United Parks & Resorts - Earnings Call - Q4 2020

Transcript

Speaker 0

Good morning, and welcome to the SeaWorld Q4 twenty twenty Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Matthew Stroud, Vice President of Investor Relations.

Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Ian, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to SeaWorld's fourth quarter and fiscal twenty twenty earnings conference call. Today's call is being webcast and recorded. A press release was issued this morning and is available on our Investor Relations website at www.seaworldinvestors.com. Replay information for this call can be found in the press release and will be available on our website following the call.

Also, we have posted a short slide presentation on our investor website along with our earnings press release that we will discuss during our prepared remarks. Joining me this morning are Mark Swanson, Interim Chief Executive Officer and Elizabeth Galaxi, Chief Accounting Officer and Interim Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. This morning, we will review our fourth quarter and fiscal twenty twenty financial results, and then we will open up the call to your questions. Before I begin, I would like to remind everyone that our comments today will contain forward looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to be materially different from those forward looking statements, including those identified in the Risk Factors section of our Annual Report on Form 10 ks and Quarterly Reports on Form 10 Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

These risk factors may be updated from time to time and will be included in our filings with the SEC that are available on our website. We undertake no obligation to update any forward looking statements. In addition, on the call, we may reference non GAAP financial measures and other financial metrics such as adjusted EBITDA, free cash flow, net cash burn and adjusted net cash burn, are non GAAP financial measures. More information regarding our forward looking statements and reconciliations of non GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measure is included in our earnings release available on our website and can also be found in our filings with the SEC. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to our Interim Chief Executive Officer, Mark Swanson.

Mark?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Matthew. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I'm pleased to report that we saw strong improvement in attendance trends and strong per capita spending in the fourth quarter. I'm also pleased to report that we generated positive adjusted EBITDA in the quarter and approached net cash flow breakeven when excluding deferred vendor payments. I continue to be extremely proud of our team's agility, resilience and performance during these extraordinary times and I'm encouraged by our fourth quarter results, which demonstrated continued operational and financial improvement.

Our quarterly attendance on a year over year basis improved compared to the third quarter. We also saw clear benefits of our pricing and revenue management work with strong per capita growth in the fourth quarter relative to the prior year in both admissions and in park spending. We began the fourth quarter with 10 of our 12 parks open, all with capacity limitations, modified or limited operations, reduced operating days, and or reduced operating hours. We finished the quarter with seven of our 12 parks open, which is one park less than what we were operating at the 2019. As of today, we have eight parks open, including SeaWorld Orlando, SeaWorld San Diego, SeaWorld San Antonio, Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Sesame Place, and Discovery Cove and Aquatica in Orlando.

We have also implemented new operating calendars across several of our parks in 2021 based on learnings over the past twelve months. In particular, for the first time in over a decade, we are operating year round at SeaWorld San Antonio. And for the first time ever, we have begun year round operations at Busch Gardens Williamsburg and at Sesame Place. These parks are now open primarily on weekends and holidays during the winter season in advance of their traditional operating seasons. We now have year round operations at eight of our 12 parks.

Only our water parks in San Diego, San Antonio, Tampa Bay, and Williamsburg, Virginia are not open year round. We are planning to have all 12 of our parks open, including Aquatica San Antonio, Adventure Island in Tampa Bay, Water Country USA in Williamsburg, and Aquatica San Diego for their full twenty twenty one operating seasons subject to local, state, and federal guidelines related to COVID nineteen. I want to recognize each of our operating teams for their outstanding efforts to safely operate our parks while implementing various COVID nineteen related safety protocols and following established health and safety guidelines. While this continues to be an unprecedented and challenging time for our company and industry, it's been encouraging to see our performance improve and assuring to see our guests visiting our parks over the last few months. As a reminder, since the beginning of the COVID nineteen pandemic, we have taken significant actions to reduce our costs, carefully manage our cash flows, fortify our balance sheet and liquidity position, and operate our parks with new and enhanced operating and safety protocols to meet the realities of the current environment.

While our fourth quarter financial results benefited from many of these actions, results were still significantly impacted by the COVID-nineteen pandemic. Attendance in the fourth quarter was impacted by fewer operating days and hours versus the prior year, capacity limitations, temporary park closures, and a more limited events lineup. Despite these limitations, attendance remained fairly steady throughout the quarter. Excluding the company's Virginia and California parks, which were only partially open and operating with significantly modified and limited operations due to state imposed restrictions or temporarily closed, monthly attendance was down 40% in October, down 47% in November, and down 44% in December. Further, several parks operated at or near capacity limitations on multiple days during the quarter.

If the parks were not capacity constrained on these days, our performance versus the prior year would have been better than what was realized. Monthly attendance trends continued to remain steady into the first quarter with January attendance down 42% excluding Virginia and California, and down 53% on a consolidated basis relative to prior year. While the month of February is not complete, attendance trends are similar to what we saw in January. We are particularly pleased with the performance of our Halloween and Christmas events during the quarter. Once again, our operating teams rose to the occasion and created a safe yet modified version of these events that guests could enjoy.

