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1. Execs Stepping Down at AAHOA
The Asian American Hotel Owners Association announced President and CEO Cecil Staton is stepping down from his position, and Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Rachel Humphrey also plans to leave the association on August 7. According to the news release announcing the move, AAHOA is "conducting a comprehensive search process to identify new leadership."
No explanation was provided for what sparked the leadership shakeup. Staton replaced Chip Rogers as chief executive at AAHOA in 2019. Humphrey spent more than two decades with the association, becoming part of its executive leadership in 2015.
“I’m grateful to have led this organization through one of the hardest times in our industry’s and association’s history through our concentrated efforts related to COVID-19 support and relief and for making a difference in the lives of so many hoteliers,” Staton said in a statement. “AAHOA has the most dedicated team with whom I’ve had the privilege to work, and I’ve been impressed with their commitment to excellence from the moment I joined this great organization. Our work to develop AAHOA’s new Strategic Plan holds the promise to propel the association forward toward its fullest potential.”
2. Hotel CEOs Expect Concurrent Demand Surge, Labor Crisis
Top hotel brand CEOs speaking during an NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference webinar said they remain confident in the ultimate return of performance for hotels, but a summer demand surge will happen at the same time hotels struggle to staff up.
The costs and availability of staffing are growing challenges, said BWH Hotel Group President and CEO David Kong.
"Wages have already gone up tremendously, and I expect that to continue," Kong said. "When we talked about labor challenges last year before the pandemic, it was a challenge. Right now, it is a crisis — a tremendous crisis not just for our industry but for many, many other industries."
3. Manhattan Hotel Project Stuck in Brooklyn
An $80 million, 26-story modular construction AC Hotel project viewed by some as an important test case for the construction process has come to a grinding halt as developer 842 Enterprises Inc. struggles to find funds to finish the project, The Wall Street Journal reports. Currently 100 premade hotel rooms are sitting in a dock in Brooklyn "covered in waterproof membranes to shield them from rain" after being shipped in from Poland.
"The rooms are roughly the size of a small bus," the newspaper reports. "Each one has a couch, a bed and a television, say people who have inspected them. Only soap and towels are missing for guests to check in. The first boatload of modules arrived in New York last summer and two more shipments followed. A fourth and final shipment is scheduled for the near future, which would bring the total room count to 168."
4. More Black Company Directors as Other Diversity Slips
The percentage of new Black directors of Fortune 500 companies roughly tripled last year, according to data from Heidrick & Struggles, but the number of women and Latino directors fell at the same time, Bloomberg reports.
"The protests that followed the murder of George Floyd by police last year have put pressure on companies to add more Black directors as part of a broader focus on racial disparities in the workforce and executive ranks," the news agency notes. "About three quarters of the Black appointments came after Floyd’s death, the report said.
Women and Latino activists have also advocated for greater representation, as they’ve expressed concern that heightened focus on one group could be to the detriment of others."
5. A Look at Hilton's 1960s Lunar Dreams
As Amazon founder Jeff Bezos prepares to become one of the first "space tourists" on a flight with his company Blue Origin, CNN takes a look back at early stellar aspirations for business people, detailing Barron Hilton's 1967 plans for the "Lunar Hilton."
Hilton unveiled the concept at the 1967 American Astronomical Society conference in Dallas, stating: "I firmly believe that we are going to have Hiltons in outer space, perhaps even soon enough for me to officiate at the formal opening of the first."
He died in 2019 without ever having stepped foot, or breaking ground, on the moon.