Katherine Lugar in April took over as president and CEO of the American Hotel & Lodging Association, succeeding longtime head Joe McInerney. A two-decade veteran of the Washington lobbying world, Lugar was previously vice president of public affairs at the Retail Industry Leaders Association. Lugar spoke with hotels editor Danny King at the Lodging Conference in Phoenix last month.
Q: What's been your biggest surprise during your first five months on the job?
A: That there's a strong desire to see a national association that reflects the full breadth of the industry. I'm somewhat surprised by the overwhelming and unanimous enthusiasm and the real understanding on why it's so important to engage [in public policy].
Q: With Congress recently moving toward substantially cutting government travel allowances, what will it take to get the federal government to be less draconian in its approach to travel spending?
A: It's absolutely critical to get inside and tell our story in a bipartisan way about the activity travel engenders. The government sees a couple of isolated incidents [of reported overspending], and there's a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Q: The hotels and online travel agencies (OTAs) have clashed over issues such as distribution costs and financial responsibility for room taxes. Can hotels and the OTAs become more collaborative, or will it always be a push-pull relationship?
A: OTAs represent an important part of our distribution strategy, but the OTAs have tried for some time to make sure that they have an advantage over us in terms of collecting sales taxes. So even though the OTAs are important partners, we say they need to play on a level playing field. As far as distribution costs, we need to be smarter about how we manage our distribution and recognize that there are many channels.
Q: What can the hotel industry learn from the retail industry when it comes to public-policy involvement?
A: This whole idea of engagement. If you're not at the table, you're on the menu. The retail sector became very sophisticated when it came to that. We took a couple of very high-profile public policy issues and ran with it. And we had a victory over the banks when it came to swipe fees. The large retailers and the smallest retailers worked together in a highly collaborative way.
Q: What's the association's role when it comes to federal requirements in regards to hotel pool and Jacuzzi access for disabled guests?
A: Those regulations are in place, so we've been approaching it from a compliance standpoint, but we're also finding that those pool lifts are turning out to be a safety hazard, with children playing on them. So I hope we have an opportunity to go back to the table. The federal government doesn't always know best, and there may be other ways to accomplish [the Americans with Disabilities Act's] goal.
Q: You spoke at the conference about what you called the "narrative" of leaders in the hotel industry, and how that story can help the industry on the public policy front. Why?
A: Often with service-sector jobs, there's a false perception that they're dead-end jobs. Policy makers don't know the countless stories about individuals at entry-level jobs that are given the skills to move up quickly to management and to the executive level. That narrative will be very powerful to give [politicians] an understanding not just about the number of jobs we're creating, but that there's growth and upward mobility in these types of jobs.
Follow Danny King on Twitter @dktravelweekly.