Ryman Hospitality Properties Inc

NYSE:RHP

Earnings Call Transcript 2017-Q4

[Operator]

Welcome to Ryman Hospitality Properties Fourth Quarter 2017 Earnings Conference Call. Hosting the call today from Ryman Hospitality Properties are Mr. Colin Reed, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Mark Fioravanti, President and Chief Financial Officer; Mr. Patrick Chaffin, Senior Vice President of Asset Management; and Mr. Scott Lynn, Senior Vice President and General Counsel.

This call will be available for digital replay. The number is 800-585-8367 and the conference ID number is 4490557. [Operator Instructions]

It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Scott Lynn. Sir, you may begin.

[Scott Lynn, SVP & General Counsel]

Good morning. Thank you for joining us today. This call may contain forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements about the company's expected financial performance. Any statements we make today that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Words such as believes or expects are intended to identify these statements, which may be affected by many factors, including those listed in the company's SEC filings and in today's release. The company's actual results may differ materially from the results we discuss or project today. We will not update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or any other reason.

We will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures today. We reconcile each non-GAAP measure to the most comparable GAAP measure in an exhibit to today's release.

I'll now turn the call over to Colin.

[Colin Reed, Chairman & CEO]

Thanks, Scott. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us.

One year ago I referred to 2017 as a transition year given the number of projects later to open in 2018 but I also said 2017 could be a record year for us and indeed it was as we set new records for revenue, adjusted EBITDA the gross group bookings which of course is the lifeblood of our hotel business.

Now let me start with group bookings. In the fourth quarter, we produced 968,000 gross group room nights for all future years. This is only about 9000 room nights less than the fourth quarter record we set at the end of 2015. This put our 17 production and this by the way excludes the Rockies at a tremendous 2.6 million room nights topping 2016 full year record by 1.3%. Now recall that 2016s, 252.57 million room nights production was not only a record at the time but a 10% increase over 2015.

I've been saying in recent quarters that the strong demand we're seeing from group's combined with the fixed inventory of room nights we have to sell in future years will offer us more opportunities to focus on achieving good rate growth as our key patents fill up. I'm pleased to report that across these 968,000 room nights booked in Q4, we still average daily rate growth of 5.7% or just under $11. We therefore ended the year with a total of 6.9 million gross group room nights and again this excludes the Rockies on the books for all future years and this is a 7% increase over the end of 2016 and another record for our combined hotels.

In addition to these bookings, the sales team for the Gaylord Rockies booked another 244,000 gross group room nights in Q4 2017. As we stand here today 10 months away from the opening of this newest member of the Gaylord family, this property has already amassed 948,000 gross group room nights for all future periods which exceed our planned trajectory and set this property up very well for the future.

It is worth noting that much of the early bookings activity for this hotel when it was still years from completion were for association type business. Today as we get closer to opening, we are passing through the prime booking window for many corporate groups. So we're very excited to be adding another important layer of inaugural customers on to have a book of business for the Rockies.

Now turning to RevPAR and total RevPAR. We had indicated since the beginning of 2017 that the first and fourth quarters of last year would be our strongest and both quarters fulfilled that guidance. A solid book of group business in October and early November followed by a very good leisure transient response to our holiday programming across our hotels delivered 5.9% RevPAR and a 7% total RevPAR growth in Q4.

Our profit is executed well across the board capturing significant flow-through and driving hospitality adjusted EBITDA over the $100 million mark to $104 million and this is a 12.7% increase year-over-year at an impressive 33.2% margin. That is 168 basis points higher than Q4 of 2016.

Now there were couple of large nonrecurring non-cash items that affected the bottom line operating and net income of our company which I'm sure you've noticed in our release. The first of these is an impairment charges of $35.4 million on the carrying value of the Series B bonds issued to us by Prince George's County back in 2008 when we opened the hotel and this is all part of the Gaylord national development incentive package.

Now these bonds attract an interest rate of 10% and we are required every year to test for impairments on both of these series which we achieved by updating the projections for the hotel tax revenues that will service these instruments all the way out to the years 2034 and 2037.

This year during our testing, we decided that these extremely long-range projection should be modified for a couple of reasons. Up until 2017 the looming entry of the MGM casino into the market was the big remaining variable that would determine for us if National Harbor and thus our hotel was positioned to hit the trajectory that was determined over a decade ago.

Now while we've been with the number of overnight regional guest that MGM has driven our way, as well as the underlying performance of the hotel, it is not being quite enough nor at a high enough rate for us to confidently hold to the previous projections as I said a decade ago.

