Earnings Call Transcript
WYNDHAM HOTELS & RESORTS, INC. (WH)
Earnings Call Transcript - WH Q3 2022
Matt Capuzzi, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations
Thank you, operator. Good morning and thank you for joining us. With me today are Geoff Ballotti, our CEO, and Michele Allen, our CFO. Before we get started, I want to remind you that our remarks today will contain forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risk factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. These risk factors are discussed in detail in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and any subsequent reports filed with the SEC. We will also be referring to a number of non-GAAP measures, corresponding GAAP measures, and a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to GAAP metrics are provided in our earnings release, which is available on our Investor Relations website at investor.wyndhamhotels.com. We are providing certain measures discussing future impact on a non-GAAP basis only, because without unreasonable efforts, we are unable to provide the comparable GAAP metric. In addition, last evening, we posted an investor presentation containing supplemental information on our Investor Relations website. We may continue to provide supplemental information on our website in the future. Accordingly, we encourage investors to monitor our website in addition to our press releases, filings submitted with the SEC, and any public conference calls or webcasts. With that, I will turn the call over to Geoff.
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
Thanks, Matt, and thanks, everyone, for joining us this morning. We are pleased to report another strong quarter, where we delivered $191 million of adjusted EBITDA and generated nearly $100 million of free cash flow, demonstrating the continued resiliency and consistency of our business model while returning over $160 million to shareholders, bringing our year-to-date capital return to $400 million or 5% of our market cap. Global RevPAR grew 12% year-over-year, finishing 11% above 2019 levels. Here in the United States, RevPAR for Q3 ran 250 basis points higher than last year's record third quarter and finished 10% above 2019, the highest absolute quarterly RevPAR ever recorded for our brands. Year-to-date, U.S. RevPAR closed the quarter 15% ahead of 2021 and 8% ahead of 2019. And for the first three weeks of October, demand for our brands has continued to accelerate, with U.S. RevPAR up 9% to prior year, driven by both rate and occupancy gains. Internationally, RevPAR ran 46% ahead of last year and 17% above 2019, driven by our EMEA, LATAM and Canada regions, which all generated RevPAR well in excess of both 2019 and 2021 levels. International occupancy improved from down 23 points last quarter to down 16 points this quarter compared to 2019 levels. We will continue to provide a meaningful tailwind for us in the coming quarters as demand continues to grow overseas. Our select service franchisees here in the United States were among the first in the industry to see their businesses fully recover from COVID last year. While the majority of these small business owners have said that 2021 was the best year they have ever experienced financially, most of them are again telling us that 2022 will be an even stronger year than last year from a revenue and margin standpoint despite the broader macroeconomic climate. As our results to date are demonstrating, we have seen no signs of any slowdown here in the U.S. The seasonal occupancy declines that historically occur heading into the fall have been significantly less pronounced than in years prior to the pandemic. On the leisure front, we continue to see year-over-year double-digit increases in our web traffic, and booking windows continue to increase compared to 2021. On the business front, our weekday occupancy was the highest on record for the month of September as we continue to capture new infrastructure-related accounts. As we look beyond 2022, infrastructure bookings represent a significant tailwind for our business as more projects commence and construction ramps up on the largest public works bill signed into U.S. law in 70 years. We grew net rooms by over 4%, including 80 basis points due to the acquisition of our 23rd brand, Vienna House by Wyndham, which added over 40 hotels and more than 6,400 rooms under long-term franchise agreements, predominantly in Germany. This high-quality and accretive brand was acquired from an institutional developer and a current owner of other Wyndham-branded hotels, who continues to grow its European network of Wyndham brands. Our team in Europe is looking to expand the size of the Vienna House portfolio over the next few years as we plug the brand into our strong European infrastructure and distribution network. Excluding Vienna House, we grew net rooms organically by over 3%. This was the first quarter since the pandemic that all of our regions around the world returned to positive sequential net room growth. We opened some spectacular new hotels this quarter. Here in the United States, we opened more rooms than we did in Q3 of 2019. We