Marriott International Class A Earnings Call Nuggets: January RevPAR and CapEx Target

Marriott International, Inc. Class A (NYSE:MAR) recently reported its fourth quarter earnings and discussed the following topics in its earnings conference call.

January RevPAR

Nikhil Bhalla – FBR Capital Markets: Just in terms of January RevPAR coming in 8%. Would you give us some color on how much Washington D.C. contributed to that?

Arne M. Sorenson – President and CEO: I think we believe that the inaugural impact was less than a point in our January numbers, which is maybe where your question is going. As we talk, we’ll see whether we can find Washington area RevPAR number for January or not, but it’s less than a point of RevPAR in that.

Carl T. Berquist – EVP and CFO: 0.8%.

Arne M. Sorenson – President and CEO: 0.8%.

Nikhil Bhalla – FBR Capital Markets: 0.8%. Okay. Just in terms of your group pace 6%, group revenue pace for 2013. How is that looking in terms of quarter, is that weighted more towards the first half of the year or is it more of a back half phenomenon?

Carl T. Berquist – EVP and CFO: There is a little bit of difference quarter to quarter to be sure, and some of that is driven by seasonality. I think the back half is probably a bit stronger than the front half. But group is generally a pretty positive story. You look back at bookings in Q4 as an example. We think revenue that we put on the books in the quarter for the next 12 months was up 8% from a year earlier. So, as we closed out the year, group business continues to be a relatively encouraging sign.