We've also recently featured our inside look and all new Mardi Gras events at several of our parks and have been pleased with their performance and driving attendance during January and February. Looking ahead, we have started to offer our food and music festivals across many of our theme parks and are extremely proud and excited to have live concerts back at our SeaWorld Park in Orlando and soon to start at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay. These special events are valued by our loyal pass holders and guests, and we are confident we are able to deliver compelling, exciting, and most importantly, safe events with relevant and appropriate operational changes. We are looking forward to spring break in the spring and summer season where we are planning to have even more events and open more of our parks, including our water parks, which we know our guests are really looking forward to visiting again. Last quarter, we mentioned that we believe there was a several 100 basis point opportunity to grow margins in our business.

For discussion purposes, we have posted a short presentation on our investor website along with our earnings press release that provides an illustration of how to think about the profitability we believe we can achieve when we return to twenty nineteen attendance levels. To be clear, this is not guidance. We are not projecting when we will return to 2019 attendance, and we are certainly not suggesting we don't expect to grow attendance beyond our twenty nineteen attendance levels and per caps, and per caps beyond our twenty twenty levels over time. This is just meant as a simple illustration to show what we believe the earnings power of the business would be at 2,019 attendance levels based on the changes and improvements we have identified and largely implemented over the past year. Importantly, this analysis does not reflect the impact of cost inflation or cost pressures on the business over time.

As you know, starting well before COVID before the COVID nineteen pandemic, we have spent significant time working closely alongside our board to review our business and identify and implement cost savings opportunities and efficiencies that will strengthen our business. We have also spent considerable time and investment in driving greater revenues from our business, including working closely with pricing consultants to develop new pricing strategies, creating a new centralized revenue management function, enhancing our in park revenue team, revamping our in park product assortment and mix, developing and utilizing a more analytical and data centric decision making process, and implementing dynamic and other pricing initiatives. Some of the benefits of this work was reflected in our results prior to the onset of the COVID-nineteen pandemic. A meaningful portion of these benefits were planned to be realized in 2020, and as you know, our first quarter in twenty twenty was off to a record start through February 2020. With the onset of COVID-nineteen and the forced closure of all of our parks and operations, we took advantage of the opportunity to further refine our revenue teams and strategies and look at our operations and cost structure in a way that we never could have before.

We doubled and tripled down on our already in process efforts and looked at nearly every part of the business from top to bottom across the entire enterprise. The results of this new effort yielded demonstrable results in 2020 on our total revenue per caps, with our 2020 per caps up $5.95 or 9.6%. The results of this effort also yielded identified cost savings of roughly $100,000,000 from our 2019 cost base, assuming 2019 attendance levels. Said another way, we would expect our cost base to be lower by roughly $100,000,000 when we achieve our 2019 attendance levels again prior to the impact of any cost inflation or cost pressures. We've included on slide four how these cost savings roughly break down by category and included some select examples of the types of cost savings we have identified and or implemented.

But the vast majority of these cost savings have already been implemented, and we expect the vast majority of the remaining cost savings will be implemented this year. To be clear, again, we are not projecting when we will achieve our 2019 attendance levels. That will largely depend on the evolution of the COVID nineteen impact on our lives, our economy, and our business. What we are projecting is that we will have materially lower costs and a significantly more efficient and profitable business when that time comes. As you can see on slide two of the presentation, we present a simple illustrative analysis that shows if we were to achieve 2019 attendance levels and mix, our twenty twenty per caps, and the roughly $100,000,000 of cost savings that we have identified and largely already implemented, our adjusted EBITDA would be approximately $690,000,000 Again, this is not guidance, and we are not projecting when we will achieve our twenty nineteen attendance levels or when we will achieve this level of adjusted EBITDA.

This analysis does not include or estimate the impact of any cost inflation or cost pressures, assumes the attendance and park mix of 02/2019, and the cost reductions are predicated on 2019 attendance levels. It is simply meant to show what level of adjusted EBITDA we expect we would have achieved in 2019 had we had the benefit of the revenue management improvements and cost reductions that we have identified and largely implemented in 2020. Needless to say, we are excited about the progress we have made and look forward to returning to a more normalized operating environment as we believe the actions we have taken will lead to significantly improved financial results for the company. Our teams have worked hard to better position this company for revenue growth and increased profitability. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Elizabeth to discuss our financial results in more detail.

Elizabeth?

Speaker 3

Thanks, Mark, and good morning, everyone. As Mark mentioned, our fourth quarter results were significantly impacted by the COVID-nineteen pandemic, With fewer operating days and hours per week versus the prior year, capacity limitations and modified or limited park operations, attendance for the fourth quarter decreased by approximately 2,500,000 guests or 53% when compared to the prior year quarter. This represents an improved trend as attendance was down 81% in the third quarter twenty twenty compared to the third quarter twenty nineteen. We generated revenue of $154,000,000 a decrease of $144,000,000 or 48% compared to the 2019. The decrease in revenue results from a decline in attendance and was partially offset by an increase in total revenue per capita.

