The Voice of Innkeeping Vol 3 Issue 8 October 2018 | Page 9

From the desk of

Rob Fulton, AIHP CEO

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I hope you enjoy our October edition. A big thank you to our Communications Team, our contributors and our advertisers. We are blessed with an amazing team!

A big thank you to our members who weighed in on our most recent AIHP membership survey. Your feedback was invaluable on topics ranging from what new types of products and services you would like to see our Allied Partners offer, to what industry issues are most important to you this year, and which industry issues you anticipate for 2019 and beyond. All of your feedback is being shared with the AIHP Team, the Board of Directors, committees, and taskforces that may be working on these respective initiatives.

Based on your feedback advocacy, education and networking opportunities topped the list of areas AIHP should prioritize its time on. This most recent survey was particularly focused on areas where we should be focusing our advocacy efforts. No surprise, given the challenges with the OTA’s, Google etc. all of which topped the list.

Here is some of the feedback that you shared on issues important to you and where you would like to see your association focused:

• “Educating guests on booking direct”

• “How best to manage the increasing influence of OTA’s in my business”

“Setting the bed and breakfasts apart from short-term rentals and hotels in order to capture market share”

• “ADA lawsuits”

• “SEO and how to win with Google”

Shortly we will be rolling out an Advocacy section on our website, so that you have one place where you can regularly check on the progress of these issues.

Updates on a few recent initiatives we have been working on:

- Expedia Class Action Lawsuit:

Several AIHP members are participating in the class action lawsuit, facilitated by Joel Davidow (Cuneo, Gilbert & LaDuca, LLP (Washington DC). The defendants are Expedia, Hotels.com, Orbitz, and Travelocity. I will keep you updated as this lawsuit moves forward. We appreciate the feedback that each of you provided to help the attorneys navigate this issue.

- Google Coalition

A number of weeks ago, Lisa Kolb (Acorn Internet Services) hosted a webinar about the impact that Google is having on our industry - DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS - YOUR WEB PRESENCE IS BLEEDING . As a follow, up to that webinar we have established a collation of industry partners, that are working together to address our concerns

This is a very important issue to our industry, and we think collectively with our industry partners, the national associations and key state partners, we can work to be sure that small independent lodging has a voice. We hosted our first coalition call last week and laid out some next steps. Here are a few things we discussed:

We are exploring our support of legislation that has been introduced at the national level - "Stop Online Booking Scams Act" Senate bill S. 1164, House of Rep H.R. 2495

Our coalition will be developing talking points and verbiage for our members on this issue.

We will be asking you (the industry) to share with your respective congressional representatives how you are being impacted by OTA’s, Google etc...

The coalition has also discussed the value of a Book Direct campaign or partnering with other companies/organizations that may already be promoting a Book Direct campaign.

Stay tuned for more details…

RezOvation & Webervations purchased by evivo

I am sure that most of you are aware that Rezovation and Webervations have been sold to eviivo, a leading online booking specialist for independent hotels and bed and breakfasts. Janice Hurley, Head of Industry Relations sent an email to industry partners with some updates. We have posted on our website all the updates we have received. We will continue to keep you posted on any updates we receive.

Have a great month –

Best,

Rob