"Hotel Management," in collaboration with AAHOA, will launch a new one-day conference in Houston on April 24, designed to offer immediately actionable, location-specific hotel-industry metrics for area investors and developers. In addition to major area hoteliers and other industry experts, AAHOA Treasurer Hitesh (HP) Patel will speak at the conference on a panel titled, "Minimizing Costs."

AAHOA Vice Chairman Bhavesh Patel spoke with "No Vacancy" podcast creator Glenn Haussman on the sacrifices, challenges and rewards of being an AAHOA officer and planning the annual AAHOA convention.

Getting ready for the 2017 AAHOA Annual Convention & Trade Show? Make sure you download the AAHOA App now, and then keep it on your phone for easy access to AAHOA resources year-round. Search "AAHOA 2017" in your app store to download now! #AAHOACON17

On Friday, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed legislation that gives local governments more power to regulate short-term rental platforms, such as Airbnb. The legislation, S.B. 1578, enables local governments to adopt ordinances requiring short-term rental hosts to register. "[These] registries would give local governments information needed to regulate and tax the rentals." Click here to read more from the "Richmond Times-Dispatch."

Last week, Mayor Catherine Pugh vetoed legislation that would have raised the city’s minimum wage to $15 by 2022. In her explanation, Pugh noted that requiring employers to pay a significantly higher minimum wage would decrease competition in Baltimore, which would have negative impacts on both commerce and unemployment. Click here for the full story. 

AAHOA has partnered with BDWest this year to offer FREE admission for AAHOA members! Register for the event using code "AAHOA17" and enjoy a trade show with more than 300 exhibitors and plenty of networking opportunities, held April 5-6 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

What keeps the leaders of the hospitality industry’s big brands up at night? For Best Western Hotels & Resorts President and CEO David Kong, it’s "the pace and scale of change" that sometimes causes him to lose sleep. "I’ve been in this business a long time, and I’ve never seen change happen so fast and at such a magnitude," Kong said during panel titled "A View From the Top" at last week’s Hunter Hotel Investment Conference.

The merger between Marriott and Starwood might have been completed in late September 2016, but that was just the beginning. Since that time, owners and their asset managers have awaited confirmation that related merger expenses would be "net neutral," as initially promised. Then, in March 2017, a communication came down the pike detailing "Project Tetris," which refers to Marriott’s planned integration of Starwood properties into Marriott’s finance model. It is one of many expected initiatives directed specifically at Starwood-branded hotel owners.

In an extensive interview with "Fortune," Airbnb founder and CEO Brian Chesky recently discussed the company’s competition with traditional hotels, and its future expansion and IPO plans. Chesky said Airbnb’s competition with traditional hotels is overstated, as it serves a different segment of travelers. The average Airbnb stay is 2.5-times longer than the average hotel stay, and roughly 20 percent of all Airbnb stays are longer than 30 days.

This January, the Republican Party celebrated its near-historic domination of the federal government and state governments nationwide with the swearing in of President Donald J. Trump and the opening gavels of dozens of state legislatures across the country. History tells us it could very well be short-lived.

Four years ago, in an interview with USA Today, then-Carlson COO Thorsten Kirschke made an offhand prediction on hotel loyalty. "[O]ver the next five years," he said, "[the industry will see] a whole evolution of loyalty programs, picking up good ideas from, believe it or not, banks and different industries altogether."

While many hoteliers have downplayed the sharing economy’s rising competition in previous years, the increasing market penetration of Airbnb, and others like it, has steadily risen and is now expanding outside of the large, metropolitan markets it was once contained to.