RLJ - NYSE

Welcome to the RLJ Lodging Trust Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to John Paul Austin, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to RLJ Lodging Trust's 2025 Third Quarter Earnings Call. On today's call, Leslie Hale, our President and Chief Executive Officer, will discuss key highlights for the quarter. Nikhil Bhalla, our Chief Financial Officer, will discuss the company's financial results. Tom Bardenett, our Chief Operating Officer, will also be available for Q&A. Forward-looking statements made on this call are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that may lead the company's actual results to differ materially from what had been communicated. Factors that may impact the results of the company can be found in the company's 10-Q and other reports filed with the SEC. The company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements. Also, as we discuss certain non-GAAP measures, it may be helpful to review the reconciliations to GAAP located in our press release. Finally, please refer to the schedule of supplemental information, which includes pro forma operating results for our current hotel portfolio. I will now turn the call over to Leslie.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Overall, our third quarter RevPAR results were in line with our expectations, with trends improving sequentially month-over-month during the quarter. We were pleased to see our urban markets continue their stronger relative performance, and we are particularly encouraged by the momentum building in Northern California, which should continue to benefit our portfolio. Our solid growth in out-of-room spend, combined with our focus on cost containment allowed us to achieve solid bottom line results despite the RevPAR headwinds, demonstrating the strong contributions from our ROI initiatives and the resiliency of our lean operating model. Drilling into our third quarter operating results. Our RevPAR decline of 5.1% was balanced between occupancy and ADR. As we had expected, our performance reflected the broader lodging environment, which faced a layered effect of difficult holiday comps, non-repeat hurricane-related business in Houston and Tampa last year and softer citywide calendars in many markets such as Chicago, which benefited from the DNC last year and San Francisco that saw Dreamforce shift from September to October. These factors were compounded by the impact from our 3 transformative renovations in Waikiki and South Florida as well as headwinds in Austin, which collectively had a 200-basis point impact on our third quarter RevPAR. Notably, however, against this backdrop, we gained RevPAR index, highlighting the quality of our assets, which is allowing us to take market share. RevPAR at our urban hotels once again outpaced our broader portfolio this quarter by 50 basis points. We believe that urban markets, which benefit from a broad range of demand drivers should continue to outperform the industry. We were especially encouraged by the performance of our San Francisco CBD hotels, which achieved 19.4% RevPAR growth during the quarter, driven by a strong lineup of smaller conferences, concerts and special events, which more than offset the calendar shift of the Dreamforce conference. Regarding segmentation, healthy travel patterns across key sectors such as tech, finance and consulting, along with the sustained momentum and return to office trends led our non-government-related business travel to achieve 2.4% revenue growth. With our highest-rated customer coming back, corporate rates were up a healthy 3%. However, government-related transient demand remained meaningfully below last year. Our group revenues in the third quarter were impacted by the shift of the Jewish holidays into September, leading to a softer citywide calendar across many markets. Our group demand was further impacted by the ongoing transformation of the Austin Convention Center, which will significantly expand the center and further strengthen the Austin market in the coming years. While the demand environment was soft and the booking window remains short, we were encouraged to see pricing strength as demonstrated by the 2% growth in group ADR for the quarter. With respect to leisure, trends remain stable. And although we continue to observe some pricing sensitivity among consumers, we were encouraged to see demand up 1% during the quarter. Our urban leisure once again saw stronger relative performance, achieving flat revenue growth, led by a 3.2% increase in demand. Our urban markets are continuing to benefit from strong demand for concerts, sports and special events. Notably, we were pleased to see positive results from our ongoing strategy to drive out-of-room spend, which grew by 1.3% in the quarter, despite lower occupancy. Our non-room revenues generated strong margins and underscores the success of our ROI initiatives aimed at growing food and beverage revenues, re-concepting underutilized space and growing other ancillary revenues. Growth in our non-room revenues came in over 600 basis points ahead of our RevPAR performance. This growth, paired with our tight