March April 2018

414 29th Street Sacramento, CA 95816 916-444-5780 www.calodging.com EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE CHAIR Scott VandenBerg Hyatt Regency Sacramento VICE CHAIR Michael Pace Clift Hotel IMMEDIATE PAST CHAIR Elvin Lai Ocean Park Inn SECRETARY/TREASURER Bijal Patel Coast Redwood Hospitality GOVERNMENT & LEGAL RELATIONS CHAIR René Boskoff Monterey Marriott Hotel AUDIT & INVESTMENT COMMITTEE CHAIR Laurenne Douglas Pacific Plaza Hotels 2018 BOARD OF DIRECTORS Matt Adams Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego Bhupen Amin Lotus Hotels & Investments Ed Bear AutoClerk, Inc. René Boskoff Monterey Marriott Hotel Javier Cano JW Marriott, LA Live Russ Cox Interstate Hotels & Resorts Vipul Dayal VNR Management Laurenne Douglas Pacific Plaza Hotels, Inc. Paul Gibbs Crowne Plaza LAX Ross Gimpel PSAV Terri Haack Terranea Resort Jon Handlery, CHA Handlery Hotels, Inc. Elvin Lai Ocean Park Inn Mark LeBlanc Interstate Hotels & Resorts Hee Won Lim Pacific Palms Resort James Lim Omni San Francisco Robert Mayer, Jr. The Robert Mayer Corporation Stephanie McCaffrey McCaffrey House Elliott Mills Disneyland Resort Michael Pace Clift Hotel Bijal Patel Coast Redwood Hospitality & Management Bimal Patel, CHA Concept Hotels Pragna Patel-Mueller Samata Management, Inc. Tom Patton, CHA Ramada Santa Barbara Chip Rogers AAHOA Pat Seminario Newport Beach/Irvine/ Bayview/Costa Mesa Marriott Hotels John Spear Hotel Drisco Jeffrey Thurrell Fisher & Phillips, LLP Wes Tyler, CHA Chancellor Hotel On Union Square Scott VandenBerg Hyatt Regency Sacramento ADVERTISING & DESIGN LLM Publications 503-445-2220  |  800-647-1511 www.LLMpubs.com Design & Layout Sales Representative Stephanie Pendell Dan Hartzog danh@llmpubs.com Copyright © 2018. All Rights Reserved 2 CALIFORNIA LODGING NEWS MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT Lynn Mohrfeld CH&LA President & CEO Natural disasters are a way of life and unfortunately many communities in California suffered from disasters including the recent devastating fires and mudslides. Now in recovery mode, many hotels and restaurants have yet to bring back the business that has been lost. Recent fires in California’s Wine Country and Southern California have devastated families and businesses. Our thoughts and prayers are with the staff and families of the Hilton Sonoma Wine Country and Fountaingrove Inn in Santa Rosa whose properties did not survive the fire, but whose guests and employees were safely evacuated. In areas hit by natural disaster, hospitality businesses have suffered a steep drop in visitors over the recent months. Just in Napa County, wildfires caused a $17 million decline in hotel revenues. Hotels are an integral part of the local and state economy, supporting over 575,000 jobs and over $66 billion in guest spending. Local municipalities, especially those that are highly visited by tourists, rely heavily on the hospitality industry to provide jobs and tax revenue. When a tourist region such as Napa or Santa Barbara experience a natural disaster, entire communities are affected as much needed visitors and the resulting transient occupancy revenues are simply not coming in. I am pleased to hear that Visit California has launched a $2 million marketing campaign to assure travelers that regions hit by natural disaster still remain visitor destinations and are “open for business.” Additionally, Visit Napa Valley has done a great job in marketing efforts and I have seen hotels in both Napa and Sonoma that have done a great job leveraging social media platforms and contacting guests directly to let them know they are back in business. In the future, there are unfortunately going to be more natural disasters. I hope that we can learn from this past year’s disasters to prevent future ones and be better prepared to deal with the potential loss of tourism. These communities will recover, it will take time and I encourage anyone to spend time in the communities to help them once again return to normal. 