Hilton remains upbeat despite reporting a net loss of $81 million for the third
quarter of 2020.
The figure compares with net revenue of $290 million for the
same period in 2019.
EBITDA for the hotel giant came in at $224 million with revenue
per available room down almost 60% from the $605 million year-on-year.
Commenting on the Q3 results, Chris Nassetta, president and
CEO of Hilton, says the figures show “meaningful improvement”
compared to the second quarter.
“The vast
majority of our properties around the world are now open and have gradually begun
to recover from the limitations that the COVID-19 pandemic has imposed on the
travel industry, with occupancy increasing more than 20 percentage points from
the second quarter.”
He adds
that the company is well positioned to take advantage of demand as it returns.
Nassetta says
that since April, occupancy at its hotels has been improving each month with Asia
Pacific up 32%, U.S. up 32% and Europe up 31% in the months from April to September.
Questioned during an analyst call on changes to the distribution mix, Nassetta says he doesn't see any long-term change.
While bookings from online travel agencies were up in the third quarter, they were the non-frequent, non-loyal bookings that the company expected, he says.
"They were not up in an alarming way and we expected it. Our attitude has not changed. They are good partners for some types of bookings and we love working with them but at the same time we have been on a long-term trajectory to build more direct relationships, build more loyalty."
For
the nine months ending September 30, the net loss was $495 million while EBITDA
was $638 million compared with income of $710 million and EBITDA of $1.7 billion
year-on year.
Nassetta's final remarks to the analyst call were that Hilton would emerge from the crisis "a bigger, better, stronger, more efficient, higher margin business.