cost containment initiatives, allowed our portfolio to deliver bottom line results ahead of our expectations. Turning to capital allocation. We continue to make progress on several fronts during the quarter. We advanced our 3 transformative renovations in Waikiki, Key West and Fort Lauderdale, which are now substantially complete. We continue to ramp our conversions and see significant success with our 4 most recently completed conversions achieving 6% growth during the third quarter, including our newest conversion in Nashville, which achieved high single-digit RevPAR growth. The solid performance of these assets is testament to the success of our conversion strategy. Consistent with this strategy, during the quarter, we began the physical renovations at the Renaissance Pittsburgh, which will become part of Marriott's Autograph Collection. The timing of this conversion ideally positions the hotel to benefit from the momentum in the Pittsburgh market, including the NFL Draft, which will be hosted in the city next year. Additionally, we are pleased to announce that our Wyndham Boston Beacon Hill hotel will join Hilton's Tapestry Collection with renovations to commence late next year. This hotel sits in an irreplaceable A+ location, adjacent to Mass General's main campus, which is currently undergoing a $2 billion expansion. Our asset is positioned to benefit from the strong growth trends in all segments of demand, supported by a diverse base of demand drivers, including a strong corporate base, a robust life science and biotech ecosystem, a concentration of leading higher education institutions and a compelling set of leisure attractions. We believe the selection of Hilton's Tapestry Collection will allow us to attract robust incremental demand given the limited Hilton flags in the market, and we remain confident that we can unlock significant EBITDA upside of over 40% on a stabilized basis. Our ability to unlock meaningful value within our portfolio is made possible by our lean operating model that allows our portfolio to drive strong free cash flow and maintain a healthy balance sheet that enables us to return significant capital on a sustained basis to our shareholders. Now looking ahead to the remainder of the year. The broader uncertainty and lack of visibility that has persisted since the end of the first quarter has been recently compounded by the government shutdown, which began in October. October is the most important month of the fourth quarter. And despite having had an otherwise strong setup given the holiday shifts and an improved citywide calendar, October saw RevPAR decline year-over-year given the lack of compression created by the shutdown. Additionally, we anticipate that current travel-related headwinds created by the shutdown, including the effect it is having on the air traffic control system, will have an impact on consumers' propensity to travel. Current trends are also impacting the timing of the anticipated contribution from our major renovations in Key West and Waikiki, which were previously expected to begin ramping during the fourth quarter. These factors, combined with the lingering macro uncertainty that is affecting consumer and corporate confidence has moderated our view of the fourth quarter. We are, therefore, adjusting our full year outlook to reflect the impact of these trends with the new range, assuming current trends continue. As we look ahead to 2026, we are encouraged by a number of building blocks that when taken in aggregate, should drive a more positive backdrop for the industry, including: a more constructive economic environment with lower borrowing costs, clarity around taxes and increased investment spending in the U.S.; a lapping of difficult comparisons from 2025, including Liberation Day; and the continuation of historically low levels of new supply. Relative to this backdrop, our portfolio is well positioned for 2026, given our favorable geographic exposure and urban footprint, which should allow us to see outsized benefit in an improved demand environment. We are particularly excited about the World Cup in the U.S. and with 72 matches scheduled to take place in many of our markets, we are well positioned to capture this demand. Additionally, our portfolio will benefit from the 250th anniversary of the U.S. in markets such as D.C., Boston and Philadelphia as well as the rotation of major sporting events in many of our key markets, including the Super Bowl in Northern California. And we are also poised to capture the ongoing recovery in Northern California, which continues to gain momentum, supported by the rapid growth of the AI industry that is stimulating business travel, events and corporate investments against the backdrop of improving safety conditions and increasingly stringent return to office policies. All of these tailwinds for our portfolio will be further bolstered by the ramp of our conversions and the major renovations we completed this year. As we look ahead, we are well positioned to capitalize on what we believe will be an overall improved setup for the industry next year. With that, I will turn the call over to Nikhil.

