Viad Corp (NYSE:VVI) Q2 2024 Earnings Conference Call August 6, 2024 5:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Carrie Long – Investor Relations
Steve Moster – President and Chief Executive Officer
Ellen Ingersoll – Chief Financial Officer
David Barry – President-Pursuit

Conference Call Participants

Tyler Batory – Oppenheimer
Bryan Maher – B. Riley
Alex Fuhrman – Craig-Hallum
Will Brunemann – North Coast

Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Joel and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Viad Corp's Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]

Thank you. Carrie Long, you may begin your conference.

Carrie Long

Good afternoon and thank you for joining us for Viad's 2024 second quarter earnings conference call. During the call, you will hear from Steve Moster, our President and CEO; Ellen Ingersoll, our Chief Financial Officer; and David Barry, President of Pursuit, who will each be referencing specific pages from our earnings presentation. Presentation, which is available on our website, contains important disclosures regarding non-GAAP measures that we'll be referring to during the call, including adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income.

Additionally, certain statements made during the call, which are not historical facts, may constitute forward-looking statements. Information concerning business and other risk factors that could cause actual results to materially differ from those in the forward-looking statements can be found in our annual, quarterly and other current reports filed with the SEC.

And now I'd like to turn the call over to Steve, who will start on Page 4 of our earnings presentation.

Steve Moster

Thanks, Carrie, and thanks to all of you for joining our call. I'm happy to report that our second quarter results exceeded our prior guidance, with both GES and Pursuit delivering very strong performance. GES's adjusted EBITDA was above our guidance with impressive revenue growth and margin improvement. And based on the strength that we are seeing at GES, we're raising our full year outlook for GES's adjusted EBITDA. Pursuit's adjusted EBITDA came in near the high end of our guidance range as we continue to see strong demand for our attractions and lodges and the iconic locations in which we operate.

Entering the third quarter, we had every reason to believe Pursuit would deliver on our prior guidance range for the full year. The peak summer season was off to a strong start and our advanced bookings pointed to a healthy year-over-year growth for the second half of 2024. However, our operations in Jasper National Park are currently being impacted by wildfire activity. As we previously disclosed by 8-K, the park was closed and evacuated on July 22. The majority of the park, including the town of Jasper, remains closed as authorities continue to work to control the fire and restore critical services to the Jasper town site. Our hearts go out to the Jasper community and all who have been impacted and we're incredibly thankful to the many first responders, firefighters and our team members for their work to protect lives, homes, businesses and infrastructure. We will cover the latest updates on the Jasper wildfire and our outlook assumptions later in the call.