welcomed the Grandover Resort & Spa, one of North Carolina's best golf and meeting destination resorts, to the Wyndham Grand family. We were also very proud to open our latest La Quinta Del Sol prototype, the new all-construction La Quinta by Wyndham outside of Denver, Colorado. Internationally, we opened more rooms than we did in both Q3 of 2021 and back in the third quarter of 2019. In Latin America, we grew net rooms by over 25% and opened 10 more luxury registry collection hotels with the Palladium Hotel Group, adding 5,000 rooms across the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Mexico, and Panama. Our China direct franchising business grew its system size by another 8% with new Days Inn, Microtel, Wyndham Garden, Wyndham Grand, and half a dozen new Ramada by Wyndham Hotels opening across the country, despite the sporadic lockdowns and travel restrictions. Our EMEA region grew net rooms organically by 9%, with impressive new additions like the 425-room trademark collection Frankfurt Airport, the luxurious Wyndham residences on the Palm in Dubai, and the new 5-Star Wyndham Grand Doha, West Bay Beach Hotel, featuring its multiple spa, restaurant, and pool facilities in the heart of Qatar's financial district. We grew our development pipeline by 10% to a record 212,000 rooms and over 1,600 hotels. Notably, we awarded another 48 Project ECHO new construction extended-stay contracts this quarter to established developers and experienced extended-stay operators, bringing the total number of contracts awarded to 120 hotels in just six short months. We had our first Project ECHO ground break in September in Plano, Texas, with Gulf Coast Hospitality, who is committed to build 25 new construction Project ECHO hotels. Next week, Michele and I will be visiting Virginia for the first ground break of Sandpiper Hospitality's 27 Project ECHO hotels that they have committed to build. Our record development pipeline marks the ninth consecutive quarter of sequential pipeline growth as we awarded 120 new contracts in the United States and approximately 95 contracts internationally, which together account for more than 30,000 new rooms. Year-to-date, our teams have signed over 565 new contracts, which is nearly three contracts awarded each and every business day. The number of contracts signed was 42% higher than what we awarded last year and 47% higher than in the third quarter of 2019. In the United States, we signed 114% more contracts than we did in 2019. The year-over-year signings of our cost-efficient new construction prototype have increased approximately 40% above 2019, and the percentage of our pipeline that we have poured new foundations for new construction increased 250 basis points compared to this point last year. We have more new ground breaks planned for the remainder of 2022 than we did in both Q4 of 2021 and in Q4 of 2019. Our award-winning Wyndham Rewards loyalty program has been recognized as the best hotel loyalty program for the fifth consecutive year by the readers of USA Today, along with the Wyndham Rewards earner card as its best hotel credit card. Total Wyndham Rewards membership grew 8% over the past 12 months and now stands at over 97 million members. Revenue generated in the U.S. from direct bookings on our brand.com sites grew over 10% in the quarter compared to 2021, outpacing the rate of growth across all third-party channels, driven in large part by the Wyndham Rewards loyalty program, with nearly 50% of all U.S. guests representing Wyndham Rewards members. As our wyndham.com channels hit an all-time record of contribution, third-party OTA channels as a percentage of total bookings remain below 2019 levels. Our commitment to encouraging diverse hotel ownership continues to grow. Next week, BOLD by Wyndham, which stands for black owners and lodging developers, will co-host a black hotel ownership symposium with our inaugural member at his mixed-use development project in Atlanta, Georgia. We have designed this educational event to help black entrepreneurs get started on their journey to hotel ownership. Interest in BOLD, along with Wyndham’s Women Own The Room program, continues to exceed our expectations, with over a dozen BOLD hotels and over 20 Women Own The Room hotels now in our development pipeline. From a sustainability perspective, we are very proud that Google is now displaying Wyndham Green-certified hotels with its eco certification badge when searching for accommodations. We are one of only two hotel programs that Google recognizes for this certification. Additionally, we added search functionality this quarter so that our guests can easily identify Wyndham Green-certified hotels on our brand.com websites and mobile app. With our franchising business performing at record levels and our brands attracting more interest than ever from owners and developers, we are confident in the continued stability of our franchise business model and its ability to deliver outstanding value to our franchisees, customers, and stakeholders in any environment. This confidence allowed us to raise our full-year outlook, which Michele will now cover in further detail.