Thanks, Leslie. To start, our comparable numbers include our 94 hotels owned at the end of the third quarter. Our reported corporate adjusted EBITDA and AFFO include operating results from all sold and acquired hotels during RLJ's ownership period. Our third quarter was generally in line with our expectations, even as we faced a low visibility environment. Third quarter occupancy was 73%, average daily rate was $190 and RevPAR was $139, which translates to a 5.1% RevPAR contraction versus the prior year, led by a 3.1% decline in occupancy and 2.1% drop in ADR. With respect to the cadence of RevPAR during the quarter, July experienced RevPAR decline of 6.8% due to greater impact from renovations as well as the lapping of difficult hurricane comparisons in Houston. August and September declined by 4.8% and 3.8%, respectively. Although October sequentially improved month-over-month as RevPAR declined by approximately 2%, it was below our expectations in light of the government shutdown. As Leslie noted, the layered effect of several known industry headwinds impacted the third quarter. However, our urban hotels continue to perform better relative to our overall portfolio, led by solid growth in markets such as San Francisco CBD, Atlanta and New York City, among others, that saw RevPAR increase by 19.4%, 12.1% and 4.7%, respectively. We were especially pleased with our non-room revenues achieving 1.3% growth over last year. Growth in our non-room revenues demonstrate the momentum behind our ROI initiatives, which led our total revenues to perform 110 basis points better than our RevPAR on a relative basis, despite occupancy being lower. With respect to operating costs, during the third quarter, our operating expenses were up just 90 basis points year-over-year after adjusting for non-recurring tax benefits in the prior year. And year-to-date, expenses increased by only 1.7% even against the prior year tax credits, reflecting the benefits of our lean operating model as well as the ongoing normalization of expenses and our relentless focus on enhancing productivity and managing expenses. Our ability to manage costs in a challenging RevPAR environment allowed us to achieve third quarter hotel EBITDA of $80.8 million and hotel EBITDA margins of 24.5%. We achieved adjusted EBITDA of $72.6 million and adjusted FFO per diluted share of $0.27 during the third quarter. Our balance sheet remains well positioned with approximately $1 billion of liquidity, comprising of $375 million of unrestricted cash and $600 million available on our corporate revolver. We ended the quarter with $2.2 billion of debt with a weighted-average maturity of 3 years and an attractive interest rate of 4.7%. 74% of our debt is either fixed or hedged, including $200 million of new interest rate swaps that we entered into during the third quarter. We continue to have significant flexibility with 86 of our 94 hotels unencumbered. Earlier this year, we addressed all of our 2025 debt maturities. And as we turn our attention towards addressing our 2026 maturities, we are encouraged by the improving interest rate and lending environment. We will continue to optimize the laddering of our debt maturities, our weighted average cost of debt and the flexibility of our balance sheet. We are leveraging the flexibility of our healthy balance sheet to unlock embedded value across our portfolio through transformative renovations and high-value conversions, while remaining committed to returning capital to shareholders. During the quarter, in addition to substantially completing the 3 transformative renovations in Waikiki and South Florida, we initiated the conversion of the Renaissance Pittsburgh to Marriott's Autograph Collection, while also advancing the programming for the Wyndham Boston, which we have selected to convert to Hilton's Tapestry Collection. Additionally, we remain committed to returning capital to shareholders by continuing to pay an attractive quarterly dividend of $0.15 per share that is well covered while increasing our shares repurchased to-date to 3.3 million shares for $28.6 million. We will continue making prudent capital allocation decisions to position our portfolio to drive growth through the entire cycle while returning capital to shareholders. Turning to our outlook. Overall, forecasting visibility remains low in light of the uncertainty related to the federal government. As such, our adjusted full year outlook reflects October's performance and the assumption that current operating trends persist through the balance of this year. For 2025, we now expect comparable RevPAR growth to range between negative 1.9% and negative 2.6%; comparable hotel EBITDA between $357.5 million and $365.5 million; corporate adjusted EBITDA between $324 million and $332 million; adjusted FFO per diluted share to be between $1.31 and $1.37, which incorporates shares repurchased to-date but no additional repurchases. Our outlook assumes no additional acquisitions, dispositions or refinancings, and we continue to expect capital expenditures in the range of $80 million to $100 million. We also expect total revenue growth will continue to outpace RevPAR growth due to the success of our initiatives to drive out-of-room spend. Finally, please refer to our press release from last evening for additional details on our outlook and to our schedule of supplemental information, which will include comparable 2025 and 2024 quarterly and annual operating results for our 94-hotel portfolio. Thank you, and this concludes our prepared remarks. We will now open the line for Q&A. Operator?

