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Bloomberg Talks

Travel + Leisure CEO Mike Brown Talks Travel Market

11 Nov 2025

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.571 - 1.834 Stephen Carroll

Hi, I'm Stephen Carroll.

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2.135 - 9.09 Caroline Hepka

And I'm Caroline Hepka, here to introduce you to a podcast that brings you the news you need to start your day in just 15 minutes.

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9.431 - 19.474 Stephen Carroll

It's called Bloomberg Daybreak Europe Edition, covering all the top stories across Europe and around the world. Each weekday morning, we're up early to bring you the latest news by 7am.

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19.454 - 27.447 Caroline Hepka

We've got everything you need to know from geopolitics and global events to economics and what's moving markets. I'm covering it all from London.

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27.787 - 35.46 Stephen Carroll

And I'm in the EU's capital, Brussels. We have 3,000 journalists and analysts around the world to tell you what's happening, what it means and why it matters.

35.92 - 45.175 Caroline Hepka

It's more than just business headlines. From the price of your breakfast to global shifts in power, economics and money aren't just part of the story, they're often the driving force.

45.155 - 51.224 Stephen Carroll

So start your day with us on Bloomberg Daybreak Europe Edition for the news you need to know and the context to make sense of it.

51.565 - 68.53 Caroline Hepka

Find new episodes of Bloomberg Daybreak Europe Edition by 7am London time on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

68.965 - 86.96 Carol Massar

Well, shares of Travel and Leisure reached an intraday record, rising 15%. That was back on October 22nd. This was the day the company lifted the low end of its adjusted EBITDA forecast for the full year. Shares of the $4.1 billion market cap company are up around 29%. So far this year.

Chapter 2: What insights does Mike Brown share about the domestic travel market?

391.463 - 404.477 Mike Brown

I would just add that one component that has become more complex is the development of real estate has become a lot more expensive ground up. So we've moved to a conversion strategy in a lot of our new resorts.

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404.744 - 422.321 Carol Massar

So I want to talk a little bit more about the demographics here of your clientele. And certainly with 20 different brands, it depends on what actual brand we're talking about. You did give us some age demographics and where people are generationally, but in terms of spend, what are they spending?

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422.381 - 431.19 Carol Massar

What do you know about in terms of their other demographics like household net worth and what part of the economy you're able to get?

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432.301 - 452.385 Mike Brown

Right. Well, what we find in our product is the vast majority, irrespective of the brands, are going to want to be in a situation where they want to know what they can expect from their vacation. And a Margaritaville guest is going to want a sand, a drink in your hand, that type of lifestyle. Whereas

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452.365 - 474.645 Mike Brown

Our newest brand, Eddie Bauer, these are people that want to hike in Zion National Park or get to the great outdoors and enjoy a family reunion. Either way, our financial demographics are what I explained earlier. But what we see as the travel trend is people want experiences that match their personal lifestyle as opposed to four walls.

474.845 - 497.153 Mike Brown

And then they have to go find their experience outside of the resort. So that's why we're launching Sports Illustrated brand, Eddie Bauer. We have Margaritaville, Club Wyndham, you mentioned. We see an opportunity to customize your experience inside the resort and outside, as opposed to over separating the financial demographics.

497.694 - 504.664 Mike Brown

I will say one of our big focus is to pull the average age down as we launch new brands over the upcoming years.

505.268 - 520.847 Unknown

You know, it's interesting. I do think about how consumers relate to a specific brand. I mean, that really moves the needle, doesn't it? Whether it's Sports Illustrated. I'm just curious. And how do you guys think about what brands you want to affiliate yourselves with?

521.873 - 531.152 Mike Brown

Right. I have two children, young men, that are at a university up north.

Chapter 3: Who is the typical customer for Travel + Leisure Co.?

602.418 - 619.212 Mike Brown

I think there's a few things that we have to consider. We don't have anything in the luxury space today, what I would say pure luxury. There's a lot of opportunities to tie our type of product to cruise type of companies.

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619.192 - 647.859 Mike Brown

And then, as is always the case, someone, you know, five years ago would have said, well, Eddie Bauer is not a hospitality name, but you immediately put that to an outdoor site. outdoor living lifestyle. And I think our challenge is there is the typical hospitality verticals, which would include luxury, but there's also just nice niche lifestyle opportunities that we will look for.

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647.899 - 666.445 Mike Brown

But, you know, if I could just step back a second, the key to our success is whatever we do, we execute against it and we deliver on what we promised the street. And that success allows us more and more access to more and more brands. So I would expect that to allow us to move into these spaces that we currently aren't in.

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666.526 - 688.99 Unknown

Well, I'd love to be sitting at Margaritaville Vacation or a Margarita Vacation Club with a margarita in my hand. But having said that, before we go, Mike, any signs of stress, any signs of, you know, economic, you know, concerns as you look at your business or maybe what it tells you about the outlook here?

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689.932 - 710.151 Mike Brown

Well, I would say my personal sentiment and what I'm seeing in our business is very similar to what it was 30 days ago, which was there's still uncertainty out there, which causes us to be looking intently every day with any metric internally that would signal the economy is going one way or the other.

710.131 - 735.357 Mike Brown

30 days on from our earnings call, I would say that our performance and our outlook on the economy looks very similar than it did at the end of October when we reported. Our leisure travel demand is looking good for Q4. With the sound that the shutdown is coming to an end, I was starting to worry that we might start to see changes in behavior between air and drive-to traffic.

735.457 - 737.539 Carol Massar

Are you seeing that at all, just very briefly? No.

738.127 - 756.979 Mike Brown

We have not. And in fact, it looks like our 25 bookings here in Q4 are at or slightly above where they were last year. And we haven't seen a dramatic change. We've seen ever so slightly the change from fly to drive to, but I'm really confident that it hadn't gone on another week or two.

756.959 - 779.156 Mike Brown

into the Thanksgiving season, we would have saw a noticeable shift of people in New York saying, look, let me just get to a drive-to destination as opposed to flying to Orlando. I don't want to deal with the hassle with my free time. Fortunately, it looks as if we will avoid that. But at this point, we have not seen an indication that that has caused a change in leisure travel.

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