Michele Allen, CFO
Thanks, Geoff, and good morning everyone. I will begin my remarks today with a detailed review of our third quarter results. I will then review our cash flows and balance sheet, followed by an update to our 2022 outlook, as Geoff mentioned. During the third quarter, our fee-related and other revenue was $375 million and our adjusted EBITDA was $191 million. As mentioned on our second quarter call, our year-over-year results are not comparable due to the sale of our two owned hotels and the exit of our select service management business in the first half of this year. In an effort to simplify our results, my commentary today will again be centered around our segment performance. Our Franchising segment grew revenue by 9% year-over-year, primarily reflecting constant currency global RevPAR growth, up 12%, and higher license fees. Adjusted EBITDA increased 4% to $201 million as the revenue increases were partially offset as expected by the timing of higher marketing spend in the quarter, which unfavorably impacted margin by 270 basis points. Excluding this timing impact, our adjusted EBITDA grew 12% in the third quarter, and the adjusted EBITDA margin was consistent with prior year. In our Hotel Management segment, revenue and adjusted EBITDA declines reflected the sale of our select service management and owned hotel businesses, which collectively contributed approximately $34 million in revenue and $10 million in adjusted EBITDA last year. Within our corporate and other segment, we saw $2 million of higher expenses due to inflationary cost pressures as expected and a reflection of the current environment. Adjusted diluted EPS improved 4% to $1.21, reflecting our adjusted EBITDA growth in the Hotel Franchising segment as well as a benefit from our share repurchase activity. This was partially offset by the aforementioned sale of our select service management business and owned hotels. On a comparable basis, excluding these impacts and neutralizing for the time differences in the marketing funds, adjusted diluted EPS increased 14%. Before moving on to free cash flow, let me take a moment to discuss current regional RevPAR performance and the tailwinds we see moving beyond 2022 with occupancy not yet back to pre-pandemic levels. As Geoff mentioned, global RevPAR continued to surpass 2019 levels this quarter by 11%, led by U.S. RevPAR of 110% of 2019 and international at 117%. This was the first quarter we saw international RevPAR surpass 2019 levels, reflecting strong recovery across Europe and considerably stronger pricing power. ADR in all regions exceeded 2019, with global ADR up 10%. Occupancy, however, still has room to recover across the globe. In the U.S., occupancy reached 96% of 2019 levels, in EMEA, 93%, and in China, 72%. Overall, global occupancy improved to 91% of 2019 levels, again illustrating significant room for continued demand recovery to pre-COVID levels. Now, turning to free cash flow. We generated $97 million during the quarter and $321 million year-to-date, an increase of 6% compared to 2021. Our year-to-date free cash flow conversion rate now stands at 61%, and we remain well on track to achieve our targeted 55% conversion rate. We returned $161 million to our shareholders during the third quarter through $132 million of share repurchases and $29 million of common stock dividends. When coupled with the $44 million of cash used to acquire the Vienna House brand, the $205 million of excess cash deployed this quarter was 20% higher than the second quarter. Year-to-date, we have returned $400 million of capital to shareholders, which, as Geoff mentioned, represents approximately 5% of our market cap. As always, our first priority is to reinvest in the business, and we actively explore both external and organic growth opportunities. The Vienna House acquisition is an example of the type of small tuck-in deals we are targeting—asset-light, in the higher chain scale, accretive to earnings, and a brand with the ability to grow in existing and adjacent markets. Moving into 2023, and subject to Board approval, we expect to continue to maintain our industry-leading dividend payout ratio, and share repurchases will continue to be an integral element of our capital allocation strategy. Earlier this week, our Board increased our share repurchase authorization by $400 million, reflecting its confidence in the business’ ability to generate substantial cash and its continued commitment to shareholder return. We ended the quarter with approximately $1 billion of total liquidity, and our net leverage was 2.7x. Our ending cash balance of $286 million is above our normal levels due to the portion of the proceeds we received from the select service management and owned hotel sale transactions that have yet to be deployed. Excluding this excess cash, our net leverage was 3x at the low end of our stated target range. Importantly, only 20% of our long-term gross debt is variable rate, limiting our exposure to the rising interest rate environment. Despite the broader economic climate, deleveraging or building excess cash on our balance sheet are not considerations. Given the highly cash-generative nature of our business model, our current liquidity profile, and the resilience of our demand drivers as demonstrated throughout prior down cycles. Now turning to outlook, we are raising our full year 2022 guide as follows. We now expect year-over-year global RevPAR growth of 14% to 16% and global net room growth of approximately 4%. Fee-related and other revenues are expected to be $1.33 billion to $1.34 billion, an increase of $34 million from July’s outlook, reflecting the higher RevPAR and net room growth expectations. Based primarily on the strength of global RevPAR trends, we expect our marketing reservation and loyalty funds to contribute approximately $20 million to adjusted EBITDA compared with our previous outlook of $10 million. These changes combined for an increase of $19 million to our adjusted EBITDA expectation, which is now projected to be $636 million to $644 million. We expect adjusted net income of $349 million to $354 million, $23 million higher than our prior outlook. Our adjusted diluted EPS expectation increases by $0.30 per share and is now projected to be $3.84 per share to $3.89 per share based on a diluted share count of 91 million, which as usual excludes any fourth quarter share repurchases. There is no change to our prior outlook for our free cash flow conversion rate of approximately 55%. As a reminder, looking towards 2023, we have provided two slides in our investor presentation to help with your modeling. Slide 33 provides the historical financial impact of our select service management business and owned hotels, which will need to be adjusted from your base. Slide 35 provides revenue sensitivity. In closing, our third quarter results once again demonstrate the resiliency and strong cash flow capabilities of our business model. We are deploying our available capital in a disciplined fashion to drive growth in the business and increase shareholder returns, which we believe an asset-light business such as ours. With our low leverage, the extension of our $750 million revolving credit facility earlier this year, and no maturities until mid-2025, the strength of our balance sheet provides us with tremendous flexibility, along with the means to continue to fund strategic growth initiatives over the coming years. With that, Geoff and I would be happy to take your questions.