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Michael Bellisario with Baird.

First one is probably for Tom here. Could you dive into the revenue management strategies? Maybe just how you changed your approach in the quarter, given that performance was weaker? And then also, what are you seeing in terms of booking channels and booking window that guide your near-term outlook? Any extra color there would be helpful.

Yes, happy to do that, Mike. So, if you think about quarter 3, we knew that the industry setup was weak on the group side, not only in industry but in urban. So, we really thought about how do we diversify the mix going into that quarter. And some of the things that we were doing were focusing more on the leisure side, where we knew there was opportunity to replace some of that group. And you'll see that our demand was actually up on the leisure side in addition to urban leisure, where we had that opportunity to book more business because of the lack of group with a softer citywide calendar and some of the comps that we were up against. In addition to that, and I'll remind you that we have a lot of -- more opportunities because we have -- a significant amount of our hotels are on the full-service side where we can grab some of that contract base business that we need to be able to offer our own compression. And we were successful because of the renovations that we have had in '23, '24, we've been able to secure more base business, knowing that if you're in a situation where you have a lack of group going into the quarter, you can do that as well. Your other question that you were talking about was the channel. We continue to see great demand coming through brand.com., which is our least costly channel. Because leisure was an element of where we had additional demand, we did see some OTA growth on weekends. We are continuing to see BT grow on the -- even when out government, we had BT grow 2.4%, and that was a second consecutive quarter. So, what is happening on the channels is you're noticing that global distribution systems continue to grow as well. And so that's encouraging as we continue to see the national corporate accounts come back because that's our highest rated customer. I know Leslie wants to add a few things as well.

Yes. Mike, I would say that, as Tom mentioned, the setup for -- as everybody knows, for the third quarter was weak. But I do think it's important to point out the momentum that was coming out of September. As we articulated, September performed better than we initially expected. And just to sort of give you a frame of reference, as Tom mentioned, our portfolio saw non-government BT increased by 2.4%. But in September, it was up 3.7%. And it really happened in the back half of the month, and that was all demand driven, 100% demand driven. The other data point that I would give you is that going into September, our group pace was at 90%. We ended at 97% for the month of September, which is up 700 points. And so, the momentum coming out of September prior to the government shutdown was positive. So, we saw a swing that moved pretty fast in September. And obviously, we've seen a swing the other way in October.

Got it. That's helpful color. And then just on renovations, just given that the top line outlook is weaker, I mean, how does that change your view of just CapEx broadly, your underwriting and then just expected returns for your bigger conversion projects, thinking about Boston in particular? Or anything else that you might have in the queue for '26 or '27? That's all for me.

Yes. Mike, on the CapEx side, keep in mind that our -- most of our renovations were front-loaded as we talked about before, and so they're either substantially complete or rounding completion. That was in Waikiki, New York and Key West this year. As we mentioned in our prepared remarks, clearly, given the softened backdrop on transient and on leisure where some of these asserts are at, we still expect these assets to ramp up well, but that ramp may be a little bit delayed because of what's going on in the broader market from that. But we believe these assets will be a tailwind for us in 2026 for sure. And then, I would say on Boston, that is an asset that we feel very good about. As we mentioned, it's going to be moving into the Tapestry Collection. It's got a great flag and a great location and very diverse demand drivers. And so, the significant upside still remains there. That asset won't start until the end of next year. And so, we should be picking up around the demand drivers that we expect to capture within that market. And I'll let Tom add some color on Boston.

Yes, Mike, as we're looking at not only '26 but '27 in Boston, the great thing about our location is the expansion of Mass General, which is a major hospital and they're putting about $1.8 billion in 2 different buildings that are literally next door to us. I was on the phone with the management team, and they're going to have an oncology cancer research center, which is going to expand the ability to get MRIs. And we think that's not only going to have a regional draw, but we think that's going to be an international draw of folks coming into Boston based on the expansion of those 2 buildings with one being oncology and the other one being cardiology. And then in next year, as you know, we got FIFA, we have an event that is international that comes in, what's called Tall Ships. And then the USA being celebration in the July period, which will be not only benefiting Boston, but New York and Philadelphia, where we also have demand. So, we're encouraged about going into the Hilton system because we know what happens when we convert and we start to get Hilton Honors members and changes the mix of our hotel in '27 after we're completing the renovation.

Our next question comes from the line of Austin Wurschmidt with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

I wanted to go back to the leisure segment for a moment. And just wondering if you're seeing more price sensitivity from that customer or is it more that you're just targeting more bookings through discount channels and other leisure channels, and that's driving maybe some of the softness around pricing?