The resulting calculation of expected future hotel tax revenue all the way out to 237 led us to conclude that the Series B bonds which stand behind the Series A, may not collect all of the debt service payments we previously expected before they reach maturity.

Now as you know, some of our competitors have a hard time projecting the rest of this year, so trying to figure out what happens a decade from now is somewhat of a challenge but nevertheless we have assumed pretty modest growth through this period and also the actuaries who advised us on this whole computation, felt it was appropriate to increase the discount rate we use to reflect the times we live in. The present value of this computation is what drives the 35.4 million impairment.

Now I want to emphasize again that this is a nonrecurring non-cash charge that does not reflect how we view our group business nor the overall opportunity at the Gaylord National but merely the current view of the world today versus past expectations.

Now the other non-cash items is a large tax benefit of $53.4 million that we recorded due to a release of deferred tax valuation allowances. And at the end 2017 marked our fifth anniversary as a REIT and a five year leases between our Propcos which are in the REIT and our Opcos which are in the taxable subsidiaries with due for renewal.

The renewal terms should allow us to realize additional deferred tax assets and so we released the corresponding valuation allowances. Again just as with the impairment charge, this is a nonrecurring non-cash item and neither one impacts our adjusted EBITDA or AFFO.

All in, the fourth quarter was a tremendous ending to a very solid year for our hotel business even in the face of a few challenges such as the renovation displacement at Opryland, the major construction projects going on both at Opryland and the Texan, and course the hurricanes in Texas and Florida in Q3.

For our hotels to deliver 2.1 total RevPAR growth and 2.7 adjusted EBITDA growth against the difficult comps of 35 and 68 set in 2016 reflects the sweet spot we find ourselves in right now in terms of rising group demand coupled with the lack of supply growth in the 1000 plus room hotel space.

Now not to be outdone our entertainment segment once again delivered its own record in the fourth quarter posting an 18% revenue growth and 22% adjusted EBITDA growth.. Full-year totals came in at 14.1 and 15.1 respectively marking the fourth consecutive this year this business has grown revenue and adjusted EBITDA in double digits, and amazingly this growth is coming from our core business as our new unit growth in the entertainment space does not really get underway until this year.

So, not bad for transition year. Now let's turn to 2018. I will first review once more for you the milestones that we have on top this year in each our two segments and then I'll boil it down into our guidance.

Starting with hospitality, in May we will open the 300 room expansion at the Gaylord Texan and many of you had the opportunity to see this new tower at the investor reception we hosted in November during REIT World and I believe those who saw it, would agree that the space looks fantastic.

This addition could not come sooner for the Texan which has been out in front of its competitive set for at least the last three years. Bookings linked to the expansion have consistently met our plans since we announced this project and we believe it sets the Texan up to lead the Dallas meetings market for years to come.

In December, we'll open SoundWaves at Opryland. Like the Texan the timing of SoundWaves is perfectly aligned with the performance we are seeing at Opryland and the growth we're seeing in the Nashville market.

This feature will be virtually impossible for any venue - for the new hotel supply Nashville or surrounding region to replicate, and will be a critical component of Opryland's continued success in both group and leisure transient business for years to come.

At about the same time, the first Opryland guest dipped their toe in the water so to speak, we will be also opening the doors of the Gaylord Rockies with their partners in Colorado. With the first group customers scheduled to arrive shortly thereafter in early 2019.

Construction out west on this great project is proceeding on pace and on budget as we near the finish line and I just highlighted the remarkable bookings interest we're seeing at this property. These street projects manifest what I've said in the past that now is the right time for us to be investing in the group business. Demand remains strong, supply remains constrained and the returns we can derive on these projects are outstanding. As a result, we will continue to study more ways to deploy capital into our assets to service the group customers and create economic modes around these world-class hotels.

Now turning to entertainment. At the end of last year, after an unfortunate delay we opened our first Opry City Stage restaurant and music venue in Times Square and Mark and I had the pleasure of seeing many of you just a several weeks ago at our Investor and Analyst Event to showcase this property. We're excited to be up and running and look forward to the first full year of operation in 2018.

In Nashville we're just several months away from lighting up the flagship old red location with Blake Shelton on Broadway and in the same way we aim to capitalize on supply and demand dynamics in our hotel business, we have several other initiatives in the works in our entertainment segment to capitalize on the strong dynamics around the consumer appetite for all things Nashville and the country music lifestyle. So look for more details on these in the months to come.

