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The Hospitality Show to Highlight ‘Backbone of Industry’ with General Manager Summit

By David Berman | March 20, 2023

At the first-ever Hospitality Show this summer, presented by the American Hotel & Lodging Association and Hotel Management, general managers of hotels around the country will have the opportunity to connect and learn at the General Manager Summit.

The Hospitality Show takes place from June 27-29 at the Venetian Resort Las Vegas — the summit will occur on the 28th. The event is free for all GMs attending the Hospitality Show.

Chip Rogers, CEO and President of AHLA, said the event serves to highlight the contributions of GMs — the “backbone of our entire industry.” During the pandemic, general managers helped lead many hotels through tough times, he said. 

“So many GMs had to, frankly, go back to the beginning of their career, cleaning rooms and operating the front desk and doing everything they possibly could to keep the hotel up and running,” Rogers said. “They deserve the recognition.”

AHLA has been honoring general managers for many years at the association’s Night of a Thousand Stars event, but Rogers said it was time to create a summit entirely for GMs. He said he’s not aware of any other general manager-specific events on a national scale. 

The summit is an extension of AHLA’s General Manager Network, which Rogers said already has over 1500 members in less than two years of existence. 

During the summit, GMs will hear from expert speakers on best practices in the industry — what’s working and what’s not working around operations, workforce and other topics. The association will also recognize the winners of AHLA’s 2023 Full Service and Select Service General Manager of the Year awards announced in January, and hand out new awards in the following categories: 

  • AHLA General Manager of the Year – Resort Property
  • AHLA General Manager of the Year – Independent Property
  • AHLA General Manager of the Year – Extended Stay Property
  • AHLA General Manager Lifetime Achievement Award

Interested parties can nominate GMs for the above awards here before March 31.

In general, Rogers said the inaugural Hospitality Show has been an undertaking to organize. He said the AHLA team knew there would be an appetite for an event focusing on operations and driving profit. 

“We’re expecting a large crowd,” he said. “The vendor community has stepped up in a big way. We’re way ahead of projections on where we thought we would be for investment into the show, and so we’re thinking it’s gonna be a really good first-year effort.”

At the summit, Rogers hopes GMs will be able to share ideas with each other to improve efficiency and solve property-level problems. 

“Combining technology solutions that are out there now with a summit really geared toward bringing best practices to the surface, I think every GM who shows up will go home in a lot better position,” he said. 

Credit

David Berman
Editor-in-Chief

David joined Hotel Interactive at the start of 2023. He previously worked as a page editor for Gannett’s Design Center and the editor-in-chief of The Daily Nebraskan. He graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with degrees in journalism, marketing and advertising/public relations in 2022.

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