Well, I would say, Austin, that as we talked about in the prepared remarks, leisure demand has been relatively stable for us for the last few quarters. And in fact, room nights were up in the third quarter. We are seeing the price sensitivity, and it's showing up in terms of what channels they're booking through. But I think that what we're seeing with the government shutdown is different. It's affecting the propensity and willingness to travel. And so we're seeing our pace soften relative to that, but that's more a function of a desire to be caught in the airport for 5 hours versus the underlying fundamental of leisure demand that we've seen being stable.

And then, I would add that urban leisure, as we also said, it's really about the concerts, the special events, the location where the attractions are. We feel that, that 7-day harder demand, that's still active. That's why the demand continues for those events, and those still have had strong attendance even in the summer as we go into the fourth quarter.

Got it. And then switching over market specific, you'd referenced the significant RevPAR growth in San Francisco CBD and just positive outlook for the region. I guess, first, is it translating to your hotels across Northern California? Or do you need to see additional recovery before it really broadens out? And then second, wondering how that top line growth, again, that you referenced is translating to the bottom line just given some of the expansion pressures in the region.

Yes, great question. When we look at CBD, and you're right, how the market works, and I'll talk a little bit about Silicon Valley differently. But when I look at CBD, Austin, this is back-to-back quarters of 19% growth in our CBD assets. And you know we have our Marriott and our Courtyard there. What we're encouraged in third quarter is that's in the fact that Salesforce moved from September to October, and we still had that growth. So, we were pleased to see that the convention center is the hub, and that really was the beginning stages of where CBD had its growth year-over-year. In addition to that, though, we're seeing a lot of things happen in the AI space. And even the conventions that are coming in for that are increasing in regards to the amount of attendance that's happening. So back to office, office demand was up about 102%. We were just on the phone with SF Travel. They talked specifically about the leasing and additional space that's coming in under the AI. I guess there's about 5 million square feet today that's AI, and they're predicting about 30 million square feet by 2030. So that's encouraging that CBD will continue to grow. And the convention calendar is in good shape next year, not only because of Super Bowl and FIFA, but just they're getting more corporate accounts to come back based on the political environment. It's just a safe and clean place. And I think people are encouraged. Their whole campaign about Believe in San Francisco, I think, is drawing more international travel as well. And then when I think about Silicon Valley, it's about back-to-office tech companies. You see the demand coming from NVIDIA, Tesla, all the different companies that are out in that section. We continue to see BT grow Santa Clara, San Jose, Palo Alto, which is where most of our assets are. And so, we're encouraged that San Francisco is not just CBD, but it's also happening in Silicon Valley.

I mean we're seeing positive trends overall. But obviously, CBD is doing well because of the unique demand drivers within that market, Austin. It's not compressing all the way out, but we are seeing different demand drivers that benefit the rest of our footprint. And then on the cost and margin side, I mean, obviously, to your point, costs in San Francisco have moved, particularly on the wage side. But we are encouraged in terms of the mix of rate growth versus overall demand growth in the market and are optimistic long term in terms of the ability to recapture the margin growth.

Our next question comes from the line of Gregory Miller with Truist Securities.

I'd like to start with New York City and a repeat of a question I asked same time last year. I'm curious if you could provide your expectations for New Year's Eve for the Knickerbocker? How our RevPAR and food and beverage package pricing compared to 2024?

You still got to go one of these days, Greg. We've got a seat reserved for you. But I would tell you that New York has been a strong story all year. As you know, it's good demand. Average rates continue to move. We're very pleased. international, when you think about international, globally, it's been down, but in New York, it's been up. So, when we think about the Knickerbocker, it really is a special iconic location to see the ball drop. I'm again encouraged to tell you that we're continuing to see growth. As you remember, in the last quarter, we talked about what we did upstairs where we added a sushi bar and a location there, which has already started to create more demand for more folks to come in, not just the guests. And what we're seeing is the package price for New Year's is continuing to exceed our expectations as we go into the holiday. So, I feel very good about the Knickerbocker and New York in general as we go into the fourth quarter just because of the lack of Airbnb and the inventory that's being controlled, the supply that came out of the location as well. And then, leisure continues to be very strong in that market.

