AAHOA Uses Convention Floor for Mediation Launch

The first full day produced a long-awaited announcement that a non-binding mediation program is now in place for the 8,500 AAHOA members who control 20,000 hotels with one million rooms that account for 50% of the limited service market and 37% of the US' 52,000-hotel inventory. Two-thirds of the group's hotels are franchise-owned.

The National Franchise Mediation Program of New York City will be supplying the manpower while Cendant Corp., also NYC based, has taken the lead to pay the $1,500 per claim fee for disputes involving its hotels. Fred Schwartz, AAHOA president, tells GlobeSt.com that more hotel franchise corporations are expected to follow suit.

Meanwhile, Schwartz says the Atlanta-based AAHOA is within six weeks of rolling out a bulk-purchasing program for insurance coverage for its members, whose combined annual payments amount to $200 million of clout for $38 billion of hotel assets under their control. One carrier, Philadelphia Indemnity, has just signed for the launch and talks are underway with a second insurance company.

Schwartz says the insurance program, being steered by Tarun Vig with AAHOA's Insurance Services, will shave premium costs 7% to 10% in the first year. Added savings are expected in subsequent years of the policy. He says "we can't write a policy today," but it won't be long.

The convention, being staged at Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, kicked off with 3,600 hoteliers registered and 2,900 already in place. The first full day brought 300 walk-ins for a sold-out floor with 306 exhibitors and a conference agenda that spanned empowerment sessions for women juggling home, family and hotel operations to equity-raising seminars and management programs, all aimed at improving the bottom line in a capital market scenario with ample opportunities to trade up as many are now doing.

AAHOA was last in Dallas/Fort Worth in 1995. Today's sessions include an independent hoteliers' conference, with a full menu of topics including technology, "greening" properties, mediation, franchising and marketing. Tomorrow afternoon's spotlight shines on future hoteliers and young professional hotel owners, who are now assuming leadership roles in their families' portfolios. And that, says AAHOA Schwartz, is where the stage is being set for trade-ups since many portfolio heirs hold hospitality degrees from leading universities and are now looking to reposition the package for the family, in many cases first-generation immigrants.