Marriott Vacations CEO: Reasonably Bullish About How We See This Year Framing Up

Shares of Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corp VAC have been on a constant uptrend, up by over 50 percent year-to-date. Stephen Weisz, Marriot Vacations CEO, was on CNBC recently to discuss whether the company can continue this successful run and the impact of lower crude prices and strong dollar on Marriott’s business.

Feel Preety Good

“We are reasonably bullish about how we see this year kind of framing up,” Weisz said. “Our sales in our first-quarter were up 9.5 percent and all of our pointers and indicators that we typically look at are things that are moving in the right direction for us. So, we feel pretty good about where things are.”

Impact Of Low Oil Prices

On the impact that lower gasoline prices have had on the business, Weisz said, “Keep in mind that most of the people that travel to our resorts is a combination of people that own, and the people that already bought are going to go regardless of kind of what happens to the oil prices.”

“And typically we have a combination of drive markets and fly markets, but even with oil as it is today relative to where it was last year, things are still a lot better than they were.”

Strong Dollar

Weisz was asked if a strong dollar has hurt the company. He replied, “It hasn’t hurt us materially in terms of the FX rate. Little bit of the net, but nothing that’s too substantial there. We are pretty much winding down the sales side in Europe as a result. So, now we are just managing the resorts there. So, we have a less of an impact.”