Now with that let me turn to guidance. I had mentioned throughout the past year, that 2018 was setting up very nicely from a group bookings perspective. At each point in time over the last year, 2018 was pacing ahead where 2017 was at the equivalent lead time. Now I'm happy to confirm this remains the case at the end of Q4 and that we entered this year with 3% more net room nights on the books and 5.8% more net rooms revenue on the books for this year than we had at the start of - for 2017.

Now these figures include the contribution from the new rooms that we're opening at the Texan but again exclude anything related to the Rockies. We have also completed the major rooms renovation project at Opryland that had been going on through most of 2017 leaving us with no rooms out of service in 2018 for this hotel versus the 49,000 that we had taken out in 2017.

We do expect to begin a rooms renovation of the National in the fourth quarter of 2018 which will lead us to about 14,600 room nights out of service in that period. The national will market its 10 year anniversary in April and so the time is appropriate to begin out rooms renovation work here which we will then complete in 2019.

Now based on these factors, we expect 2% to 4% RevPAR growth and yes I said growth, and 3% to 5% total RevPAR growth across our consolidated hospitality portfolio. I want to point out here that we estimate the dilutive impact to both RevPAR and total RevPAR from the ramping up period of the Texan expansion to be approximately 70 basis points on a consolidated hospitality segment.

Moving to profitability, we believe there is additional opportunity to drive incremental margin across the portfolio despite improvement that we’ve already seen over the last two years. We are therefore targeting up 20 basis points of adjusted EBITDA margin improvement at the midpoint of our guidance for the hospitality segment.

Together, these expectations drive a range of $365 million to $375 million of adjusted EBITDA for our hotels. Meanwhile, our entertainment business is not letting up and we expect the core assets together with the new venture to deliver in the range of $44 million to $50 million of adjusted EBITDA.

So in short, we are projecting another record year for our company and we're just getting started that is not until 2019 that we truly begin to reap the benefits of SoundWaves, the Rockies, the full-year of the rooms at the Texan, as well as the full year of Ole Red in our entertainment business.

So there is much more yet to come and we believe many more records years ahead for us. So long as supply remains constrained which we believe it truly will and this country's economy continues to grow.

As I very much like to do at this time of the year, I would like to highlight one more item and that is the first quarter dividend of 2018 that our Board declared today. The increase of $0.05 per share represents a 6.3% increase in subject to the Board's continue to evaluation and approval it would be our intention to declare total dividends of $3.40 per share in 2018. We're delighted to deliver this very tangible benefit of the continued strength of our business to our shareholders.

And with that, now let me turn the call over to Mark.

[Mark Fioravanti, President & CFO]

Thanks Colin, good morning everyone.

In the fourth quarter the company generated total revenue of $345.2 million up 7.9% from the prior year quarter and for the full year 2017 total revenue increased 3.1% just over $1.18 billion. During the quarter the company generated net income available to common shareholders of $72.3 million or $1.41 per fully diluted share.

The company generated $106.3 million of adjusted EBITDA and improved adjusted EBITDA margin by 120 basis points in the fourth quarter and for the full year the company's adjusted EBITDA exceeded $360.8 million, an increase of over $10.6 million and full-year adjusted EBITDA margin was flat compared to 2016.

In terms of AFFO, the company produced $87 million in 2017 and 11.9% increase over the fourth quarter of 2016 or $1.69 on a fully diluted share basis. For the full year, the company generated $285.5 million in AFFO, a 1.4% increase over 2016 an equivalent to $5.56 per fully diluted share.

Attrition in fourth quarter of 2017 was 13.1% slightly higher than Q4 of 2016 by approximately 42 basis point but was down sequentially as compared to the third quarter by 240 basis points. In the year for the year cancellations were lower by 500 room nights or 8.5% year-over-year and approximately 7400 room sequentially.

Attrition and cancellation fee collections during the quarter totaled $4.3 million and for the year were $10.9 million. Consolidated hospitality adjusted EBITDA on the quarter grew 12.7% to $103.9 million acquainted to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 33.2% for an increase of 160 basis points in the quarter.

Full year hospitality adjusted EBITDA increased 7.2% to $346.1 million representing a 30 basis point margin improvement. Our entertainment business finished strong with fourth quarter and full-year revenues increasing 7.9% and 14.1% respectively, segment adjusted EBITDA on the fourth quarter increased 22.1% to $9.7 million and for the full year increased 15.4% to $41.2 million.