Operator, Operator
We will take our first question from Patrick Scholes of Truist Securities.
Patrick Scholes, Analyst
Hi, good morning, everyone.
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
Good morning, Patrick.
Patrick Scholes, Analyst
Good morning. Regarding your full-year earnings guidance range, how should we think about how much of that is from you beating your internal expectations for 3Q? And is any of that from a 4Q organic raise versus prior expectations? Hopefully, that makes sense.
Michele Allen, CFO
Sure. Good morning, Patrick. We raised our full-year guidance by $19 million, and versus our internal projections, this represents about a $12 million beat in the third quarter and a $7 million raise to our fourth quarter expectations.
Patrick Scholes, Analyst
Okay, thank you. So a small organic in the fourth quarter. Next question. On the purchase of the Vienna House brand, can you provide an EBITDA multiple for that?
Michele Allen, CFO
Yes, sure. I believe the EBITDA multiple was calculated based upon a $44 million purchase price, and it’s going to generate about $4 million of EBITDA on a stabilized basis for 12 months.
Patrick Scholes, Analyst
Okay, thank you. And then just last question for Michele, I’ve noticed as the year progressed, your expectations for the SBC stock-based comp going down. In today’s environment, we don’t see a lot of costs going down. I’m wondering what’s driving that, something that’s accounting-wise. I wonder if you could just give some color on that. Thank you.
Michele Allen, CFO
There is a bunch of different accounting in there based upon how we recognize the expense between the time-vested and the performance-tested portion. And then obviously, it would reflect attrition as well.
Patrick Scholes, Analyst
Okay. Was there any major attrition that you’d want to call out that was significant in driving that?
Michele Allen, CFO
Nothing material or that I think is important to highlight.
Patrick Scholes, Analyst
Okay. Fair enough. That’s it for me. Thank you.
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
Thanks, Patrick.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Joe Greff of JPMorgan.
Joe Greff, Analyst
Good morning, everybody.
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
Good morning, Joe.
Joe Greff, Analyst
Geoff, Michele, given just general momentum in your development pipeline with that nine quarters of sequential development pipeline growth, momentum in Project ECHO, strides in retention rates, things like Vienna House, do you think going forward the net rooms growth floor target is closer to 4% than it is to 2 percentage points?
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
We’re not giving guidance on the call, Joe, but certainly, given how healthy our pipeline is, our pipeline has never been healthier. It was explosive. During the quarter year-over-year, we’re feeling very good about where it sits and where we’re headed. What our teams have put up, not only with, to your point, the Echo growth, which has just been off the charts in terms of expectations, but also from so many of our prototype brands. There has been a fear that new construction is slowing. We’re certainly not seeing that from the demand in our new construction prototype brands. Aside from Echo, we’ve seen great growth across the board. Our Moda prototype when we look at where it was versus this time last year and our pipeline is up 12%, our Wyndham Garden is up 20%. We’ve talked a lot about our Hawthorn Suites and our La Quinta brand, which sits at almost 30% over where it was this year. So we’re very confident in terms of our net room growth this year and where we could move it in the future and just thrilled with what’s happening with the pipeline.
Joe Greff, Analyst
Great. And then just following up on Project ECHO, obviously, you have 120 products in the pipeline, maybe more than that, given that we’re in October. What do you think you will get to in two to three years? And maybe the way to think about answering it is what Wyndham brands you benchmark it against in terms of penetration opportunity? And following up on Project ECHO, when do you think you start to do single developer, single development deals?
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
Well, all great questions, Joe. We’ve reached multi-unit development agreements with seven of the nation’s preeminent extended-stay developers. That’s providing a runway over the next five years for the brand to have over, as we’ve said we’d hope to have this year, 100 pipeline by the year-end. We’re now at 120, as you say, we’re still signing deals. We had our first ground break, as we talked about, in Plano and another ground break next week. We will exit 2022 with at least four hotels in the ground and that really lays the foundation for those first hotels to open late next year, less than two years from when we announced it. We expect to accelerate the timeline and seek out those individual owners that you’re asking about. We would expect that by mid-2023, Chip Olson and David Willner will expand it to the rest of their development team. And yes, we will be on our way. When it comes to benchmarking it against other brands, it’s tough to do. The extended stay demand is just off the charts. We’re seeing a 13-point year-to-date delta between what extended stays are running occupancy-wise and what the rest of the industry is rising. That’s a big piece of this, and we’re just thrilled at what we’ve seen so far.
