www.calodging.com September/October 2022 17 The most challenging management issue that owners and managers face in the industry can easily be identified as our shortage with labor. A more critical factor of the labor shortage is finding great talent that understands the need to help support the goals of their leadership and team.” “ Without a doubt, margin pressure. We continue to see the cost of doing business accelerate. Driven primarily by wage inflation and cost inflation on goods and services we provide… We are also in an extremely challenging environment to obtain insurance such as work comp, GL, umbrella policies, and fire in certain regions. All of this combined with a rising interest rate environment will make for a challenging next few years.” “ Sunny Patel CEO Aelius Management Group Dhruv Patel President and COO Ridgemont Hospitality Dhruv Patel President and COO Ridgemont Hospitality How should hotels respond to and overcome that challenge? Because there are so many different reasons people have left the industry there is no one magic bullet to fix the issue. We are all exploring new employment pipelines, as the traditional searches are no longer working. Recently, we have found that more high school students are deciding to head straight to work and forgo a traditional college education, so being able to find those students as they make that transition to a work environment could be helpful for long term employment development.” “ Efficiency is key, learning how to do more with less has been the story of the last three years. We have tried to streamline offerings and operations, brands are starting to push forward on initiatives that would make cost reduction more difficult. The single biggest hurdle to overcoming margin pressure in California is legislation. Cities continue to adopt policies that dismantle our business model and scrap any efficiency we can gain to make up for gaps in RevPar…This will create little incentive for owners and developers to deliver jobs and tax revenue to cities that desperately need both.” “ Kristen Phillips Owner/Partner Waterford Hotels and Inns continues
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