As Colin mentioned this segment continues to perform extremely well, as it sets new high watermarks for both revenue and profitability. We expect this segment to continue on a strong growth trajectory with the opening of Ole Red Nashville in a full year of Opry City Stage.

Corporate and other adjusted EBITDA totaled a loss of $7.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2017 compared to a loss of $5.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2016. Full year 2017 corporate and other adjusted EBITDA totaled $26.5 million. We continue to invest in our core support functions and staffing for both segments of our company to support the growth.

Moving on to the balance sheet, as of December 31 we had total debt of approximately $1.6 billion, net of unamortized deferred financing costs and unrestricted cash of $57.6 million resulting in net debt outstanding of $1.5 billion including $171 million of borrowings drawn under the company's revolving credits facility. Combined with available cash, this leaves the company with approximately $585 million of available liquidity.

Earlier Colin provided some highlights of our 2018 guidance for the year, let me just provide a few additional details in a bit of color regarding the quarterly pace of RevPAR growth. On a consolidated basis we anticipate 2018 full-year consolidated net income of $155.3 million to $157 million. Full-year adjusted EBITDA of $383 million to $400 million, funds from operation or FFO of $275 million $278.3 million and adjusted funds from operation or AFFO of $300 million to $306.5 million.

I would note that both net income and FFO were negatively impacted by an anticipated non-cash deferred tax expense of approximately $12 million in 2018. Returns of our quarterly - pace of RevPAR growth, we expect the second quarter to be the strongest quarter of the year with RevPAR growth up in the high single-digits. Q3 will be the slowest and will be flat to down low single-digits, and finally the first and fourth quarters we expect both will be up in low single-digits.

In terms of total RevPAR, we likewise expect the second quarter to be the strongest again in the high single-digits. We expect the third quarter to be up mid-single-digits while the first and fourth quarters should be low single-digit growth.

You will note that our total RevPAR expectations are essentially reverse of our 2017 pattern driven by a difficult year-over-year comparison. A detailed reconciliation of our current guidance from net income to adjusted EBITDA, FFO and AFFO can be found at the supplement scheduled to our earnings release.

Finally, we're not providing guidance for 2019. At this point we do want to remind you that as you model 2019, you should consider the Gaylord Rockies and SoundWaves projects that will be opening at the end of this year and we have a significant impact on our financials in 2019. As a reminder we are 35% owner in the asset manager of the Gaylord Rockies.

While on a GAAP basis we report our pro rata share of the JVs net income under the equity method of accounting we will also be reporting our pro rata share of Rockies adjusted EBITDA in our Hospitality segment and we will receive an asset management fee of 1% of total revenues that will be reported as corporate revenue on our consolidated financials. Also recall our – our results for the property will include Ryman’s pro rata share of the public incentives that the hotel will generate.

SoundWaves at Opryland will benefit both Opryland RevPAR and total RevPAR by helping close the transient rate gap with Downtown Nashville, capture additional room nights from new leisure guests and extent group stays, incremental food and beverage spending and the admissions fees collected from guest for access to the facility. While we provided capital and return assumptions in the past if you have additional questions on the impact of these projects with the mechanics of modeling them. Please contact Todd or me and we’ll be happy to help.

And with that I'll turn it over to Colin for any closing remarks.

[Colin Reed, Chairman & CEO]

Thanks Mark. I'm going to hold off on closing remarks. Let's open up. Maria if we could the phones for questions, we've shared a lot of data here and I’m sure there is a few questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Patrick Scholes of SunTrust.

[Patrick Scholes, SunTrust]

First question is going to be on how should we think about sort of a base case RevPAR dollar amount for the Rockies. Certainly it doesn’t look like on the website that its taking reservations where would you point us in that direction or would you say the RevPAR of that property is similar to one of your other four properties maybe you could point us in that direction?

[Patrick Chaffin, SVP of Asset Management]

We don’t want to give too much information, just share but I would tell you that the RevPAR that were expected in the Gaylord Rockies would be in line with what we see in the Gaylord Texan as far as a comparison.

[Patrick Scholes, SunTrust]

Next question concerns the Opry City Stage I'm - curious where you could envision this concept going. It seems like it’s gotten some what I can see online some pretty good reviews. So far could you envision this concept sort of being in the next house of blues as it relates to the country music?

[Colin Reed, Chairman & CEO]

Patrick this is Colin, let me make a couple of observations here. I don't envision - truly don’t envision Opry City Stage being like the house of blues which has in this country 60 to 80 locations actually there is a few locations under a different name but 60 to 80 locations various shapes and sizes very good concept.

