Marriott Vacations Worldwide sees increased interest from younger generations

Stephen Weisz, Marriott Vacations Worldwide CEO joins Yahoo Finance to discuss the companies latest earnings report and the increased interest in travel heading into the holidays.

Video transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: As a lot of people get ready to take their first vacation since the pandemic, many of them are considering the kind of timeshares not only in the United States, but worldwide, where you can sit down and relax and not have to rush off to 1,000 different places. Stephen Weisz is the CEO of Marriott Vacations Worldwide. And he knows better than most just how badly people want to get up and go. I think they call it the wanderlust.

Good to have you here, especially as you've recently reported third quarter results, and you'll be ringing the closing bell at NYSE in just about 30 minutes. But first and foremost, as you're looking at 2022, what kind of demand are you seeing from those of us who want to get up and get away?

STEPHEN WEISZ: Well, clearly, what we have seen all throughout this year-- and it increases into the third quarter, and it looks like it's going to stay well into the fourth quarter-- is that people just want to get away. There's a lot of demand. Our occupancies in the third quarter were 85% across our system. And people are just-- they're tired of being at home, and they want to get out and travel again.

SEANA SMITH: Stephen, we have the news today the US reopening its borders for fully vaccinated foreign travelers. I'm curious how big of a portion of your business comes from foreign travelers, and I guess, then, in turn, will this be a big boost here for your business going forward?

STEPHEN WEISZ: I'm sorry. You broke up just a bit. Could you repeat the question?

SEANA SMITH: Sure, let's try this again. We'll try to get your audio straightened out here. But Stephen, I was just bringing up the fact that now foreign travelers, fully vaccinated foreign travelers, are able to travel here into the US. Just give us a sense just of what this means for your business going forward. How big of a boost will this potentially provide?

STEPHEN WEISZ: If I think I understand your question correctly, you're asking how business going forward looks. And I can tell you that our bookings for the first half of next year are 10% higher than they were at the same time in 2019. Again, further evidence of the fact that people are just anxious to get back on vacation and use the product that they bought. And we're very excited to see everybody back and looking forward to hosting them in the very best way that we can.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Stephen, Marriott Vacations Worldwide has, what is it, 1.4 million members in the network. Where are those people going? Or is it Americans going overseas, or is it now international members perhaps coming to the United States that you see the biggest gains in the next quarter?

STEPHEN WEISZ: Yeah, for the most part, what we've seen thus far this year is more intra-US travel, as you might imagine, although there are certainly travel into the Caribbean. But ex-US travel in terms of long haul flights either to Asia or Europe, et cetera, have been obviously limited.

However, with the opening up of the borders, we expect that to begin to broaden further. Not only people in the United States going internationally, but people from the international regions coming back to the United States. About 15% of our owners are international owners. And we look forward to having them back because we haven't seen them for a year and a half.

SEANA SMITH: Stephen, who's buying the time shares? Is it older generation? Is it baby boomers? Are you attracting-- are you able to attract some of the younger investors like millennials?

STEPHEN WEISZ: I think you asked the question, are they younger? How are we resonating with millennials? If that was the question, I can tell you that a third of our sales so far this year have been to first-time buyers. And of that, 62% of them have been to millennials and Gen Xers.

So the notion that timeshare is something for an older generation I think is really not true at all. In fact, what we're finding is the products resonating very well with our younger travelers, largely because of the fact that we offer bigger units with a living room, dining room, and kitchen. We have fully amenitized resorts with lots of different restaurants and pools and everything else. Plus, it's with the well-regarded brands that are managing the resource and delivering a great vacation experience.

ADAM SHAPIRO: As we wrap this up, I'm just curious your personal thoughts. When it comes to hospitality, has hospitality changed because of the pandemic? Or will it be the same kind of hospitality we were used to in 2019?

STEPHEN WEISZ: Well, we certainly have worked very hard to not only provide the same kind of hospitality experience, but do it within the context of doing everything to provide a safe comfort environment to the people that are staying at our resorts and for our associates that work there. I believe that as we continue to move through this post-pandemic, things will get back to a sense of more of normalcy. But what we have continued to see is that people want to come together either as groups, families, reunions, call it whatever, and come into our resorts and enjoy a great experience when they are staying with us.