Joe Greff, Analyst
Great. And then maybe one more final question quickly for Michele, when you think about buybacks going forward, is it really using the excess cash and internally generated free cash flow to buy back stock? Or would you actually lever up to buy back stock?
Michele Allen, CFO
I think it is the former at this point in time, given the current interest rate environment. We aren’t inclined to lever up above our stated range without a compelling reason to do so. So obviously, we had a good use of proceeds; that’s something we would clearly consider.
Joe Greff, Analyst
Thank you, guys.
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
Thanks, Joe.
Michele Allen, CFO
Thank you.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from David Katz of Jefferies.
David Katz, Analyst
Hi, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. So, look, a couple of issues that come up, just broadly speaking about Wyndham. One, the sort of outlook for leisure travel and what your exposure to that is, particularly in the moderate and lower end segments? And second, exposure to China and/or Asia, broadly speaking, and whether either of those pose a risk to your earnings cadence. I’d love to have you just talk about those a little bit. I think it would be helpful.
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
Yes. Two great questions. David, I’ll take your last question first, which is on Asia and specifically China, but we are incredibly proud of our Asia Pacific and our China teams given everything that they have accomplished and how well they are performing. It is not in any way, shape, or form an issue for us going forward. I mean the delivery consistently from these teams over the past few years makes us very optimistic about the long-term prospects there. We’ve got 60,000 direct franchising rooms in the pipeline. Year-to-date, the team has opened about the same number of rooms as they opened back in 2019. More impressively, the development team in China has awarded the same number of contracts year-to-date through the end of the third quarter as they did back in 2019. As their conversion pipeline has doubled, they have been successful in introducing new brands to new markets, primarily across China. They have been delivering consistently quarter in, quarter out, with 8% net room growth in our direct franchising business despite all the challenges last quarter. We are feeling very good about the long-term prospects over there. In terms of the lower-end consumer, we’re clearly middle class, as we talked about on the last call. But the demand that we’re seeing right now is just more robust than we would have ever thought possible. We’re seeing continued consumer demand. Our Google search volumes just keep increasing—they are up 30% to last year. Our holiday searches are off the charts for Thanksgiving, for Christmas, and for New Year’s. It’s consistent with everything the industry is seeing. The Duetto Pulse report out this week was forecasting robust holiday travel. That’s what we’re seeing. The leisure pickup for October, November, December is continuing to pace ahead of same time last year and back in August. Our web traffic is running double digits ahead of where it was back in ‘19, and our cancellation rates are down. Our booking windows, as we mentioned, were up. We think all we need to do is look at October month-to-date through these first three weeks to see how this demand continues to accelerate with this mid-income, mid-scale consumer that stays in our hotels. We’re consistently up. September was the best occupancy we’ve ever seen, and October month-to-date is up 19%, which is 9% over 2021, ahead of last year in both rate and occupancy. It’s that way in all of our big states—Texas, Florida, California, Georgia, North Carolina—occupancy is running well ahead of where it was not only back in ‘19, but last year. We think guests who put off summer vacations, maybe because they just couldn’t find space or couldn’t find availability, are picking it up and continuing into the fall. We think that’s going to continue from a leisure standpoint going forward with no more fear of COVID, which was one of the things we were worried about this time last year. Customers are looking to travel now more than ever, and we’re seeing it across the industry, whether it’s— the two big card companies put out this data: the Mastercard Spending Pulse survey indicates lodging is up 30% from July and 43% in September compared to pre-pandemic levels. Visa’s report out last night was clear that they were getting a boost from travel payments with no signs of any slowdown in consumer demand. In the mid-scale space, we’re certainly not seeing it. From an infrastructure standpoint, regarding the second part of your question, this is now the third consecutive quarter where our infrastructure account spending increased double digits compared to 2019. It’s currently running over 25% year-to-date. To size how meaningful this is for our brands and small business owners, if you recall, 70% of our business is leisure, which is very strong—30% of that is business. But that business is different—it’s not white-collar business travel. 70% of that 30% business mix is that infrastructure business. Those are the companies contracted to repair our nation’s highways, bridges, and ports. It’s these companies that book blue-collar workers into economy and mid-scale lodging that is attractive for our brands and for our hotel owners. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that only $25 billion of the incremental infrastructure spending will be spent in 2022. They estimate that the outlay will triple in 2023 to $75 billion and then run $100 billion, $140 billion, and $175 billion in 2024, 2025, and 2026. Think about that—all this $550 billion of incremental authorization spending is on top of the $650 billion of the regular reauthorized legislation, which gets us to the $1.2 trillion that’s in the news. Significant tailwinds for our team. We are very excited about it. We are adding more sellers to sign accounts, and we think we are going to continue to win more bids and gain more mid-week domestic market share.