Total revenue per capita was $69.4 compared to $63.42 in the 2019, an increase of 9.4% driven by strong improvement in both admissions per capita and in park per capita spending. Admissions per capita increased by 9.4 to $41.44 for the 2020. The increase was primarily due to the realization of higher prices and admission products, partially offset by the net impact of attendance mix when compared to the prior year period. In park per capita spending increased by 9.5% to $27.96 in the 2020. The increase in in park per capita spending results primarily from increased guest spending, higher realized prices and fees, enhanced and expanded product offerings, and the mix of certain merchandise and food and beverage items, partially offset by the impact of higher pass attendance when compared to the prior year period.

We are particularly pleased with our overall per capita performance during the quarter, especially considering our higher mix of season pass attendance. We generated a net loss of $45,500,000 compared to a net loss of $24,200,000 in the 2019. Net loss in the 2020 includes approximately $2,800,000 of pre tax expenses directly associated with incremental costs due to the COVID-nineteen pandemic and a legal settlement gain of approximately $4,400,000 Net loss in the 2019 includes a legal settlement charge, net of insurance recoveries, of approximately $32,100,000 Adjusted EBITDA was 22,700,000 for the 2020, a decline of $61,200,000 compared to the prior year quarter. The positive adjusted EBITDA reflects our decisive actions and continued efforts around driving revenue and managing costs. Total operating expenses decreased by 48,700,000 or 32% when compared to the prior year quarter, largely due to a reduction in labor related costs resulting from modified or limited operating days.

Operating expenses also declined due to the impact of reduced operating schedules, the use of more efficient staffing models, and cost savings and efficiency initiatives. Total selling, general and administrative expenses decreased by $64,600,000 or 74%, primarily due to reduction in legal, marketing and third party consulting costs and cost savings and efficiency initiatives. Looking at our results for the full year, which were severely impacted by the COVID-nineteen pandemic, total revenue was $431,800,000 a decrease of $966,000,000 or 69%. Total attendance was approximately 6,400,000 guests, a decrease of 72%. Net loss for the fiscal year was $312,300,000 a decrease of $401,800,000 and adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $73,200,000 a decline of $530,100,000 when compared to twenty nineteen.

Fiscal twenty twenty total revenue per capita was $67.75 compared to $61.8 in 2019, a 9.6% increase driven by an increase in admissions per capita and in park per capita spending. Admissions per capita increased 12.9% to $40.07 compared to $35.48 in 2019. The improvement in admissions per capita is primarily due to the realization of higher prices in our admission products and a favorable park mix, partially offset by the net impact of attendance mix when compared to the prior year. In part per capita spending improved by 5.2% to $27.68 from $26.32 in 2019. The increase was primarily due to higher realized prices and fees, enhanced and expanded product offerings, the mix of certain merchandise and food and beverage items, and increased guest spending, and was partially offset by the impact of attendance mix when compared to the prior year period.

We reported a net loss for fiscal twenty twenty of $312,300,000 compared to net income of $89,500,000 in 2019. Net loss in 2020 includes approximately $16,900,000 related to legal settlement proceeds, 8,800,000.0 related to pre tax expenses associated with incremental costs for the COVID-nineteen pandemic and $2,800,000 of pre tax expenses associated with severance and other separation related costs. Net income in 2019 includes approximately $32,100,000 related to legal settlement charges net of insurance recoveries, 4,300,000.0 of pre tax expenses associated with the previously announced equity transaction, and $4,200,000 of pre tax expenses associated with severance and other separation related costs. Now turning to our balance sheet. Our current deferred revenue balance related to all of our products as of the end of the year was 130,800,000 an increase of approximately 25% from December 2019.

We are pleased with the pace of our pass sales and pass based development. Our pass base grew between the third and the fourth quarter, and currently our pass base is only down 6% compared to February 2020. To put this in perspective, our pass base is currently at approximately 70% of our peak pass base in 2019, with the peak pass selling seasons of the spring and summer yet to come. This is particularly impressive because as you know, we only extended a portion of our PASSes through 2021. So the majority of our current PASS base reflects new sales or current paying PAS members.

We are also encouraged that the impact of our pricing strategies continue to take hold, with stronger realized prices on our PAS sales versus the prior year. As of 12/31/2020, our cash and cash equivalents balance was approximately $434,000,000 and total liquidity, including our available revolver capacity, was approximately $745,000,000 Our estimated average monthly adjusted net cash burn during the quarter was approximately $1,000,000 per month. Excluding certain vendor payments which were previously deferred through extended payment terms or payment plans in order to manage liquidity during the temporary park closures and limited reopenings. Our adjusted net cash burn demonstrates our commitment to continue to effectively manage cost and cash flow through this environment. Including the deferred vendor payments, we estimate that the average monthly net cash burn for the fourth quarter was approximately $18,000,000 per month.