What we envision with Opry City Stage is that this would go into what I would call the primary market, tours markets of this country where we see you know tens of millions of tourists markets recently we put it in Times Square is because Times Square gets about 45 million tourists a year, New York City about 55 million. We would see markets I would think Orlando, Las Vegas these types of markets would be a home for Opry City Stage. So that's how we're currently thinking about it.

With the product in New York City, this is obviously the first of its kind that there are - we’re in the process we had this thing opened for - I don’t know Mark six weeks something like that seven weeks. We were in the process of refining some thoughts of this product. We’re going to change the ground floor out a little bit to make it clearer to the consumer that runs up and down outside on Broadway there. What indeed goes on the second floor and third floor on the fourth floor.

So we’re going to do some modifications on that and I also the marketing side of this is in the early stages of really cranking up. We had as you remember this tragedy the place when one of the workers unfortunately fell from scaffolding in the middle of the construction last year that essentially shut the construction down for a period of time and that caused some - not sure when we’re going to be opening this facility.

Anyway its now opened and the marketing is being cracked and ramped and - you're right we got very good reviews on our food and entertainment and it’s - you know I think over the next two to three months you’re going to see a lot more activity by us to promote this facility domestically.

And the other thing I would say to your question about Opry City Stage is that we've had some outreach from the international market on this. People who love - if you go to Europe there is a tremendous amount of people in Europe that love country music. What is going to happen here in Nashville, come early May is a pretty sure we’re going to be flying directly Dreamliner every day I think every day maybe five, six days a week to Nashville. And so it's not out of the realms of possibility that we would find an international partner and do something internationally with Opry City Stage because of the love of country music.

[Patrick Scholes, SunTrust]

And one last question here, any updated thoughts on possibly divesting the entertainment segments - when your investors is interested pushing for that. And I also bring that up because some companies public companies like Live Nation that we might comp that segment again that had pretty good multiple valuation multiple run ups here. What your latest thoughts on that possibility?

[Colin Reed, Chairman & CEO]

Well amongst us sitting around this table we had a little discussion earlier wondering at which point in the question and answer we get that question and you’re the first one out and the first one to ask the question. So let me give you to answer. We have never talked about divesting this business what we talked about is potentially spinning this business and putting its own separate public company.

This business we believe is very unique and has very good traction and the growth rates in it, is very, very strong. And we think this business has lots of ways to grow and that's how we think about it and - we're very much - we’re trying to grow this business and also in some ways. So at some point it will be mature enough to stand on its own two feet and that ultimately that is the goal.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Chris Woronka of Deutsche Bank.

[Chris Woronka, Deutsche Bank]

My first question is kind of on the - you mentioned in the press release that there were some good strength in corporate group rates in the fourth quarter. And I'm wondering is that are you continuing to kind of see that general trend in 2018 and do you expect the corporate piece to be considerably stronger this year than it was last year?

[Patrick Chaffin, SVP of Asset Management]

This is Patrick Chaffin I’ll take that question and then Colin can add any additional comments he has. As we look into 2018, we have a higher level of corporate room nights on the books as far as our mix. And I would tell you that we are - we've been driving tremendously strong volumes of room nights in terms of production. You’re going to see us pivot a little bit more towards trying to drive rate in 2018, because we are seeing a continuance of strengthening in rate.

And so we’re going to take this moment in time with the number of room nights that we already have on the books which is a record and the strength that we seen in bookings production to push rate a little bit more and take advantage of the environment that we see. So yes we have seen that its continuing and we want to make sure that we take advantage of it.

[Colin Reed, Chairman & CEO]

Chris let me - I want to add one thing to do this and that is that however, you cut it our industry the hotel industry and particularly the large group sector is so heavily correlated to the underlying economic strength of this country. When times are good people are out spending money, businesses are out holding meetings.

And when times retrench as we saw in 2009, the world behaves very differently. So the question, the central question and this is by the way it was one of the things that I always struggle with the question of where we stand in the cycle, because what we never try and do is sort of try and figure out what's going to happen over the next one, two, three years with the economy of the country.

We sit at a very interesting point, I believe. My personal view is that, Corporate America the balance sheets are very, very strong. Corporate America have just got this big windfall with particularly the sea corps with the tax reduction. You've got to have all of this repatriation of funds from overseas coming back the United States of America.

And the question is, you know what happens to this economy? And my sense is that, we're going to see over the next one to two to three years, we're going to see strength in this economy. And I think that will bode well for particularly the group sector.

