AAHOA Attendees Set Record Straight With Franchisors

NASHVILLE, TN— A half-dozen leaders of some of the world’s top hotel-franchising organizations brought together at this year’s annual Asian American Hotel Owners Association convention here seemed to be absolutely taken aback when yesterday’s audience overwhelmingly expressed a belief that “franchisors didn’t do enough to help franchisees in the wake of the tragic and industry-damaging events of Sept. 11.” Indeed, the assembled executive group of Hilton Hotels’ Tom Keltner, Choice Hotels’ Chuck Ledsinger, US Franchise Systems’ Mike Leven, Accor Lodging’s George Le Mener, Cendant’s Steve Holmes and Six Continents’ Ravi Saligram appeared to be genuinely caught off-guard when more than twice as many AAHOA delegates indicated they didn’t feel franchisors did enough to help them over the course of the past seven months. In fact, most of the franchise-company executives taking part in this morning’s Industry Issues Forum claimed they couldn’t see how much more flexible and/or cooperative they could have been during these trying times…short of directly giving franchisees money— a concept lightly regarded and quickly discarded (by franchisors). AAHOA delegates also showed themselves to be especially aggressive vis-à-vis the matter of mediation to resolve franchisor/franchisee disputes, with some 85% of those in attendance supporting mediation as a preferred avenue to settle such differences. Other topics of concern identified— in order of importance— to the franchise-firm executives “in the hot seat[s]” on-stage included questions dealing with: territorial protection; liquidated damages; local marketing and reservations contributions; “unreasonable” Product Improvement Plans (PIPs); and unwieldy transfer-fee requirements and regulations. —Michael Billig