you mentioned potentially higher per caps in July, so I wanted to ask if there’s anything else you can share about July. Clearly, second quarter attendance increased slightly while per caps decreased a bit. Now that per cap is up in July, is total revenue also up for July?

Marc Swanson, CEO

What I want to highlight about July is that there are two fewer weekend days this year compared to last year. This difference certainly affects the reported numbers when examining just one month. Consequently, we can expect revenue to be lower. However, we analyze it on a day-to-day basis to account for that calendar shift. When doing so, attendance actually increased by a little over 2% in July, indicating that attendance improved on a like-for-like or day-to-day basis.

James Hardiman, Analyst

Got it. That's really helpful. And then maybe speak to the state of Orlando. You've got Universal who put out some pretty weak numbers, and Disney with some cautionary comments. Obviously, that's just the portion of your business, but are you seeing any of that weakness in the Orlando market? You talked about some mix effects, I didn't know if Orlando underperformance was maybe one of the factors impacting mix, but anything you could tell us there? And is the local business maybe offsetting some of that destination business?

Marc Swanson, CEO

Yes, I can address that, James. Firstly, I want to emphasize the resilience of our business. Historically, we've demonstrated our ability to remain strong even when people seek alternatives or cut back on spending. Our offerings continue to provide a valuable experience for those looking to enjoy time with family and friends, and we believe our value proposition is compelling. Regarding our Orlando operations, we are satisfied with the performance of our parks so far this year. I won’t go into further detail for competitive reasons, but we are pleased with how our Orlando business is holding up.

James Hardiman, Analyst

Got it. Thanks. If I may, what's the mix comment? When you talk about mix hurting per caps, can you be a little bit more specific on that?

Marc Swanson, CEO

Well, I was saying in general, James, so each quarter you're going to have the potential of mix from either the type of product that somebody's using. So if there's more of a multi-day product or more promotional products, that can be a negative to the per cap rate. And then on the park mix, if you have water parks doing better, for example, they traditionally have a lower per cap than a bigger non-water park. So there are mixed impacts that can impact the quarter as well.

Thomas Yeh, Analyst

Thanks so much. Maybe just to ask James's question a little bit of a different way. Can you help put a finer point on the consumer health picture and how that's evolved over the last quarter or two? Any indication on the consumer behavior at the low end versus the high end? I think historically you've spoken to Orlando attendance being like 65% of coming in from a driving distance and then 80% to 90% at your other more local parks. Is that still holding true generally?

Marc Swanson, CEO

Yes, Thomas. I want to emphasize that we're pleased with the attendance performance in Orlando so far this year. A significant portion of our visitors come from within Florida and those who drive to our parks. Despite the challenges we see in the news, this reflects the resilience of our business. Regarding consumer health, one indicator is our in-park spending, which has increased in the quarter and again in July. This suggests that our in-park strategies are effective. Additionally, our group revenue bookings are surpassing last year's figures, and we are pleased with our Discovery Cove bookings as well. When you consider all these factors, including positive deferred revenue, it shows that spending in our parks remains strong, highlighting the value we provide and the resilience of our business.

Thomas Yeh, Analyst

Okay, that's helpful. And maybe just one last one from me. Any help on thinking through the new attraction timing? I think last year you saw some delays on launches. I noticed Penguin Trek opened in July, and you talked about Halloween and Christmas and some more opportunities in the back half of the year. Is the capacity that's coming online greater than the launches that we saw last year? Is that kind of supportive of an opportunity on the attendance front?

Marc Swanson, CEO

Yes. I mean, I think what I would point out is our parks rarely operate at full capacity, right? So there is room for more people to come to our parks. And so, I think that will remain. And so, our goal is to certainly drive as many people for the most part as we can to our parks, especially our events. So whether that's Halloween or Christmas or the opening of the new ride. So, like the ride in Orlando, Penguin Trek, it's a really well-done ride. And what I like about it, and back to my maybe comment about our business model. It's differentiated in the sense that it's one of the few places you can go and ride a ride. And then when you're off that ride, you're getting up close with penguins. So, it incorporates not only a ride but then our animal experiences as well. And I think that's obviously somewhat a unique thing to us relative to some of the others in the industry. And I like that product differentiation, and we're pleased with that ride.