Our deferred vendor payment balance was approximately $20,000,000 as of the end of the fourth quarter. We continue to work with our vendors and business partners on these deferred payments and anticipate having these substantially paid off by April 2021. Looking ahead to the 2021, which as you know is traditionally our seasonally lowest cash flow generation quarter and will include a $24,000,000 interest payment on our second lien senior notes, along with the timing of other payments, we anticipate our average monthly net cash burn will be in the range of $25,000,000 to $30,000,000 We spent $109,200,000 on CapEx in 2020, of which approximately $94,700,000 was on core CapEx and approximately $14,500,000 was on expansion or ROI projects. As we have previously discussed, we will spend opportunistically on non core expansion or ROI CapEx when we find opportunities that meet our return hurdles, including new parks and expansions, like our Sesame Place Park in California, incremental revenue enhancing projects, cost reducing projects or other similar opportunities. For 2021, depending on the pace of recovery from the COVID-nineteen impacts, we plan on spending between $100,000,000 and $150,000,000 on capital expenditures.

With the continuation of modified or limited operations across most of our parks, we're even more focused on driving attendance and total revenue while eliminating unnecessary costs and continuing to identify more efficient ways to operate safely. Now let me turn the call back over to Mark who will share some final thoughts. Mark?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Elizabeth. Now before we open the call to your questions, I have some closing comments. During the quarter, our rescue teams continued to operate helping wildlife in need. In the fourth quarter, we helped rescue over four seventy animals, and we have surpassed more than 38,000 animal rescues over the company's history. We are one of the world's leading animal rescue organizations, we and are proud of our efforts to protect and save wildlife.

I wanna thank our employee ambassadors for their continued dedication and effort to welcome back our guests while operating our parks in accordance with the latest health and safety protocols. I want to thank our loyal pass holders and guests for continuing to visit our parks. And finally, I want to thank our financial and operating partners for their continued support and understanding during these extraordinary times. As we have previously discussed, we are focused on providing a safe and fun guest experience while continuing to offer innovative special events and creating new events for our pass holders and guests to enjoy while our parks at our parks while still complying with established health and safety guidelines. We have the right assets and team.

Our balance sheet and liquidity are strong. We are successfully navigating through this extraordinary environment, and we will emerge an even stronger and more profitable enterprise. We continue to have high confidence in our long term strategy and in our ability to deliver significantly improved operating and financial results that will lead to meaningfully increased value for all shareholders. With that, let's open the line to take your questions.

Speaker 0

We will now begin the question and answer session. In addition, management requests that all individuals join the queue stick to one question and one follow-up. Anything additional, please re queue. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Steve Wieczynski of Stifel.

Please proceed.

Speaker 4

Hey, guys. Good morning. So first of all, thanks for providing all that information on the slide. That's very helpful. So I guess when I look at that, you're obviously assuming that the higher per cap spending or you potentially can get to that higher per cap spending, and that's going to get based on the higher attendance levels, $135,000,000 in revenues.

And you're flowing that all the way down to the EBITDA line. So I guess, the question I'm trying to understand here is that, is the $100,000,000 expense savings, how much, you know, of that is variable depending on attendance versus, you know, not being, you know, variable, you know, depending on where attendance is, if that makes sense?

Speaker 2

Yeah. Hey, Steve. It's Mark. I can I can take that question? So when we look at the when we look at the cost savings that we've identified and and implemented, you know, roughly, you know, half of that is is I would consider, you know, more fixed in nature and probably about and and roughly half is more variable in nature.

So, obviously, the variable piece is gonna come back, you know, over over time as we, you know, grow grow the attendance over time. So we will get those efficiencies as as you've noted. And then the remaining, you know, fixed items, we expect to to realize, you know, not only in, you know, 2021, but but a a a little bit just beyond that as well. So it's a it's a mix of both things. I can tell you that we have a tremendous amount of focus on those costs as we've talked about, for some time now.

Speaker 4

Okay. Gotcha. Thanks, Mark. And and then so the the bucket of labor, which is about $50,000,000 and I can see in the footnotes there that that basically does not include any cost inflation or pressures. But if you look at kind of where minimum wage rates could go, is there a way to help us think about, you know, what you know, obviously, you're trying to cut 50,000,000 in labor, but if if if you do see an increase in minimum wage, what that bucket would look like or what the pressure would be on that bucket?

Speaker 2

Yeah. What I can tell you is, obviously, you know, there's there's various you know, we operate in various states, and and some of them have minimum wage aspects to them. Some some do not. And and we know there's various other things out there that that could be on the horizon at a federal level. So having having said all that though, Steve, you know, our goal with any sort of minimum wage increase is to try to find ways to offset those costs through through other efficiencies, automation efforts, etcetera.

So I don't have an exact number to give you. What I would tell you is, yeah, there could be inflationary and and cost pressure headwinds to that number. It's certainly not going to offset or or be anywhere close to offsetting the whole number, obviously. And we would work very hard to offset, those increases with other efficiencies and automation efforts over time.