Appreciate that. For my follow-up, I'd like to ask about a new initiative by Hilton that they discussed on their earnings call, especially given you have many Hilton properties. As you know, Hilton spoke to offering owner system fee reductions that are tied to hotel-specific product and service quality scores. I'm curious how you anticipate the strategy impacting your properties, if at all, even if the effort may be towards competitive franchised hotels?

Well, I think if we start with behavior management and you think about the carrot and the stick, I think what Hilton is doing is they're really putting the onus on the opportunity to be able to get reductions on the -- to be able to drive guest service scores, which helps everybody, right? You have to please the guests that have them want to come back. And I think the opportunity to incent the field to really drive those scores in addition to ownership to put capital in is really what is encouraging them to put out a program like this. Number two, for folks that aren't spending capital, that's the stick. This is encouraging them to think differently about what are the opportunities to potentially get money back if I do put capital in? And that's your second question where others may follow. We're encouraged because we do have a significant amount of our portfolio with Hilton. We think that the incentive is drawing our guest service scores in the right direction. And we certainly, as you know, have put the capital in. Our properties are in good shape. We feel like we're in a good position based on what we've done. And now it's a matter of going and collecting on that incentive that's out there. But we do believe that the incentive is in the right place for people to put the money into the hotels and then now it's about delivering results to get those returns.

And I would just simply say that we're in a position to be able to benefit from that incentive because we have put the capital in the assets and partner with Hilton. We have a great relationship. And so it's a function of being a good owner and partner with them, and we would expect to benefit.

Our next question comes from the line of Tyler Batory with Oppenheimer & Company.

Follow-up on the government shutdown. Any help quantifying the impact of that on either the Q4 guide or October in particular? And then, connected to that, the FAA flight reductions, I know we're still waiting on some details in terms of how that's going to play out. But just any high-level thoughts on what that could mean.

Yes, Tyler, I think that when you look at the adjustment we made to our guide and the implied impact on the fourth quarter, all of that is related to government. Government impact isn't just related to direct government business, which only represents about 3% of our contribution, but it's also the impact that it's having on compression in the broader market and then just sort of the sentiment and propensity to travel. And so, from our perspective, we had expected October to be a strong month because it was a great setup, set up from a clean BT month. It was going to be a strong group month. And it's the most significant month within the quarter. We had expected it to be positive. And as Nikhil mentioned, it was down approximately 2%. And so that's a meaningful swing for the most significant month in the quarter. When we think about what we're seeing is that -- for the balance of the year is that while our group pace remains positive year-over-year, it is down versus our expectations because it's weaker in the quarter for the quarter, pick-up trends, the effect of the overall compression and D.C. was already a tough comp for us because we were up 4% last year. And while we were doing a good job of backfilling that, that's going to be harder as a result of the lack of compression that's happening. Additionally, our position relative to our transient pace has shifted. Even though coming into the quarter, leisure had remained stable, and BT has shown strength, that transient pace is now weakened because of the -- what's happening on the government side. And all of these dynamics are affecting the key markets where we did our transformative renovations. So that's going to delay our -- the ramp-up that we were expecting across those businesses. So, when we look at the overall dynamics of what's happening in the market, government is impacting -- the government shutdown is impacting a number of things across the space from our perspective. And so, all of it is related to that.

Okay. Very helpful. And my follow-up, the out-of-room revenue or the out-of-room spend, I think, has been a bright spot for you. So just double-click on that a little bit more, perhaps give some more examples of what's driving that? And is your expectation that the non-room revenue can grow faster than room revenue going forward?

Yes. We've seen -- first of all, let me just say that our out-of-room spend surprised to the upside in the third quarter because we were down 5% and 300 points of that was occupancy. We would not have expected to see out-of-room spend at the level that we saw. And so it was a good pleasant surprise to the upside. But it's also a reflection of where we've been investing our dollars on the F&B side on parking and expanding our markets. And so, despite occupancy being down, to see positive revenues in that, it's been good. Just as a proxy, in the second quarter, we were down 2% and still had 1.5 points growth. And so what we've seen over the last couple of quarters is that the contribution from out-of-room spend has increased relative to rooms. What I would say is that, given the mix of business that we were expecting in the fourth quarter, the level of group in citywide and BT, that's another driver impacting our outlook for the balance of the year. What we were expecting from out-of-room spend, our expectations have come down relative to that. And I'll pass it to Tom to give some more examples.

