Hawaiian travel falloff hits Host Hotels (United States)
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Category: North America & West Indies / Carribean islands - United States - Industry economy
- Figures / Studies
This is a press release selected by our editorial committee and published online for free on Monday 13 October 2008
A falloff in leisure and group travel -- especially in Hawaii -- bit into Host Hotels & Resorts third quarter numbers, as the lodging and real estate company said Friday that its profit fell 45%.
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HST 9.28, +1.43, +18.2%) said that it earned $52 million, or 10 cents a share. That is down from $95 million, or 18 cents, in the year-earlier period -- and the latest quarter included a gain from asset disposals of 2 cents a share. Revenue came in at $1.17 billion, down from $1.2 billion while comparable hotel revenue per available room (RevPAR) fell 2.1%.
The latter was due largely to what Host called "a significant decline as a result of a decrease in leisure transient and group demand" at its properties in Hawaii. Knocking them out, total company RevPAR would have been off a more modest 0.4%.
Meanwhile, third-quarter funds from operations -- a closely watched metric in its sector -- were down 18% to 31 cents a share
And things are not looking up anytime soon: Host estimated that it would earn 81 cents to 86 cents a share for all of fiscal 2008. That compares to an average estimate of analysts surveyed by FactSet Research of 86 cents a share. Funds from operations should come in at $1.75 to $1.80 for the year while margins will narrow 2.8% to 3.2%. RevPAR will drop 3% to 5% in the fourth quarter and is apt to be flat with to down 1% for the full year.
Host owns 117 properties with an aggregate 64,000 rooms and also keeps a minority stake in a joint venture that has 11 hotels and 3,500 rooms in Europe.
Shares of Host, battered down almost 20% to a 52-week low of $7.85 during the previous session, dropped another 5% in early Friday action. A year ago, the stock crested just shy of $24.
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