And as Patrick Chaffin just said a second ago, our focus here is going to be driving rate. And this is what we've been sitting and talking with our operators of Marriott doing driving right here over the course of the next 12 to 24 months. And we believe given the slow supply that we see in our sector given the underlying health of the economy the next two to three years should be pretty fun for us.

[Chris Woronka, Deutsche Bank]

And just as a follow up, you guys obviously have a lot of growth coming later this year and next year including SoundWaves in Nashville. But what I ask is you think out strategically beyond that is, there any - are you any closer to maybe adding another some kind of hotel development in Nashville? Now that now that everything else is coming closer in interview?

[Colin Reed, Chairman & CEO]

Well look we don't play in the sandbox of 200 to 500 room transient focused hotels, which is really the supply increase you see in this city. The supply increase you're seeing in the cities to accommodate the leisure customer that wants to come to the city.

And so, I don't think you'll see us do that, unless it's parked next to Opryland, the mothership that generates you know 80 points of occupancy there or thereabouts of 70% of which is group. And I think as we get to opening up the inventory for SoundWaves, Patrick that's what May/June of this year we're going to be doing that?

[Patrick Chaffin, SVP of Asset Management]

SoundWaves will open in December. The inventory will open in May of this year.

[Colin Reed, Chairman & CEO]

So if we see huge demand here you may see us come back and want to build a you know 300 room-ish leisure focused hotel to accommodate demand as we open up this inventory. But you are not going to see us built in a downtown hotel here in Nashville.

In terms of other big boxes, we look at every box that comes on the market. And here's the reality, I mean this is the bizarre thing, I read all of the reports from the analysts community and talk about our multiple as a function of what's going to happen in 2018. But you know clearly we've got some really world-class things happening in 2019.

But the thing is, we can't buy hotels at the multiple we trade at. We can't buy hotels that we have at the multiples that we trade at. So but we look at every transaction that comes before us. The - either our multiple has to increase or the multiples of hotels, big hotels, world-class hotels that get sold have to decrease for us to be in the acquisition of large group hotels.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Shaun Kelley of Bank of America.

[Shaun Kelley, Bank of America]

So Colin, I just wanted to ask at a high level, so thinking about the capital development projects, I thought that there is a portion of SoundWaves that might have the opportunity to open little closer to the summer perhaps that had already been pushed out or updated. But can you give us kind of a timeline? And then also maybe give us a little bit more color on the features? You talked about opening in December, I mean meaningful for 2019. But what came out of that indoor versus outdoor to make it attractive to guess in the middle of summer?

[Colin Reed, Chairman & CEO]

Yes. We got to get you to nationalist to see this construction. I was there yesterday for our board meeting at the hotel. And with all of our board members and they couldn't believe the scale of this construction.

We spend a lot of time with our operator trying to figure out whether we could open the X outside part of this in sort of the July/August timeframe to capture the latter part of the summer months. And as we've spent so much time with our operators, what we've come to conclude is that, it will be fairly - it will be very difficult essentially to try and get people out of the hotel around the construction and into the pool complex.

The amount of policing that we would have to do, to do that and then these folks would be at our exterior pool complex looking at a massive construction of the indoor piece of this. And so, as we've analyzed the pluses and minuses of all of this, Patrick Chaffin I think we came to the conclusion that the poll just wasn't worth the die for two or three months to open the exterior.

And let's get up, get all of this fully done, integrated, work - and open it up one big point in time obviously the inside first because we can't open the exterior in the middle of the winter. But that's the way we've been thinking about it. And I got to tell you, we are very excited about this. And this is going to be quite some feature for this hotel.

[Patrick Chaffin, SVP of Asset Management]

The only thing I'd add to it Colin’s has already said is, we watch very closely some of the missteps that were made by some water-park operators that opened over the past couple of years in Orlando who still had ongoing construction sites for guest to be interacting with. And the guest commentary and feedback and negative reviews give us even more pause to say let's make sure that when we show this to our customers for the first time, they get a wow experience, a great sense of arrival.

And to your second part of our question, just to let you know it's about 4 acres, the site itself. About 80,000 square feet is indoors and that's about three levels of water features. So an expansive outdoor area, but a very large indoor area on three levels that is unlike anything you see certainly in this region.