Yes. So, I know you've heard a little bit about our focus on ROI. I'll just give you a couple of examples as you want us to double-click down. When Leslie talked about our market expansions, as an example of that is we're up about 7.2% in quarter 3. And what we do while we're doing these renovations, we're expanding these markets to provide a lot more product that's interesting for a lot of the different groups as well as transient guests that are coming into our hotels. And we think that's been a big plus and will continue to be as we do these conversions as well as renovations. And then, we're also attracting what I would say is, guests that are not staying with us. The Mills House is a perfect example of that. The Black Door Cafe was probably our #1 revenue generator in Q3 because Charleston continues to be a strong market because it's a drive-to market. And 50% of our guests are actually not at the hotel. So, what we're looking at is where we can put a market or an opportunity for people to utilize in a good, strong foot traffic area, we're getting the benefit of that. And then lastly, we did expand in the Phoenix area. During its renovation, we added some meeting space, natural light. You need that ballroom space to drive group business in off-season as well. And that actually started performing really well as that came out of renovation from last year and seeing the benefits of changing meeting space that would kind of much was dead space and it gave us an opportunity to drive more group in addition to banquets. So those are some examples when we think about out-of-room spend.

So, I think that the benefit to our bottom line here has been that we've taken non-revenue-generating space and turned it into revenue by either adding a market or converting, as Tom mentioned, into some ballroom space. And so that's been additive from a flow perspective.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Cooper Clark with Wells Fargo.

Can you talk about the potential for dispositions as we think about what should be a healthier transaction market in 2026? And if there are any markets or types of assets you would like to reduce your exposure to in a meaningful way?

Yes. I mean, I would say that in general, that the transaction environment continues to be overshadowed by the uncertainty and the sentiment around transactions is a little bit volatile. So, the market is not necessarily fully functioning because of a lack of conviction in terms of underwriting and PIP costs given the tariff situation. But the debt market is opening, and so that will help volume increase. Deals are taking a little bit longer. And most of the deals that are getting done are deals that are better suited for owner operator. And so, overall, we're constructive. And as things sort of settle down, you should see us being more active and it would be active on transactions that we think can actually get done.

Okay. And then I guess on a higher level, how should we be thinking about the positioning of RLJ's portfolio relative to the sector into '26 as luxury chain scale continues to outperform, but you have some momentum in urban market recoveries that you spoke to earlier on the call? I guess, said differently, in what type of macro environment should we expect RLJ to drive outsized results relative to your peer set in the broader hospitality industry?

It's a -- as we're looking at our budgets, first and foremost, it's a little early because we're just in the throes of it. But what I would say is your comment about urban, we believe, from an industry standpoint, will continue to outperform for 2 reasons when I think about that, Cooper. One, it's been the trend line ever since we've come out of COVID and the fact that there's a lack of supply in urban is a good setup. What I would also tell you that is these special events, when we talk about urban leisure and you think about the footprint and where we have locations in 2026, it's going to help us with not only World Cup, which is still to be seen when the teams are drawn in December. But the fact that we have 72 games in markets where we have hotels is a good sign. In addition to that, we think about the special events that we talked about earlier, whether it was the NFL draft as we're doing our Autograph conversion in Pittsburgh. In Philly, you got both NBA All-Star games. And then you also have the Super Bowl in San Francisco. So, even though it was in New Orleans last year, having it in San Francisco is a plus because we got more assets in San Francisco that we think will benefit from that. So, urban footprint, we truly believe will continue to be a good place to play. And then urban leisure is the reason that we feel these special events are a draw that will continue to help us, when BT goes back to office and we have a better footprint coming out of, hopefully, what's happening right now in the government shutdown.

Yes. I would just add to that. In general, we believe that we've got the right footprint, the right portfolio. What we haven't had is a consistent economic backdrop because of the volatility and things like a shutdown that are happening. And so, I would say that as the economic backdrop continues to settle down and we have clarity around regulation, lower taxes and tariffs, those things should benefit our portfolio because that's the one ingredient that we've been missing, which is a stable economic backdrop.

Our next question comes from the line of Ken Billingsley with Compass Point.

One thing, I missed the number, if we could clarify. Did you mention what was the October RevPAR?