Thomas Yeh, Analyst

Is it safe to say that just on a new attraction launch perspective, that it's more normalized relative to last year? I guess, just given the delays that we had seen last year.

Marc Swanson, CEO

Look, I mean, all things equal, we would generally want to open things earlier than July. So I would not necessarily consider this year that much more normal. I mean, that ride, we would have preferred opened earlier, and there were some things that popped up that kept it from opening as early as we'd like. But ideally, we would have opened that ride closer to Memorial Day or early June or something like that. So we lost almost a month or so of not having a ride. We have it for the rest of the year, and we'll lap next year with that ride in June. So ideally, we're focused on trying to get things open before the key parts of the season, which would be either for spring break or Memorial Day, depending on the park.

Matthew Boss, Analyst

Hey, this is John on from Matt. Marc, maybe can you elaborate on some of the changes you're seeing from international traffic? What did you embed in the back half of the year and how you view the multi-year recapture opportunity there?

Marc Swanson, CEO

Yes, John. As I mentioned earlier, international attendance is still below 2019 levels, although it saw a slight increase this quarter compared to 2023. I believe there is a significant opportunity to regain international attendance. We are making efforts on our end, but there are also macro factors and other reasons that contribute to the situation, and there are certainly areas where we can improve. I'm unsure when we might see a return to those levels, but in 2019, international visitors accounted for about 10% of our total attendance, which equated to more than 2 million people. Currently, we are approximately 40% short of that figure, fluctuating between 35% and 40% depending on the quarter and seasonal variations.

Unidentified Analyst, Analyst

Okay, great. Thank you. And then just one more on the cost side. Can you speak, I know you reiterated the $50 million this year, but longer-term can you speak to kind of the efficiency opportunities you have and how best to think about the multi-year cost profile here relative to the top line growth?

Marc Swanson, CEO

Well, yes. Let me provide a brief overview, and then if James wants to add anything, he can. We've discussed this previously. We approach this business in a fairly straightforward manner. If we can slightly increase our tenant growth each year and also make small gains in our per capita metrics while keeping our costs manageable, we can generally expect an increase in EBITDA. There is a significant emphasis on cost management, which we devote considerable time to. We've consistently shown that we can implement efficiencies, and we're always looking for new opportunities to improve that will continue into the future. This focus is very important to us.

James Forrester, Interim CFO and Treasurer

Yes. I would like to add that we have provided $50 million in cost savings for 2024 as mentioned at the beginning of the year. We are pleased with our progress in meeting that commitment, and we have solid plans in our 2025 planning cycle to achieve the balance in the coming year.

Unidentified Analyst, Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Chris Woronka, Analyst

Hey, good morning, guys. So as we think about the kind of Universal, the Epic opening next year, Marc, do you guys have any plans? Is the marketing going to ramp up or change much ahead of that? I mean, is there going to be any kind of, I guess, I'd call it counter-programming to try to reach folks as they consider their Orlando plans?

Marc Swanson, CEO

We have an exciting new attraction set to open at SeaWorld Orlando next year, along with various initiatives. One highlight is the return of Bands, Brew & BBQ, an event we previously hosted. This year, we're also introducing a unique midnight 5K Run on Friday the 13th for Halloween. These events are part of what makes our offerings appealing for visitors. We are committed to growing the business and have been part of the Orlando market since the early 1970s, having added two parks, Aquatica and Discovery Cove, during that time. As the market has evolved with the growth of Disney, Universal, and other attractions, we have benefited from EBITDA growth. We see an opportunity to attract visitors to our park as the overall market expands. While I anticipate that Epic will be a successful addition and may attract large crowds, there will still be opportunities for us to draw visitors. We are strategically located closer to Epic than some competitors, which is an advantage. We believe our unique value proposition and product differentiation will continue to encourage visitors to choose SeaWorld. A significant portion of our attendance comes from local drive-in visitors, so we look forward to remaining a strong presence in Orlando and will continue to work on attracting guests.