Michele Allen, CFO
Yes, David, if I could just address the last part of the China question, which was our—the risk to our earnings cadence. I would say, as Geoff mentioned, we are super proud of everything the team there has accomplished. Despite their success, we are aware of the economic situation. We have a large team of locals there, and we’re in touch with them on a daily basis. The region in 2022 is generating less than 2% of our EBITDA.
David Katz, Analyst
Understood. And if I can just throw one other matter out there for discussion around. Geoff, your comments on the loyalty program, we have seen across the industry where companies are generating fee streams and value outside of the scope of RevPAR from those membership bases. Is that an opportunity for you all short-term, long-term? Any thoughts here would be helpful, too. And that’s it for me. Thanks.
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
Sure. The best proxy, David, for our loyalty program is the share of occupancy that it contributes nightly. This occupancy is very important to our small business owners and our franchisees. It’s up 500, 600 basis points to where it was pre-pandemic. As we said, we were voted the number one hotel loyalty program in the world by U.S. News and World Report, and that’s for the fifth consecutive year by USA TODAY, and we’re really proud of that. As it continues to grow in size, pre-pandemic, we were in the 80s. We believe we will hit our 100 million member mark this year at some point. We’re up 8% year-over-year, and the program is up 25% compared to 2019. The ability to drive that one out of every two check-ins domestically into our hotels is what’s most important, and our teams are doing a phenomenal job and are very focused on continuing to see that share of occupancy for our owners, which is really our value proposition in terms of what franchisees are paying for in terms of direct contribution. That’s what is nearest and dearest to our hearts.
David Katz, Analyst
Thank you. Please.
Michele Allen, CFO
We do see opportunities beyond just occupancy. We have a co-branded credit card with our loyalty program, multiple partnerships, and we are looking to continue to expand those partnerships to drive incremental value to our owners as well as incremental earnings.
David Katz, Analyst
Okay, thank you very much.
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
Thanks, David.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Bellisario of Baird.
Michael Bellisario, Analyst
Thanks. Good morning, everyone.
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
Good morning, Michael.
Michael Bellisario, Analyst
Geoff, just a follow-up to one of the last questions. Can you maybe sort of give us a timeline or walk us through what you saw in July when you had tough comps domestically, and then best for September and month-to-date in October so far, that’s been much stronger? Where were the strengths? Where were the weaknesses? And if you could quantify how much of the updates may be coming from the infrastructure strength that you mentioned earlier?
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
Sure. Two great questions. We'll start with what happened throughout the summer. I think it goes back to what we said on our last call: we expected—and I think our owners expected—that vacation season would not stop on Labor Day, and it certainly didn’t. I mean we’re seeing record-setting demand for this time of year. The month-over-month seasonal declines are significantly less than they were in years past, meaning that seasonal resorts are seeing no seasonality. Wyndham Newport, for example, I was talking to the team there; September occupancy was 8% ahead of last year, down a bit in July. October occupancy is 21% ahead of last year, with RevPAR in both months, September and October, up 50% from 2019. Those big states for us are running well ahead of Florida, for example, which was up 19% to 2019 and is now up 21% month-to-date to last year, with ADR up 16% and RevPAR up 40%. We’re seeing big occupancy increases in Georgia significantly ahead of prior year and RevPAR to prior year. We think guests put off those summer vacations, maybe because they just couldn’t find space, couldn’t find availability. The demand was constrained by just a lack of availability, and they are picking it up and continuing into the fall. We think that’s going to continue from a leisure standpoint going forward, especially with no more fear of COVID, which we worried about this time last year. Customers are looking to travel now more than ever, and we’re seeing it across the industry. The Mastercard Spending Pulse survey indicates that lodging has been up for 20 consecutive months and has picked up from July. It was up 30%. In September, it ran 43%, significantly stronger than it did in July versus 2019. Visa’s report out last night indicated that they were clear about getting a boost from travel payments with no signs of any slowdown in consumer demand in the economy, and in the mid-scale space, we’re certainly not seeing it. From an infrastructure standpoint, this is the third consecutive quarter where our infrastructure account spending increased double digits compared to 2019. We are now running over 25% year-to-date. To size how meaningful this is for our brands and small business owners, if you recall, 70% of our business is leisure, which is very strong—30% of that is business, but that business is different. It’s not white-collar business travel. It is 70% of that 30% business mix is infrastructure business, companies that are being contracted to repair our nation’s highways, bridges, and ports. They book blue-collar workers into economy mid-scale lodging, which is very attractive for our brands and for hotel owners. The CBO estimated that only $25 billion of the incremental infrastructure spending will be spent in 2022. They estimate that outlay to triple in 2023 to $75 billion, and then $100 billion, $140 billion, and $175 billion in 2024, 2025, and 2026. So, think about that. This $550 billion we are reading about of incremental authorization spending is on top of the $650 billion of the regular reauthorized legislation, which gets us to the $1.2 trillion that’s in the news. Significant tailwinds for our team. We are excited and adding more sellers to sign accounts, and we think we are going to continue to win more bids and gain more mid-week domestic market share.
