WASHINGTON, DC—The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA) has unveiled its Pro-Growth Policy Agenda for 2014, highlighting the key areas on which the U.S. lodging industry will focus its advocacy efforts.
AH&LA and its members will focus particular attention on the following issues:
- Reforming the country’s immigration system to ensure employers have access to a seasonal workforce when no American workers are available to fill jobs
- Implementing targeted changes to the Affordable Care Act, including changing the law’s current definition of a full-time employee from 30- to 40-hours per week and repealing the auto-enrollment mandate
- Ensuring that any new federal tax proposals are pro-business and do not restrain the lodging industry’s ability to continue growing and creating jobs
- Securing passage in the House of Representatives of the Jobs Originated Through Launching Travel (JOLT) Act, to drive more foreign visitors to this country and to the front doors of hotels
- Eliminating the growing threat posed by “patent trolls” and their predatory, abusive lawsuits
- Securing an extension of the terrorism risk insurance (TRIA) program to provide an important backstop for economic continuity and recovery
The lodging industry will also work closely with partners at the state and local level to beat back extreme living wage initiatives that are proven job killers, and advance policies to level the playing field between hotels and their online competitors on issues of tax parity, according to the association.