Dive Brief:
- In the second quarter of 2024, Wynn Resorts’ adjusted EBITDAR increased 9% year over year to $572 million, representing “the best second quarter EBITDAR in the history of the company,” CEO Craig Billings said during a Tuesday earnings call. The company’s operating revenues, meanwhile, climbed roughly 8.5% year over year to $1.73 billion, according to an earnings report.
- In Las Vegas, where the company operates Wynn Las Vegas and Encore, operating revenues increased 8.7% year on year in the quarter, and adjusted EBITDAR rose 2.7% annually.
- Billings attributed the Las Vegas results to “healthy” demand in the marketplace, particularly for group travel, and said he remains “bullish” on additional system-wide growth for the remainder of the year.
Dive Insight:
Wynn’s Las Vegas results for the second quarter were “led by 16% growth in hotel revenue,” Billings said during the Tuesday call with analysts.
Group travel in the market was particularly strong, according to Wynn Las Vegas President Brian Gullbrants, who said group demand in the third quarter of 2024 “continues to pace very well.” He noted that “solid” group demand for August and September looks “even better” than July at this point.
Furthermore, group bookings are pacing well for Q4, Gullbrants said, predicting 2024 will be “the best year [Wynn has] ever had in group and convention [travel].”
Other Las Vegas operators, like Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts, are similarly experiencing heightened group demand in the market and anticipate it to be a growth driver for the year.
According to Billings, Wynn is “not seeing anything of concern” in respect to Q4 in Las Vegas — unlike its competitor MGM. During a July 31 earnings call, MGM CEO Bill Hornbuckle said bookings for this year’s Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix in November are “off to a soft start as compared to last year” when the company had “a lot of advanced pre-bookings.”
Billings said Wynn’s “experience during last year's F1 tells us that we will be the place to see and be seen during the race, and so we're confident that we'll do just fine.”
Looking ahead, Billings noted that Wynn plans to allocate capital to grow its Las Vegas footprint.
“We will take advantage of the land bank that we have in Las Vegas,” he said on the call. “We will grow. It's really a question of when, not if.”