We said that October came in -- is currently estimated to be down about 2%.

About 2%. And do you have -- with just the way the calendar looks with Thanksgiving and other holidays for November and December, year-to-date RevPAR of negative 1.9% is at the top end of guidance. Are you expecting it to be flat? Or already 7 days into November, should we assume that that might be shifting towards the middle of guidance?

Yes. I mean our expectation is that the midpoint of our guidance is the most likely outcome. And that implies with October down 2%, it implies November, December being down 4%. Keep in mind that November was an important month for the quarter relative to citywides. We were expecting strong citywides in Boston, Denver, Houston, Orlando. You also had the lapping of the election comp and another positive things that were happening in the month. And now you are overshadowing that with the shutdown. And so, the most important contribution period and event are being hampered by the shutdown. And if you sort of think about it from a pace perspective, while pace is still positive, it's down. And in the quarter for the quarter pickup is being hampered and not allowing us to achieve the original pace that we set. So, the most likely outcome today where we sit is the midpoint of our guidance. Our guidance, at the midpoint assumes that the current trends continue through the end of the year. If the impact gets worse and in the year for the year continues to slow and transient pace continues to slow, that would put us at the bottom end of our range.

Okay. And then lastly, just with '26 shaping up to potentially be strong by comparison, how does that impact your decision on share repurchases?

I think that from a capital allocation perspective, it's very clear that buybacks are even more attractive today. And absent something that's sort of transformative, we're going to continue to be programmatic and deploy disposition proceeds into buying back our shares. We want to maintain a healthy balance sheet, and so we're going to strive to do that on a leverage-neutral basis and maintain our optionality. So, we're going to continue to be balanced between investing in our portfolio, buying back shares and maintaining our balance sheet.

Our next question comes from the line of Chris Darling with Green Street.

Leslie, I'm hoping you can comment on how your RevPAR index share has evolved over the course of the year. Obviously, 2025 is shaping up to be somewhat difficult fundamentally. And I'm just trying to understand to what degree this is a market mix issue versus an RLJ-specific issue at all?

Yes. As we talked about in the prepared remarks, our RevPAR index is up. And so, it reflects our positioning within the market. It reflects the quality of our assets. And so, we feel good about how we're positioned and how we're performing on a relative basis in the markets relative to our comp sets.

Okay. Understood. I missed the early part. So, thanks for the reminder on that one. Second question is a follow-up. Just thinking about the labor market. Obviously, there's broad-based concern around immigration policy, the effect this might have ultimately on the labor force. It doesn't sound like there's any concerning signs to-date. But as you look out 2, 3, 4 years down the road, what risks do you see to the hotel operating model, if any?

Chris, I think we really focus on the trends right in front of us. And what I would say is, the continuation of reducing contract labor exists. We were down another 9.5% in third quarter. I would also tell you, when we invest in labor management systems and we have our own employees that the management companies are hiring, we feel like that helps from a productivity standpoint and we see it in our numbers when you look at retention and reducing turnover. The other thing I think on the labor force is people who are attracted to our industry, we know stay in our industry. When you think about the synergies and the opportunities and career enhancement in hotels, it really is available without having to move now. You can stay in a market and enjoy your job and your career. And if you're with a company that we pretty much work with management companies that have a fair amount of size, they can grow their career all in staying in one market versus having to move in the past. So, I understand your question and what that might look like 2 to 3 years from now. But I would say the current trends are positive, and we kind of lean into that, knowing that the workforce efficiencies that we have, specifically with the proximity with RLJ, we provide a lot of opportunities for managers to have additional responsibilities in a marketplace where they can grow their career and have regional responsibilities in addition to 1 property per se.

And what I would add to that is that you can look at the success of what we've been able to do by the fact that contract labor has continued to come down, and it really speaks to the increase in applicants in our space. And so, we feel good about the trend line. I think the other thing that bolts-on to Tom's comments in terms of what he was describing, this is an industry where seniority matters. And so that's a sticking and retention tool. And so, people have to think really hard about giving up their seniority and moving to another industry and/or space.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I'll turn the floor back to Ms. Hill for any final comments.

We appreciate you guys taking the time to join us today. We're available for any additional questions if you have them, and we look forward to seeing many of you over the coming months at various conferences. Thank you all.