Chris Woronka, Analyst

Thank you, Marc. I appreciate your insights. I have a follow-up regarding the 2025 pass product lineup that you mentioned earlier. While I understand that details may be limited, will there be any changes in strategy concerning ancillary attachments through the pass, or any other notable strategic changes?

Marc Swanson, CEO

I think, overall, I mean, we will continue to offer a great suite of benefits to our pass holders. And again, we're going to target reasons for them to buy a pass. So that strategy is not going to change. I think we're always looking for new ways to engage our pass holders, new ways we can drive them to come more often and to secure their commitment. So there will be some things we do and we'll announce that, Jim alluded to. We feel we're going to have some of the best benefits we've had. Right? So details will be forthcoming, but I think the strategy of really securing people's commitment earlier, securing their commitment for the year, will continue to be a strategy. And in fairness, people buy passes to our parks throughout the year. So we're always kind of selling passes. But obviously, when we launch something new for 2025, we're going to try to make sure people have a compelling reason to buy that product.

Lizzie Dove, Analyst

Hi there. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Going back to the kind of park mix comment that was kind of made, I am curious, we will all see the foot traffic data, and it's interesting because the Orlando Park kind of attendance growth is holding up nicely, but there's been some weakness this year, like year to date in terms of the Busch Gardens parks. Curious if there is anything you can kind of share there in terms of trends between the different parks and the different brands.

Marc Swanson, CEO

Yes. Thanks, Lizzie. I mean, I don't want to get into too much for competitive reasons, but I think you kind of echoed my comments that we're pleased with the Orlando performance on attendance here year to date. So you can kind of read into that. Certainly, we have opportunities at all our parks, and certainly, Busch Gardens Tampa would be one of them. It's a great park. It's got a lot of great rides and animal attractions. I think we need to do a better job of making people aware of what that park has to offer. It's a wonderful park with the rides and the animals. So we'll continue to work on that. I think that's a big opportunity for us.

Lizzie Dove, Analyst

Got it. Thank you. And then also as we kind of look to 2025, as I think it was Chris just mentioned, Epic launching. I guess, what is your base case here? Are you assuming that there's this rising tide? Maybe you get some kind of pricing power with a pricing umbrella. Or I guess, said a different way, Orlando is a big part of your base, maybe 40% of the EBITDA, if I were to kind of guess. Do you think EBITDA growth is achievable on the business as a whole in '25?

Marc Swanson, CEO

Yes, we expect to grow the business in 2025. We've been in this market for a long time and have seen the EBITDA growth of the market, including the growth of SeaWorld Park. Thus, our expectation is that we will continue to grow. With Epic opening next year, we anticipate more visitors coming to Orlando. While there may be peak days where the crowds are significant, there are still opportunities for us to attract visitors. The park has a limited capacity, so even with many people in town, we can still capture some of that audience, as we have historically. From a geographical standpoint, we are closer to Epic than some competitors, which is beneficial for us. We welcome new visitors to the area, and our unique offerings and value proposition will encourage them to visit SeaWorld. We will continue to have our attractions, events, and strategies in place. What we offer at SeaWorld is different from Universal, with our focus on animals and distinct events, setting us apart. We have a strong value proposition, and many of our attendees in Florida can easily drive in. Overall, we are excited about our presence in Orlando and will keep working to attract more people.

Operator, Operator

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Marc Swanson, CEO, for any closing remarks.

Marc Swanson, CEO

Yes. Thank you, Cindy. On behalf of Jim and the rest of the management team at United Parks & Resorts, I want to thank you for joining us this morning. As you heard today, we are confident in our long-term strategy, which we believe will drive improved operating and financial results and long-term value to stakeholders. Thank you, and we look forward to speaking with you next quarter.

Operator, Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.