Speaker 4

Okay. Gotcha. Thanks, guys. Appreciate

Speaker 3

it. Sure. Thank you.

Speaker 0

And our next question comes from Tyler Batory of, Janney. Please proceed.

Speaker 5

Hi. Good morning. This is Jonathan on for Tyler. Thanks for taking our questions. First one for me.

You know, the topic of conversation out there is on the pent up demand that could come in the back half of the year. I'm curious if if you're seeing any early indicators there, whether it be group bookings, past sales, survey data, something like that. Any any color you can provide on that?

Speaker 2

Yeah. Hey, Jonathan. It's Mark. I can I can help you with that question? So, you know, there's a couple of things, that get me, you know, optimistic about how we think about the rest of the year.

First of all, you heard Elizabeth mention our pass base is at 70% of our peak in 2019, and you heard her also say that the majority of that is tied to newer sales. Right? This is ahead of our peak spring and summer selling season. We sell passes year round, as you know, but we sell the most of them kind of in that spring and summer season. We're we're already at 70% of our peak with the bulk of our selling season ahead of us, or the high part of our selling season ahead of us.

That gives me some optimism there around pass base. We've also you know, we look at our sales on a on a and weekly basis. And look, we've had days where our sales are down less than our attendance. So that tells you that there are people buying the product and people will eventually come and use that product is how we see it. That's a good sign.

And then finally our Discovery Cove bookings are up about 40% compared to the same time last year. So those are things that give me optimism. I could also just state that obviously you saw a pretty strong increase in our attendance in Q4 versus Q3. I think when you put all this together, hopefully that helps you.

Speaker 5

Okay. Great. That's very helpful. And then, can you just provide some color on the on the current pack, park mix? You know, destination versus local, mix of pass versus single day, and and if there's been any change there since the fall?

Speaker 6

Well, what I would tell

Speaker 2

you is we you know, as we said in the prepared remarks, our our pass attendance, you know, was up again in in the in the fourth quarter relative to last year. It was about the same as Q3. So not surprising to see more pass holders visiting. And we have a little bit, not surprisingly, more local attendance as well. Those are things that will likely continue for a while.

I wanted to point out, because I think I said this, those things can have a negative drag on your per cap. That's another reason why we feel good about the per cap growth is it's coming with higher pass visitation and higher local visitation as well.

Speaker 0

And our next question comes from Mike Schwartz of Truth Security. Just

Speaker 7

talking about the kind of the same park attendance trends that you're seeing and trying to just get a sense of maybe how plan that going forward. I know that international visitation is likely to be more of a headwind to certain of your Florida parks. And I think a lot of that visitation happens through the spring or summer. So are there any ways you can give us some parameters of how to think about that cadence over the next, you know, couple of months or couple of quarters?

Speaker 2

Yeah. Hey, Mike. It's it's Mark. I mean, I think what I can tell you is, you know, we're we're you know, the trends we're seeing now, as I mentioned, more more more local and and past visitation, you know, like likely continues. Having said that, you know, our our local visitation when I look across the company, you know, for the fourth quarter was was, you know, over 50%, you know, just shy of just shy of 60%.

So that tells you that, you know, there's still a very meaningful amount of people who are coming, you know, more than 40% who are coming from outside local areas. And that kinda comes back to my point we've made several times about the ability to travel to our parks by car, which we think is an important component of of our business model. So we are see we are seeing attendance from driving overnight markets, domestic markets, same day markets. And, you know, that's it's not really terribly far off what we've seen in prior years when you look at them on a combined basis. So we're getting more local visitation, but we're not necessarily seeing dramatic decreases in in other US visitation, you know, same day driving overnight and domestic.

You know, where we where we we have virtually no attendance is international, as you noted. But international for us is not a you know, it's only about 10% of our business in a in a given year. So we like you know, we can continue to, hopefully, drive forward at the similar SOR source of residency trends. So

Speaker 7

Okay. That's helpful. And then just regarding the $100,000,000 in cost savings, if I heard you correctly, you've executed around, I think, all

Speaker 0

of that

Speaker 7

in 2020. Were there any incremental investments during the year? Are there any incremental investments in 2021 related to those savings?

Speaker 2

Yeah. What I what I can tell you is there, you know, there's there's investments that we're gonna make where it makes sense for us to to you know, that drive costs down. So I'll give you an example. You know, we we opened a a new office building at the end of of two thousand nineteen, for example. So that got us out of a a lease situation.

We built our own building that that I would argue at a very reasonable cost, and we're gonna we're gonna realize that return over time. So where it makes sense to invest in capital to drive cost efficiencies, like around automation or or buying things that we used to lease. For example, getting out of warehouse space and finding places to either construct our our own, cheaper warehouse on-site, something like that. We will pursue those, so there is some element of of that to our cost savings program.

Speaker 0

And our next question comes from Paul Golding with Macquarie. Paul, please proceed.

