Do you think there’s a problem in the industry when it comes to recruiting new talent?
Only when it comes to making people understand the crucial role our industry plays in creating jobs. Tourism is either the number one or number two employer in a number of states across the country. In Illinois, tourism is the second largest employer behind agriculture. So while I think there’s a much larger awareness than ever that there are so many career opportunities in this industry, I think it could be even better. And I’m going to keep pushing to let people know that when you get someone who has the right ambition into a hotel, they can have a great career.
But what about the high staff turnover rates at most hotels?
Well, turnover is good because it gives someone else an opportunity. It also keeps a hotel fresh and viable.
What advice did Nancy Johnson offer you as incoming chair?
She said I needed to learn to do without sleep since this is a full-time job. Look, Nancy has done a phenomenal job developing the Women in Lodging program and establishing 21 chapters in the U.S. I promised her that I would keep pushing this program forward. And like her, I will be getting members involved in the issues that impact the industry.
What else is on your to-do list for 2013 as Chair of AH&LA?
The biggest is to ensure a smooth transition in leadership at AH&LA. With Joe McInerney retiring our number one priority is to find the next AH&LA president, which is hard because Joe is so well connected and knows everything about this industry. Hopefully we’ll have that solidified by the first quarter.
The next is to provide relevant programming that our members want to be a part of. It’s all about growing the base. Finally, we need to continue being the number one voice on the Hill when it comes to lodging issues. There’s no other voice out there that can represent the industry like we do. So I’m pushing for a stronger commitment from our government affairs team to get us out there campaigning.
I’m also looking to work more closely with other hotel associations. For instance, AAHOA has such a strong influence and such a great commitment from its members and we need to make sure that the two entities are tied at the hip when it comes to the issues that affect the industry. I realize they have their own agenda, but there are so many shared ideas and thoughts between the two associations that we need to make sure we’re working together going forward.
What are the legislative priorities for AH&LA going into 2013?
When it comes to the ADA rules and regulations, there are still a few items that need to be fleshed out, so that’s the first order of business. And with tourism so huge for the U.S. and so many travelers around the world that are looking to come here, we need some relief from Washington on the visa issue. It’s ridiculous the small number of areas in China where people can receive U.S. visas given how many Chinese travelers want to visit the U.S. Great Britain has twice the number of visa outlets in China than us, so the Chinese are bypassing the U.S. and going there since Great Britain makes it so much easier on foreign visitors. I think the government has been slow to recognize the importance of this issue, but it’s starting to come around. We just need to continue to push.
Do you see the results from the recent election helping things?
You know, early on in the President’s first term there wasn’t a whole lot of support from his administration for tourism, so we spent the last two years educating the White House on the importance of our industry when it comes to jobs. Once the Obama administration understood, it acted quickly to promote tourism. So going into the new year we’re looking to continue making sure everyone in Washington understands tourism’s importance to the overall economy. We’re confident that the White House will continue to be on board with these efforts.
How about the online booking tax?
The momentum around this issue slowed down recently, but it’s still a top priority. The online travel agencies are still fighting the tax as strongly as we’re pushing it. I’m sure our big tug-of-war will resume in the first quarter of the year.
The association is in the process of transitioning to a new revenue model. Can you give me your take on it?
The current funding model largely consists of state associations receiving their dues from the hotels within their state under a partnership with AH&LA, and in the long run this has limited our income. So our strategic planning committee hired a consultant to come up with a new business model. The consultant quickly determined that we needed to diversify our funding by involving the hotel chains directly. The benefit of this approach is that each one of these chains brings with it the thousands of hotels they represent, which broadens our membership base. It also gets the chains actively involved in the lobbying efforts of AH&LA, making our voice that much stronger.
You’ve championed many of the sustainability initiatives at Kimpton. Why does sustainability remain an important issue for you and why is it important for the lodging industry?
It’s funny, I don’t come from a background of environmental awareness and it wasn’t until 2005 that I really started to educate myself on sustainability. At that point I had met so many guests that had told me it was something we should look into implementing at our hotels. So I learned what exactly the phrase “sustainability” meant and how it could be applied to hospitality. It started simple enough. Kimpton was the first hotel company to ask its guests to recycle and we did that by adding a second container to each room and including a note explaining what it was for. When a hotel implements an initiative like that it can either go bad quickly or it might be a home run. Fortunately for us it was a home run. Once we started to see so many comments from our guests saying how great it was that we were doing this, we decided to take it a step further by looking at how we operate on a daily basis. We scrutinized everything from the copy paper we were buying to the waste that we were producing, figured out how best we could reduce our footprint. Beyond the recycling and the waste reduction, we looked at our energy expenditures. You know, hotels are big power plants, so some of our employees came up with the idea to move to CFL bulbs.
When we went to implement this company-wide initiative and re-train not only our general managers but our line-level staff as well we found that many of our younger employees were already doing at home a lot of what we were proposing and they were excited to bring these practices into the workplace. This was important because it was our employees who made all these changes work in our hotels. And when we started tracking the impact of these changes we found that we could save a great deal of money through our sustainability initiatives.
Do you find that that’s the best way to sell the idea of sustainability to other hotels?
It is, because each hotel is owned by a separate entity and some owners are just in the real estate business and they don’t necessarily care if they own a hotel or an office building. What they do care about though is what they spend on the operating costs. So if one of these owners invests in re-lamping their hotels and retooling their energy management to make it more efficient, you’re looking at as little as a five year return on that investment. That’s why you see a lot more LEED certified buildings and retrofits being implemented.
The latest stats show the industry is well into a recovery, yet there are still soft spots. Where are they and how should the industry address them?
Currently both the East Coast and West Coast are tremendously busy, with cities like San Francisco and New York seeing all time highs when it comes to occupancy and rates. And now this trend seems to be moving inward to the center of the country. So you’ll see a group that might want to go to New York, but doesn’t want to spend $800 for a room, then they’ll look at Chicago or St. Louis, or Denver as a good option. This is providing a positive lift to hotels across the board. During the recession, meeting planners learned that they didn’t have to book groups at hotels far in advance—they could book for the month during the month—which made it difficult to forecast business from one quarter to the next. Now things are tightening back up again so groups need to plan further in advance, which is going to be good for us in the long run.