Michele Allen, CFO
Yes, just to add, Michael, September occupancy was the best we had on record. Also, we are still seeing Sunday occupancies exceed 2019 levels, which is longer long weekends for leisure as well as some leisure mixing in there. Third, the infrastructure accounts, as Geoff mentioned in his prepared remarks, were up double digits for the third consecutive quarter.
Michael Bellisario, Analyst
Helpful. And then just sort of looking forward—not looking for guidance on ‘23—but as the calendar flips, how are you thinking about where the upside drivers might be? And then also where the downside risks might lie as well?
Michele Allen, CFO
When we think about the occupancy tailwinds for 2023 as well as the sustainability of ADR, not just in the U.S. but also internationally, we think about the recovery of business travel—although that’s a small piece—so that it will still be incrementally positive. For 2023, we expect to have some of our ECHO hotels opening and contributing something to 2023, as well as the Vienna House. When we think about risks, we balance that out, obviously, with the macroeconomic trends.
Michael Bellisario, Analyst
Helpful. Thank you.
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
Thanks, Mike.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Dany Asad of Bank of America.
Dany Asad, Analyst
Hey. Good morning, everybody. My question on pipeline. So, how much of your pipeline growth that you saw— that 10% in the quarter—is from Project ECHO? And I guess I will ask my follow-up, how long would it take for that pipeline bump like the one we are seeing to turn into accelerating unit growth?
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
Again, I am not giving guidance, Dany, on the call, but this is the healthiest our pipeline has ever been. It is the ninth consecutive quarter of sequential growth. The U.S. pipeline sequentially increased 7% and increased 24% versus last year, and a significant piece of that was ECHO. But taking ECHO entirely out, to your question, we still saw very strong growth, not only from ECHO, but growth from our other new construction prototype brands that I mentioned. We have just a record number of hotels in the pipeline right now—1,200 hotels, up 17% from last year. Brands I talked about a few questions back have been driving that, in addition to ECHO.
Dany Asad, Analyst
Thank you.
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
Thanks Dany, and good luck with baby number two; we hear, weeks away.
Dany Asad, Analyst
Thank you.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. We will take our next question from Ian Zaffino of Oppenheimer.
Ian Zaffino, Analyst
Hi. Great. Thank you very much. Michele, I know you mentioned this idea of longer weekends, more Sunday stays. Is that trend continuing? Is it accelerating? Decelerating? Just any kind of color there would be helpful. Thanks.
Michele Allen, CFO
Yes, we do see it increasing and continuing to drive more leisure demand on Thursdays and Sundays, obviously driving overall occupancy, as well as pricing, now that demand is higher on those weekdays.
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
Yes, that’s exactly right, Michele. Specifically, when you look at Sunday being our fastest-growing night, it’s up 600 basis points over where it was back in 2019 levels. As the booking windows continue to increase and we have more visibility, we think it will continue to grow.
Ian Zaffino, Analyst
Okay. Good. Thank you. And then I know you touched on the infrastructure piece of it. If we look at the IRA and the proliferation of EVs going on, does that open up a new revenue source for you? What are franchisees doing now as far as charging the vehicles, putting in stations? Any color there would be helpful because I know some of the rental car companies are now looking at that as an ancillary revenue stream, the EV charging. I don’t know what you guys are thinking and how you are approaching this? Thanks.
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
It’s a great question, Ian, and it is on our list. It’s something we talk a lot about with our franchise advisory councils. We were meeting with them a few weeks back, and it makes the top 10 list. We are partnering with some of the nation’s leading EV charging companies, and we have a series of models that we have offered to our franchisees. It’s right up there with what they are expecting from a large sourcing company like ours. It’s important, and it could be measurable, and it’s something that we are going to be very focused on in the years ahead.
Ian Zaffino, Analyst
Okay. Thank you very much.
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
Thanks, Ian.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. We will take our next question from Stephen Grambling of Morgan Stanley.
Stephen Grambling, Analyst
Hey, thanks for sneaking me in. Just following up on some of the questions regarding leisure. Can you parse out how the demographics of your leisure customers may be changing? In other words, are you capturing a higher end or different age base? And you also called out higher web traffic. Could you give a little more color on the other components of your distribution mix between OTA, on property, GDS, or other channels versus pre-pandemic?