Speaker 4

So I noticed in the presentation that you had a section that talked about the international potential in the medium to long term. I guess if you could give some more color around international strategies. We've seen some difficulty with your peers as far as breaking into those markets. And as a follow-up, I was wondering if you have any surveyed info on the customer experience in light of the labor efficiencies that you've been implementing. Thanks so much.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Thanks, Paul. So on the on the international, you know, expansion opportunities, like, certainly, we're we're we're quite happy with the the work that's going on in in Abu Dhabi. And if you've, not, you know, been able to see any of the photos of that, I I think they're out there. We're excited about that that property, you know, coming on over time here.

So, you know, beyond that, we take you know, we're you know, we we're certainly open into listening to to other opportunities. We do you know, I think we've we've looked at different things. I don't have anything, certainly to announce or or talk about today, but I can tell you that, you know, there's Abu Dhabi. There there's other markets like, China and things like that that might make sense for us. And, you know, we would evaluate those and you know, along with our board and and whatnot and see if any of those make sense.

Speaker 4

Great. And then on the on the customer experience, any survey data on that as far as the you know, in light of the labor efficiencies?

Speaker 6

Well, what I would tell

Speaker 2

you is when we anytime we set out to do a cost cost initiatives, we have several guardrails. And so certainly one of the guardrails is safety. We're not gonna compromise anything that would compromise safety of our guests or animals or our employees. A couple other guardrails, obviously, is we're gonna be very careful. We don't wanna implement things that that impact the guest experience, and we don't wanna impact things that that are revenue negative.

Right? So we we you know, what we have to do then is is watch those things, and as as we implement activities, you know, monitor those things. And if we've made a a mistake of any kind, we go and try to correct that. Right? So that's we'll continue to monitor those things.

I will say certainly with COVID, right now there's nuances to how you look at the data just given COVID protocols and things like that.

Speaker 0

Great. Thanks so much. And our next question comes from Alexia Quadrani of JPMorgan. Please proceed.

Speaker 8

Hi. Thank you very much. Just two quick questions. The first one on the capacity limits, particularly when you look at, you know, Orlando. I I know you don't necessarily disclose numbers, but I'm wondering how you could give some color about how it's trending if you've had, you know, limited capacity that has continued to inch up through the quarter or for plans for this year, at least first half of this year, I assume for the full year.

And and I guess any color you give us on front of that. And then just circling back to the parks that are open year round now with the weekends, I'm curious if that's something you can sustain, you know, well well post COVID, and and do you think there's enough demand for that?

Speaker 2

Yeah. Hey, Alexa. It's Mark. I let me start with your second question. So, you know, as far as the the parks that are open year round now, notably SeaWorld in Texas, Sesame Place, Busch Gardens, Williamsburg, one of the things that gave us a lot of confidence in moving to that model is the efficiencies that we've learned to operate by during COVID.

So we have gotten a lot more efficient in our operations. We've gotten a lot more creative, nimble, flexible, all the things I've talked about to be able to run things that are compelling, but also at an efficient cost base and cost structure. We've done different things like drive throughs. We've done other special events at our parks. We'll continue to do these things.

To answer your question, I do think they are sustainable. And we'll you know, I I think for the foreseeable future, we would plan to do these things always with an eye towards, you know, being as efficient as possible. As far as, you know, your question on on Orlando, what what I would remind you is, look, we rarely operate at a peak operating day. Right? So we have, you know, a lot of capacity in the park, we very rarely hit that full capacity during during normal times.

So, you know, right now, I think we feel good about where we are. The capacity limitations are really driven by social distancing requirements. As those change or when they change over time, that'll be the driver of our ability to drive more capacity. But again, we rarely, even in normal times, would operate at full capacity. We feel good about our ability to still generate relatively good results where we are in COVID.

And then as the capacity increases over time with social distancing hopefully decreasing at some point, I don't know when that'll be, know, that would be the driver of more capacity.

Speaker 8

Thank you.

Speaker 0

Our next question comes from Ben Chuygen of Credit Suisse. Ben, please proceed.

Speaker 9

Hey. How's it going? Thanks for taking my question. A lot of great examples of what's helping pricing. You know, you got Sharpen, analytical pricing capabilities, enhancing in park pricing, improved promotional effectiveness.

Was hoping you can just give some specific, maybe, I don't know, anecdotal or actual examples of what you're doing today versus, with some of these new procedures versus how that's different than what was done, previously, if there if there are some easy ones just to rattle off.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Hey. Hey, Ben. It's Mark. I can I can take that question?

So yeah. Look. I'm really proud of of the work we've done in this area, not only with admissions but but in park. And, you know, first, we we've built out a a dedicated revenue management team here in our, our corporate offices in Orlando. And we we have people looking at every park, you know, pretty much every day of the week.

