AAHOA Members Raise Concerns

NATIONAL REPORT— Is the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) still doing things “by the book,” or has the organization’s current leadership taken to writing several new chapters to the group’s administrative and operational story? Late last year, a number of business (i.e. corporate governance) concerns were raised by some AAHOA members, with a pair of Canadian hotel executives strongly questioning several of the association’s organizational and political actions seemingly taken unilaterally or— at the very least— without the full blessings of the membership. Accordingly, despite AAHOA Chairman Hitesh Bhakta’s assurances to HOTEL BUSINESS® these charges have been answered and all concerns addressed, it appears there could well be some residue of these contentious issues smoldering as the association convenes its annual conference in Grapevine, TX this week. Initially bringing potential corporate-governance concerns to the fore via a letter to the association’s present-day executive line-up were Silver Hotel Group Owner Deepak Ruparell, a former regional director in western Canada for AAHOA, and Northampton Group President Vinod Patel. Claiming to represent the “views of many current [and potential]Canadian AAHOA members” as well as of other interested parties, Ruparell and Patel focused on three specific issues they see impacting AAHOA: the corporate-governance challenge; the AAHOA board’s decision to redistribute the Canadian regional directorships; and the referendum issues with respect to due process, precedent, power and fairness of outcome. In particular, Ruparell said AAHOA’s executives might be failing to adhere to due process in matters dealing with elections, office-holding in general, representation, etc. “Here in Canada, we’re very concerned with AAHOA playing by the rules. We need to make sure that we— as a leading industry association— don’t set dangerous and reckless precedents,” he said. Right at the top of Ruparell’s list of concerns was that of AAHOA’s decision to do away with the presence of regional director slots allocated to Canada. “We’re supposed to be a global organization; let’s act like one. The board shouldn’t take away Canadian seats, at least, not without due process ([in the form of an official consensus],” he said. Offering up the board’s assessment of the situation, Bhakta told HOTEL BUSINESS®: “To properly respond to this criticism, we have to go back in history to the association’s beginnings when there were 10 directors-at-large. After that first year [when we merged with IAHI], the board became top-heavy, so for a number of years we thought about eliminating at-large positions and replacing them with regional directors. Accordingly, our Bylaws and Strategic Planning Committees recognized a need to further regionalize AAHOA… without increasing the size of the board. As such, it was decided the way to do this would be to convert a number of at-large positions to regional seats,” he said. Along these lines, the question arose as to what might be the minimum number of AAHOA members needed in any given region in order to merit representation. On this note, Bhakta pointed out: “100 members was suggested as the minimum threshold… and all of Canada only lists about 75 members, even combining the Eastern and Western regions.” As Bhakta maintained, the board in no way circumvented any standing rules in reaching this decision to rescind the Canadian regional directors. “The move was fully voted on, and the bylaws themselves were amended [to reflect this re-commitment to a representation-by-population standard]. In fact, all of this was done at a meeting in Dayton, last November, with more than 80% of the board present, including both of the Canadian directors,” he said. That said, it would seem much of what Ruparell and Patel voiced an opinion on constitutes little more than old news. If anything, Bhakta said this turn of events points to a real need for a more active recruitment c