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HOTELS Interview: New AH&LA chair outlines goals

As Ron Vlasic begins his year-long term as chair of the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA), he faces challenges that include helping the industry navigate the impacts of the recent U.S. election, continuing to work on goals such as making hotels greener and coping with a worldwide economy that is still somewhat shaky.

Fortunately, Vlasic is well prepared for the role thanks to his position as the Chicago-based regional vice president of hotels for Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants. Through that job, Vlasic has served as the liaison between various hotel ownership groups and the Kimpton home office in addition to advising Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on issues including sustainability through environmentally friendly business practices.

HOTELS sat down with Vlasic earlier this week to discuss his outlook on the state of the hotel industry and his priorities in his new role with AH&LA.

HOTELS: What is your assessment of the current state of the U.S. hotel industry, the biggest opportunities and challenges right now?

Ron Vlasic: I think the largest opportunity we have is that tourism is making a huge comeback in the U.S. In the past few years, everybody wanted to do that European vacation or go overseas. With the state of the economy in those areas, a lot more folks have been saying, “Let’s see the U.S.” So a lot of our friends in some of the neighboring states have seen a large influx of travelers. As an example, Chicago has seen so much from the Madison (Wisconsin), Milwaukee, Indianapolis and St. Louis markets, where in the past we haven’t really seen that.

The biggest challenge we have is finding great help. A lot of hotel companies are stepping up to the plate and offering some great training programs and taking advantage of it and getting a lot of these recruits out of college or even high school and teaching them the business. That’s always a challenge — finding enough help to take care of the hotels.

HOTELS: The results of the recent U.S. election were a hot topic around the world. What do you think their impact will be for the hotel industry?

Vlasic: The current administration in the past two years has been making a large effort to push tourism. In the first part of the administration, it really wasn’t top of mind. AH&LA has gotten onto [Capitol] Hill and talked to all of the legislators and stressed the importance. In many states, [tourism] is usually the first or second employer base, and a lot of legislators did not know that. So we educated them. That went all the way to the White House, and then you started seeing the president talking about how tourism is important, people need to get traveling again and getting out there. We think he’ll continue that, and AH&LA has already started setting up appointments. We’re doing our Legislative Action Summit in April, and we’ll hit the Hill again and reiterate that same message. Every time we do that each year, we see a nice spike of tourism going into the spring and summer months.

HOTELS: In your role as a liaison between ownership groups and Kimpton, what are some of the main concerns you hear from owners?

Vlasic: They’re always worried about occupancy and if there’s enough to keep the business afloat. One of the great things that comes out of that dialogue is the unique bond between the ownership group and the management company of creating new ways to find business. The challenge is, what else can you do to reinvent yourself as a hotel? We do that each year. We take a pause, take a look at who we are, meet with the ownership groups, and then we retool and tweak what we’ve done in the past to try to enhance it. Our company is pretty flexible — we try to work with them.

HOTELS: What other ways might your job at Kimpton help you in your new position at AH&LA?

Vlasic: From working with the ownership groups, one of the biggest things I’ve learned is trying to get people on your same page, become an advocate for the industry. And I use that role in a reverse model too with the ownership groups and encourage them to get involved — write to their legislators — and surprisingly, they want to get involved. They want to be on top of it because they know it will affect their bottom line. So it ends up becoming a two-way street of communication — letting them know what’s going on and then reaching back out to them and saying you need to help us as well. Then we take that same message to our members in AH&LA, distribute that, and then all of a sudden it feels like everybody is cross-connected.

HOTELS: I know you have been active with sustainability issues. How would you assess the industry’s progress in this area?

Vlasic: Back in 2006 or 2007, (Chicago) Mayor Daley started the initiative of trying to go green with not just office buildings, but hotels as well. Being that we have four hotels in the city, being right next door to the mayor’s office, we reached out to him and asked how we could help, and we started working together to create some of the green initiatives. Some of the low-hanging fruit was the basics of changing out your light bulbs, figuring out how to recycle, being more efficient with your energy management. Once we established that criteria, we used that to help our fellow hoteliers in Illinois. Through the Illinois Hotel & Lodging Association we started a green initiative and got other general managers together and started a best practices campaign. Soon it spread throughout the state, and we ended up doing a buddy system, helping other hoteliers who weren’t that familiar. The city got quite a few accolades for that.

HOTELS: Does the progress stand out most to you, or do you notice things that still must be done in the area of sustainability?

Vlasic: The biggest issue was that with these initiatives, ownership groups were concerned about the cost factor of trying to go green. When they invested the time and energy to do case studies of where it could actually pay off, they found that within a short time frame of anywhere between three and five years, they could recoup those monies spent to make the building more efficient, and then going forward, lower their operating costs. That’s been the biggest push — the ownership groups are educating themselves on how they can save, and they’re banding together with the hotel operators to make it happen.

HOTELS: So is sustainability among your priorities as AH&LA chair?

Vlasic: It is. I think to get that message through involves connecting with some of our subgroups like the Under 30 Gateway. A lot of these young executives were kind of raised with that mentality, so they’re championing that. So now you see the next generation taking it a step further.

HOTELS: What are your priorities and goals as you begin your time as AH&LA chair? What do you hope you can say you accomplished a year from now?

Vlasic: My number one goal is to be an advocate on the Hill in Washington and to be the voice of the industry. I think the industry needs to understand that we’re fighting for the rights of hotels, that we’re on the Hill making our message loud and clear, keeping the education with our members, letting them know what things might be coming and also some of the learning programs out there. I look forward to the year.

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