So they're looking at what's going on. Our our analytical capabilities are are much better. And what so to give you a specific example on that, and then I wanna talk about in park as well. We have learned with, some of the things around our reservation system, our ability to kind of forecast how we think a day is going to trend several days out. We can price certain products higher as we get closer to what we think is going to be a peak day or a day that's going to near capacity, right?

So where that last the last guest into the park, if you've waited to buy your ticket, you're probably going to pay a higher price. So we've seen that not only on admissions, but that also applies over to some of our in park items. So we had for example, Halloween we do where you can buy a pass down at our park in Tampa Bay, where you can buy a pass that allows you to kind of get to the front of the line to see some of our Halloween mazes and things like that. I can tell you that without getting too much into the details, we were able to sell those at a pretty high rate, especially as we got day of the event where people could see the park was going to be near capacity, obviously with all the safety protocols still. And they would say, hey, it probably may not be a bad idea to buy a frontal line and we're gonna maximize the price on that.

That's just an example. Some of the other things on in park is we have some new venues in our parks. We've we've also looked at repricing certain products. I would also continue to say our events are driving, I think, good spend in this area. So, like, we just recently completed or have been processed depending on the park, events around Mardi Gras.

And again, this is maybe an event we didn't do in every park last year that we're doing now. And we saw, I think, a pretty good response to people coming out and not only enjoying themselves but buying different food and drink items, beads, things like that. That's another example. I'll just add on the per caps because I think this is important. I don't know, in case we don't get a chance to talk about it, I wanna mention it.

You know, we are doing this without the benefit of a CRM system. And so I know I hear from from other competitors, other people, and other companies how impactful their CRM systems are. So we recognize, you know, that's where we want to go, and we are in the very, very early stages of of, you know, working on a on a CRM. So we are doing a lot of this without the benefit of that. So I'm even more excited that when we can get something like a CRM system fully functioning, I think that's only gonna help the per caps and all the things you can do with that.

You know, secondly, one other thing I'd like to point out is we you know, we're also developing a new mobile app. So and that'll be ready you know, that should be ready this year. So that'll be something you can use in the park to do things like mobile ordering and whatnot. The app we have now is not very useful in a lot of those ways, so we think this is going to be a significant improvement in the app. Again, back to my point, per caps are growing even without some of those things in place, and that's what gives us a lot of excitement for the future as well.

Speaker 9

That's super helpful. And then just one quick one, if I may. Sesame Park expansion, I know there's a conversion happening, I guess, Sesame Place, I should rather I know there's a conversion happening outside of San Diego. How do you think about the white space given of that of that, I guess, product given the differentiated dynamic associated with it or branding, I guess, I should say.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Sorry. What was your did you say

Speaker 9

Just just the appetite for Sesame Park expansion. Yeah. Sorry.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Look. Well, what I'll tell you is we're we're big fans of the of the Sesame Street product. It's a it's a great brand, and, you know, we're excited that we'll we'll be opening a park in San Diego, Sesame number two here in the coming years. We're excited about that opportunity.

We'll continue to look. I don't have anything to announce today, but I think this is something that we'll continue to look at. It's a strong brand. We also you may not know this, but we have that brand in our other parks. We have a Sesame Street land here in Orlando that when it opened a couple years ago was voted one of the best new attractions by USA Today.

We utilize that brand throughout a number of our parks. Think it's a great brand, and we'll keep evaluating future opportunities with that brand.

Speaker 0

And our next question comes from Stephen Grambling of Goldman Sachs. Just

Speaker 6

a follow-up on, I think it was Steve's initial question around the slides and the EBITDA, hypothetical EBITDA. I think last quarter, you referenced kind of several 100 basis points of opportunity in a normalized environment. I guess what changed or what did you learn as you sharpened the pencil? And then how are you generally thinking about reinvestment back into the business? And are there any incremental discrete costs where you have visibility as a result of the pandemic, whether that's insurance costs moving higher or safety or otherwise?

Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Hi. Hey, Steven. It's Mark. So, obviously, you know, when we talked last time, we were still formalizing and and looking at at these numbers and didn't have a have a full view, and we still had had q four ahead of us.

I think what I'd like to point out obviously is the cost work has been ongoing for some time. And so I would say we probably felt pretty good about that even last quarter and we've continued to refine that. I think the bigger change as we dug into the numbers is really around the per cap. So if you look, and I think it's important to note this, if you look at the potential for the margin expansion, a lot of it is coming from higher pricing, higher per caps. Right?

So it's not just a pure it's not a pure cost play. And so there's there's per cap growth there. And as we kind of unpacked, as we thought about q four, we're like, look or or the full year. You know, you're growing growing per caps, you know, almost $6 for the full year, and we really tried to unpack that and say, there were some positive things from from COVID, mainly the mix of our parks, having more parks open in Florida, for example. But there were certainly some negative things that impacted per caps as well around having more local and past visitors, not being able to fully employ some of our events and some of the spending around that.