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
Welcome back, Stephen; we missed you the last few calls. A few great questions there. What we are most— I think impressed with is that we are seeing younger travelers continue to gain share on older boomers. Our share of next-generation travelers, the millennials, generation X, and Zs continued to increase another 200 basis points in the quarter from 62% last year to 64% this year of check-ins. That is really important. We are seeing the average age of our Wyndham Rewards members fall as the program grows. We are seeing the median income of our members increase from around $75,000 to $90,000. That’s really, really important. It’s a big piece of what is driving the share of Wyndham Rewards check-ins, we believe, and what is making the program as strong as it is, as well as attractive for our owners. From a contribution standpoint, Wyndham Rewards is the fastest-growing channel of contribution. It consistently runs ahead right now of where we were before the pandemic, and we are seeing it run significantly ahead of third-party channels.
Michele Allen, CFO
And our contribution in the U.S. is up 140 basis points from 2019.
Stephen Grambling, Analyst
Great. One unrelated follow-up. I may have missed this, but Michele, how are you thinking about key money usage going forward based on the response that you have been seeing from the eye drop or loosening already? Should we anticipate this will go up as you continue to stand up the ECHO brand, or is it being used in other brands?
Michele Allen, CFO
Thank you. We are really pleased with what we are seeing from a key money perspective. We are at the table today on deals that we hadn’t previously been invited to participate in, so using the balance sheet to incentivize owners to our brands is really bearing fruit for us. I do expect it will—the allocation to key money will increase slightly as we move through the seating of the ECHO brand, but nothing that’s going to materially draw away from our ability to either invest in inorganic growth opportunities or capital allocation to share repurchase.
Stephen Grambling, Analyst
Helpful. Thanks so much.
Michele Allen, CFO
Thank you, Stephen.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our final question comes from Dan Wasiolek of Morningstar.
Dan Wasiolek, Analyst
Hey. Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. So, thanks for all the color on the call around occupancy and the improvement you are seeing there. Just kind of wondering, as kind of combining that with the infrastructure driver that you guys have. You mentioned that U.S. business occupancy in the weekday had maybe been improving. Wondering if you could maybe give where that occupancy for a weekday in the U.S. was this quarter versus last quarter? And then, I guess, my follow-up question is just any kind of— have you seen any incremental headwinds the last several weeks as far as the ability to get financing for people looking to enter your pipeline? That’s it for me, thanks.
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
Michele, you are on mute.
Michele Allen, CFO
I am sorry. I started to answer, and I was on mute. I apologize for that. On the financing side, we are not seeing any impact at this point in time. Our deals are mostly financed on the local or regional level with banks that our developers and owners have really strong deep relationships with. While we see obviously higher interest rates, we also know that returns are still very healthy. In fact, in our investor presentation, we have a slide— I believe it’s Slide 29—where you can see the owner returns, and we adjusted those for a 6% cost of debt, and the returns are still in the high teens. This is not the first time that we have seen volatility in interest rates; in prior instances, we haven’t really seen a meaningful impact on our net room growth. I think what the market is looking for today is more stability in the rates, not necessarily a reversion to the prior interest rates. While higher rates are going to stress the ROIs, the blow is certainly softened by a healthy and sustained increase in ADR. From an occupancy perspective in Q3, it was just about 60%.
Dan Wasiolek, Analyst
Okay. And was that— do you have the second quarter number for that?
Michele Allen, CFO
The second quarter—give me two seconds and I will just grab it. It was 58%, I am sorry.
Dan Wasiolek, Analyst
Yes. Okay. Very nice quarter, congrats, guys.
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
Thank you.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. I will now turn the floor back over to Geoff Ballotti for closing remarks.
Geoff Ballotti, CEO
Well, thank you, Todd, and thanks everyone for your questions and for your interest in Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. Let me just summarize the quarter by saying that our teams again delivered sequential organic net room growth in all regions around the world, as well as very strong growth in our development pipeline. Global RevPAR once again exceeded 2019 levels, and occupancy continued its recovery, which we believe will provide U.S. mid-week to Brandt’s question and international tailwinds in the quarters ahead. Most importantly, we would like to thank our teams who helped us deliver this top-line revenue improvement across the globe, and the strong free cash flow conversion from adjusted EBITDA that we saw this quarter and have seen all year. We remain very disciplined in our capital allocation, and we will record shareholder returns this year. Michele, Matt, and I look forward to talking to and seeing many of you in the weeks ahead at some of the upcoming investor conferences. We would like to wish everyone a happy Halloween on Monday. Thanks again for joining us.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. This does conclude today’s Wyndham Hotels & Resorts third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Please disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day.