CHICAGO With a drop of some 6,400 rooms in 2000, the American Hotel & Lodging Association is aggressively pushing to pump up its membership.
If we re going to be the advocate of our industry we need to increase our ranks, said chairman John Russell, speaking at the group s annual conference here at the Chicago Hilton & Towers.
On April 6, a proposal will be put before the AH&LA membership and board of directors that Russell expects will accelerate the membership drive.
Russell said since many hoteliers might think membership is cost prohibitive, What we re going to offer is a trial: $1 for one room for one year for the next 100 days [from when the policy is approved], A 100-room property would then have both state and federation membership for one year for $100. Normally, the cost runs about $8 per room, said Russell.
Currently AH&LA has 11,400 property members but with some 52,000 domestic properties, we need to do a better job, said Russell. We have a goal of 150,000 new rooms this year. We also want to increase our retention rate from 86% to 90% systemwide.
Toward that end, outgoing president/CEO Bill Fisher and his staff and other executives will visit the top 100 companies the Starwoods, the Hiltons of the world to present the AH&LA story, said Russell.
Additionally, the organization has hired two [in Philadelphia and Atlanta]of a potential six regional directors of sales to go out and sell memberships to help the states sell their memberships [AH&LA members must join through the state first.] The effort has brought some 4,500 new rooms into the system, with an estimated 5,000 in the pipeline. (4/6/01) Stefani C. O Connor