So when we kind of peeled the onion back and really looked at that, we said, look, the pluses and minuses kind of cancel each other out. Mean, it's an estimation process. So that gave us confidence that we think these numbers can hold going forward. And then on top of that, putting the things we're doing with the revenue management team, the MPARC pricing team, all the new things we're doing. And then as I mentioned before, if you throw CRM and mobile app on top of that down the road, that's what gives us quite a bit of confidence.

So I think that's one of the big changes there was really around the per caps and really us diving into those numbers and seeing, you know, how how how confident we felt with that. I think your other question on second half. Yeah. Your other question was was about cost. I mean, I think we're, you know, look like like like with any cost, we're gonna continue to to monitor those.

And and where there's where there's significant increases, you know, we would look for ways to try to offset those. You know, obviously, we have have cost of doing things maybe a little bit differently now with COVID and whatnot, but I don't know what the exact future's gonna look like. We're going to do our best as always to try to offset those as much as possible. You know, we noted that our number doesn't include any inflation or cost pressures. We don't know where those are gonna come from exactly, wages or other things like that.

But what I would tell you is we just have a lot of focus on cost, and we would look for ways to offset those as much as possible.

Speaker 0

And our last question comes from James Hardiman of Wedbush Securities. James, please proceed.

Speaker 2

Hey, good morning.

Speaker 10

Thanks for fitting me in. So just to sort of close the book on that last point. Obviously, $235,000,000 of incremental EBITDA, that's a gross number. It's not a net number. Is there a way to think about typical cost inflation over a long period of time so we could sort of generally think about maybe offsets to some of those gains?

Obviously, you said a number of times that you would hope to offset any incremental inflation that you see, but is there sort of a, I don't know, a low single digit sort of a typical inflation that you would see annually?

Speaker 2

Yeah. So hey, James. This is Mark. So, I mean, what I think I would tell you is, you know, we didn't guide you to anything because remember, this is kind of stepping back to as if we were in 2019 and and operating with what we know now. So it's hard to project an inflation number when you when you kinda go backwards.

But I I think, you I don't wanna guide you to anything. I think you can monitor the you know, any sort of wage impacts or other inflationary impacts. But, yeah, it's probably again, without guiding you specifically, I don't think it's probably far off what you're saying. Is it inflationary? Yeah.

It's probably in that range. Are there some things that might be higher at times? You know, I know labor lumber costs are up and things like that. But, you know, are there gonna be one time items that spike here and there? Yeah, there could be.

Hopefully things revert to close to a more normalized number. What I would just assure you is we're going to try to offset as much of those as we can. To the extent we can't offset everything, we would think that the the increases would be, you know, more inflationary level, you know, depending on the specific items.

Speaker 10

Got it. And then my second question, to to sort of circle back to the international or flying business versus sort of the the drive in, business. Obviously, one big question is when you might actually get back to 2019 levels, and I'm not gonna ask you that question. But what I am gonna ask is, do you think getting back to 2019 is dependent on, air travel and international travel going back to normal? Obviously, on the one hand, you have significant, whether it's 10% or whatever it happens to be, international and and drive in, that that is is gonna be a drag until that goes back to to normal.

I'm sorry. International or or sort of further out fly in. But on the other hand, presumably, people, and I think you've talked about this, are willing to drive further in the current environment where people aren't taking planes. So I'm trying to figure out if those two things can offset one another in the, I don't know, immediate post pandemic phase where where people are comfortable going to parks but maybe not comfortable getting on an airplane.

Speaker 2

Yeah. I think I got you, James. So let me see if I can I can help you with that? So one

Speaker 6

of the one of

Speaker 2

the things you know, first of all, we we've talked about a couple things over over the last several quarters. One, as I mentioned earlier, you know, traditionally international attendance was about about 10% of our total attendance across the entire company, and and most of that being in in Florida, a little bit in San Diego. What what we've also said is the vast majority of our tenants comes from people who who can drive to our parks. So, you know, I, you know, I don't know the exact answer. Can we offset international with other guests?

We would sure hope so. We know international guests tend to spend generally more than others. They're coming here generally less often, it's a bigger deal for them. But we would look to grow much like we're trying to do now. We've had more local attendance, but we've also been able to largely hold fairly steady on our same day driving overnight in domestic markets on a combined basis, and we'll continue to do that.

I mentioned one of the things that also helps is obviously the per cap growth. That might you know, allow you to to to, grow a little bit more on revenue from from per cap. Now we're not gonna just, you know, focus exclusively on per caps. We're always here to drive total revenue. So we're gonna try to attract, you know, guests that we believe will ultimately, drive the most total revenue.

So hopefully, you know, that gives you some some backdrop, as how we're kinda thinking about it.

Speaker 0

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

Speaker 2

Hey, thanks Ian. Appreciate it. On behalf of Elizabeth and the rest of the management team here at SeaWorld Entertainment, I want to thank you for joining us this morning. As you've heard today, we're confident in our business and strategy and look forward to coming out of this crisis and continuing to drive improved operating and financial results and long term value for all stakeholders. So thank you and we look forward to speaking with you next quarter.

Speaker 0

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