[Colin Reed, Chairman & CEO]

And make sure one last thing on this. The other thing that you know we just take advantage of we probably shouldn't is, we got one hell of a book of business in that hotel this year. And one of the things that we are very, very sensitive about is making sure that the customers that are booked into this hotel, this hotel is going to run only 80 points of occupancy and generate tremendous EBITDA for us.

We make sure that those customers have world-class experience. So that was really the reason why we decided that we wouldn’t open the exterior piece of this for two or three months towards the end of the summer.

[Shaun Kelley, Bank of America]

I think that makes a lot of sense. And then as we think about the CapEx for 2018 obviously, a lot of these projects starting to come to fruition. I know you said that Rockies was on time on budget. Can you just give us a reminder of sort of the overall CapEx breakdown? If you give us a sense of sort of further growth projects, where you’re at kind of by project at least some rough numbers, that will be helpful?

[Colin Reed, Chairman & CEO]

Well Mark can do this but, let me let me say this now that, we're fully funded on the Rockies. I mean we paid for that last year. So when you look at our leverage levels, we've got the investment, but no income. And so you know our capital flow for 2018 is not really significant. So Mark...

[Mark Fioravanti, President & CFO]

Well, yeah in terms of growth capital, let's on the tax and spend we’re going to be 28 million to 30 million here as we finish it in 2018. The remaining SoundWaves construction this year will be between 60 million to 62 million.

The Venue downtown or read that opens in May is 8 to 9 and then we're doing an expansion enhancement to the Opry House in the Opry Plaza that's about 11 million to 12 million. So growth capital is that kind of $107 million to $113 million range. On the maintenance side, obviously you'll have your FF&E reserve of 5%. This is a little bit heavier owner funded year for us. So owner funded project we've got some infrastructure, a replacement that we're doing boiler's etcetera.

So between that and the carryover maintenance you can have $80 million to $90 million race this year. So when you kind of add it all up, you're probably 190 to about 205 million for CapEx total for 2018.

[Shaun Kelley, Bank of America]

And I don't have old numbers in front of me, was there anybody change to SoundWaves out of number, or is that pretty much inline where you are?

[Colin Reed, Chairman & CEO]

I think, that's pretty much in line with where we were. The overall budget hasn't changed. We're on budget there, maybe a few million dollars higher than what we previously provided because we had a very wet - we've had a very wet six months or so in Nashville which has slowed some of the work down. And so, it pushed a little bit of the capital spend into this year versus 17.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Bill Crow of Raymond James.

[Bill Crow, Raymond James]

Colin congratulations on advancing the ball on the growth initiatives. I want to start with the growth initiatives I think you talked about opportunities in Nashville, and on the acquisition front. But I'm just curious about going out and developing another project now that the Rockies is coming to the finish line. Where is that in your priorities, and based on any discussions you might have had. What is the environment for securing tax incentives to build another Gaylord style hotel?

[Colin Reed, Chairman & CEO]

There is good news and bad news here. The tax incentive piece of it is much harder today than it was simply because of the economy of the country. And – when I there's good news, bad news; the good news piece of that is that there's limited supply being built right across the country. As you know there's five 1000 room hotels and I think three of those are parked next to convention centers and are essentially have 100,000 or less square feet. So that's the benefit of this.

And I think you may have seen some press in Chula Vista, the project that we initiated lord knows what was out about - years before and financial year. So probably 10, 12 years ago and the people that are behind that are the same partners in Denver.

So we talk to these folks about that project if it comes to fruition, we would have an interest and that community is, we are told enthusiastic about building a world-class hotel just south of San Diego there.

So right now wind community is doing pretty well growth is pretty good across the country. It's much harder to get these big tax incentives. But here's the thing, we will we will keep monitoring that. We're looking at certain markets.

And here's the good news, we know how to do this. We've done it multiple times before and so I'd say just keep focused on that Bill.

[Bill Crow, Raymond James]

The other question I had was on the gross advanced bookings, in the fourth quarter they were down just slightly for all future periods, but they were also down just a little bit last quarter. And I'm just curious, if that sends a message that maybe the windows are lengthening or maybe you're just maxed out and we're not getting any better than this or how do we interpret that?

[Colin Reed, Chairman & CEO]

Bill, I don't want to be critical because I think you are at the highest regard for you. But you're looking through the wrong end of the telescope. The bookings that we did last year were you know it was record bookings for us.

And the quarter - the fourth quarter of just under a million gross room night was the second best quarter we ever had as a company. And this is the other thing, I would ask you to think about, if you look at the bookings that we had on the books for all of our hotels excluding Denver, at the beginning of 2017 and then you fast forward with all the bookings that we booked in 2017 you fast forward and look at the bookings that we have on the books on the first of January of 2018.

