The busy summer travel season is just about wrapped up, which means the Suite Spot is due for another quarterly check-in with the American Hotel & Lodging Association to get the latest news and developments taking place in the hospitality industry. 

AHLA President and CEO Rosanna Maietta joins the Suite Spot to discuss current hotel trends, industry challenges, the importance of mentors and mentees in hospitality, and more.

Ryan Embree:

Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what’s trending in hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, as always, Ryan Embree. So happy that you are listening to us here and ready to bring you another incredible episode with our quarterly check-in with AHLA in a preview of the 2025 Hospitality Show. It’s my immense privilege to welcome in our special guest for today’s episode, President and CEO, Rosanna Mietta. Rosanna, thank you so much for being with me on the back on the Suite Spot.

Rosanna Maietta:

Good to see you again, Ryan. Thanks for having us.

Ryan Embree:

Yeah, we’re excited to talk about the Hospitality Show. We’re excited to talk about AHLA. What we’ve been up to last time we were together was at NYU IHIF. Since then, the AHLA and the hospitality industry in general has been super busy, that super travel season, that hoteliers love to see travel all over the across the country. Catch us up on some of the top issues AHLA is focusing on right now and maybe some of the key wins that have happened year to date.

Rosanna Maietta:

Sure. It’s been an incredibly busy summer. There’s nothing like a quiet summer anymore. We’ve had a lot going on both in Washington and around the country. Obviously, the most important thing the administration has been focused on over the last six months of this year was passing the one big beautiful bill, which while it had many, many provisions tucked away in it, the ones that our industry was really focused on were those that impacted our small business community, our franchise community, and our employees. So we were focused on passing provisions like the 100% bonus depreciation and making that permanent, preserving the like kind exchange, deferring capital gains tax on real estate at point of sale. All those changes will help the industry reinvest and grow. But we also helped to promote the no tax on tips, which will support 800,000 employees in the industry who benefit from tips. And so we’re working on what that guidance actually looks like once that detail is developed and how, and educating our employers on how they can roll that out to their employees, but also provisions around overtime and child tax credit and family medical leave. So all of those things, were really important to our industry. And so we were really pleased to help get that over the finish line. Outside of Washington, there has been a lot going on, whether it is advancing legislation in markets like Boston or Philadelphia on human trafficking training and prevention, which our industry has been leading on to working in Los Angeles, where we have seen over the last two years very intense work around pushing back against onerous regulations that would essentially increase wages for the industry by 40% overnight. Simply a situation we cannot, we cannot handle because demand is so low in Los Angeles, it’s second to only San Francisco. And San Francisco in terms of occupancy, has been starting to see an uptick, whereas Los Angeles has not, it has not come back to pre-COVID levels. So we’ve been working really aggressively there with the business community to push back on that ordinance that has gone into law, but we are still working with city council to try to make some amendments that would make sure that the travel and hospitality sector is strong, especially in the lead up to some of these bigger events that we’re anticipating next year, whether it’s World Cup and, and a look ahead to the Olympics. So, a lot happening in some of those key markets. And then across the country at the state level, also working to promote a level playing field with short-term rentals and so impacting legislation in key states.

Ryan Embree:

Yeah, never a dull moment over there in our industry. You know, we’re in a constant state of change and disruption, a lot of these in positive ways, but it, we look to AHLA as kind of a north star for a way to roll out some of these things for both hotel employers as well as employees. So we’ll continue to look there and really appreciate all the work and advocacy AHLA continues to do on behalf of hoteliers across the country. Summer’s also a time for summer jobs and internships and I’ve had the privilege to interview on this podcast some incredible hospitality leaders. And if I had a dime every single time somebody was talking about how, I started as a summer job or a summer internship and then will look at where they are today, 30, 40 year career in hospitality. So important. I know AHLA, you guys have your interns. We host an intern here at Travel Media Group. Can you talk and speak to the importance of internships? It’s no secret that our industry obviously has been battling with staffing shortages continues to do so. How has internships and hospitality mentors, how can they play a role in helping young people see a career in hospitality?

Rosanna Maietta:

So, incredibly important. Who doesn’t remember their first internship? I remember mine, it was unpaid back in the day when you could do that. But it was essential to building the foundation of what it means to work in the hospitality environment. Working in an office environment or on property. You can learn so much. And that ability to shadow different people is really so meaningful. And I think that what you’re seeing, so many more sophisticated interns coming in with already depth of experience and can hit the ground running. And so I think that’s really so rewarding to see. We’ve had our own interns here at AHLA and we’re sorry to see them go. You wanna wanna hold on to all those good quality individuals? But again, couldn’t stress enough how important it is. I think you’re seeing more in more companies, properties bringing on interns or STAs or apprenticeships, those go a long way in creating that bond with the industry. And so couldn’t stress more the importance of having those. I think the other thing that we are really, that our AHLA foundation has really been focused on is building out a mentorship program and a leadership mentorship program that has been, we’ve been making the inroads for that for a couple of years. And that one-on-one connection, being able to rely on someone in the industry who maybe it has a career path that you are looking to emulate or is completely different career path that you could still learn from is really important. This year’s program exceeded our own goals. We had more than 250 participants from 80 companies, and it included all the different business sections, career levels, participants from all sorts of segments, whether independent properties or branded hotels, and even management companies. The other really important stat was that 83% of the participants on both sides, whether mentors or mentees, were from underrepresented communities. So I think that really also speaks to how diverse our industry is and how important that is to who we are and who we serve. So we do have that formal mentoring program. I would encourage anyone to reach out to the AHLA foundation if that’s something that you’re interested in. And I’m so pleased to see how many more mentors we have reaching out to say, I want to mentee someone. And I think that says a lot about who we are as an industry and that heart service mentality that we lead with.

Ryan Embree:

It’s so incredible. That’s an amazing stat. Thank you for sharing that with us, Rosanna. And it doesn’t, I think all of us also remember maybe our first internship, but, there’s a lot of people that I have on this podcast that also remember their first mentor, whether that was an official mentor or not, somebody that they probably looked up to followed in the footsteps, management companies, brands during this time, I will say, I know it’s been tough with staffing, but they’ve gotten really creative over the last couple years and looking for more resources. And this mentorship program, the AHLA provides, seems like a great outlet to go in there and try to find, because a lot of you have an incredible stat that you share about those frontline workers that end up being GMs can do. Do you have that at the top of your head?

Rosanna Maietta:

I believe it’s 53%.

Ryan Embree:

Yeah. It’s absolutely incredible. And there’ve been so many times where you talk about just finding a career through hospitality. We’re fast approaching National Hotel Employee day, September 1st, everyone get your social media profiles ready for that one posting on that day, over 2 million hotel workers in America. It’s absolutely incredible. You spoke about some of the mentorship ways, but what are some other ways we can kind of encourage people to share some incredible stories? I know at the hospitality show, one of my favorite places is the GM of the Year Awards and kind of recognizing those. How can we get those stories out there, get more people participating in our workforce?

Rosanna Maietta:

Sure. Well, and Hotel Appreciation Day or Dmployee Appreciation Day falls on Labor Day this year. So also, you know, doubly special and you’re right, I mean, our general managers are so critical to telling that story and we really view general managers as the best brand ambassadors for the industry, right? Because so many of them, half, as