The bucket of group room nights grew by 7%, 7% which is monstrous. So the issue for us is patterns and where we accommodate and that's why we made a point in this release to say, we have really focused even though we're at record levels of bookings, we're focused so much on rate. And we saw that to our benefit in the fourth quarter when we had rate up north of 5%.

So I don't think you can look at it accurately fourth quarter of 2017 and fourth quarter of 2016 and say, you know we are down 9000 room nights or whatever it is and therefore things are good. They are in tremendous shape. Patrick have I missed anything?

[Patrick Chaffin, SVP of Asset Management]

No, I think you're absolutely right. I will tell you though that we've intentionally because of our strong book of business both in our business and well as in our competitors and our focus on multi-year rotational business, we have been successful in pushing some corporate groups to lengthen their booking window because they're trying to secure space, because they think it's not going to be available and with the multi-year rotational business that we're securing, we're naturally getting folks to sign up for a longer period than they normally would book into. So we have been successful intentionally in extending that booking window as a result.

[Bill Crow, Raymond James]

No I wasn't trying to find some to criticize us, I really just wanted to - the booking window was changing or anything like that?

[Colin Reed, Chairman & CEO]

No, I'm pulling your leg a little bit. I probably shouldn't on this call. But this group market is in really good shape. Mark, something you want to add.

[Mark Fioravanti, President & CFO]

I was just going to say that, if you look at where we're trending, where we sit today for 2019 in the business, right it looks it looks quite good. On the books revenue perspective we’re up mid single digit versus where we were last year. So we look out respectively both 2018 and 2019 and beyond, bookings look really good, really nice growth, both in terms of occupancy, as well as rate.

[Bill Crow, Raymond James]

One final question that occurred to me, just before you talked about the Rockies and whether it's picking up some of the rotational business and kind of taken it away from your existing hotels. It seems to me you had a lot of new business that maybe you hadn't seen in your existing hotels. Any update on kind of where that business coming from for the Rockies?

[Patrick Chaffin, SVP of Asset Management]

That's a great question. It has been a high area of focus for my team in making sure that what we're introducing into Rockies is not just recycling if you will of existing groups which we certainly want to do. We want to bring them and capture an additional meeting in their rotation.

But we have sat with the team Bill, I said what they would say is an aggressive target acquisition business and we are watching that closely. And I would tell you that Rockies is performing right within the range of what we think is acceptable on new acquisition just about 35% to 40% brand new business that has never been to a Gaylord hotel in the past.

And so bringing new folks into Rockies and then introducing them to the full brand is the objective here and I'm very pleased with how the team has been able to execute against that objective.

[Operator]

And we have reached the allotted time for questions. I would now turn the call back over to management for any additional or closing remarks.

[Colin Reed, Chairman & CEO]

Well, let me say this, if there are any other questions - if there is anyone with their light lit up, we'll take one more question.

[Operator]

And we do have a question from the line of [indiscernible] Traditional Capital.

[Unidentified Analyst]

You answered seven, eighths of my intended question about acquisitions. So the one-eight is since you had ruminated almost two years ago about possible interesting opportunities, are the opportunities you saw that didn't work for you price wise, were they even close?

[Colin Reed, Chairman & CEO]

Sort of, we look to. I would say in the last couple of years, we look to two or three close-ish but not ones that we would say that they blew our socks off. And so we we've taken a very disciplined approach. And the other part of it is, is that in this period of time of course we're expanding Texas, we've got SoundWaves going on. We've got tremendous growth coming in these world-class assets that we own.

So look, we get all this expansion done. We may expand one of these hotels again here with the amount of group demand that we're seeing. And you know we'll keep our beady little eyes on opportunities that come forward. So you know that's where we are Chip and thanks for the question.

[Unidentified Analyst]

You’re welcome.

[Colin Reed, Chairman & CEO]

All right Maria. Thank you. I think what I would say to our investors is, thanks for being on the call this morning. We feel like we have a differentiated strategy. We've been talking about this for a long time. I think it's showing up in our underlying business strength. The thing that we haven't talked about I suppose this morning is our leisure transient business and what happened to us in the fourth quarter and we sort of look at our revenue generation as we're not victims, we're proactively driving business into our hotels and I think that's going to bode well for 2018 and 2019 years to come.

So thanks everyone for being on the call this morning and you know where we are, if you have any other questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen this does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect. And have a wonderful day.