From your President and CEO

Anthony Anton

President and CEO anthonya@wahospitality.org

Building on all we’ve learned

“Here comes the sun.”

Lines of George Harrison’s great song keep coming to my mind. “It’s been years since it’s been clear.” But you’ve made it! You’ve proven your ability to run a business through thick and thin. I really mean it. This has been a brutal two years. We still have some headwinds, but the sun is breaking through the clouds and, as The Beatles sang in another famous song, “It’s gonna be all right.”

Now it’s time to focus on hope as we reinvent the industry yet again. It’s time to build on the lessons you’ve learned. And time to expand on the habits you adopted to get through the hard times just behind you. And as you do, the Washington Hospitality Association is here to help you win on every front.

Throughout COVID, we had to be better than ever at leveraging our resources to help businesses in Washington state. The four pillars of our organization – advocacy, workforce, cost-saving programs and information – will continue to deliver on our goal of providing four times the value of your annual dues investment.

Last year alone, thanks in part to our government affairs efforts at the state and national level, the Washington business community received over $2 billion in relief. With your engagement, we also forged new solutions that work for hospitality. We made sure legislators understood the challenges facing our members, and it paid off.

Here are four more things I urge you to think about as you move forward:

1. Lead with new generations in mind. We’re going to be short workers for the next three to four years and people will have lots of choices of where to work. Leadership and a great environment are going to matter. Are you putting the time you need into your business culture to get there? Take advantage of this moment and rebuild right. Be sure to hire with a career ladder in mind to help counter hiring challenges. The association now has the Northwest Hospitality Leadership Podcast to help you do all of this.

2. Keep expanding your use of tech. I know I’ve been talking about technology for a while, but COVID meant many of you finally had to adopt new tech. (Come on and admit it. Many of you had to learn what a QR code is.) Don’t stop now. How do you take this to make a business run great in normal times? How can you use QR codes to gather analytics and information to make decisions? What about a virtual concierge, paying someone to answer your guests’ questions from home? Maybe four or five of you hoteliers want to go in on this together. Tech needs to be a cornerstone of your business. It’s not just this thing you had to do to survive the pandemic.

3. Don’t rush to open all of your

shifts. Staffing is going to be hard for a while. Currently, our workforce is 10% short of what we had in 2019. We expect that to last until 2026 or so unless there is a drastic change. So don’t rush. Be sure your shifts are profitable. And ask yourself what can tech do instead of people? How do you get at that missing workforce in new ways?

4. Use every pillar of the association as a

resource. Tell your territory manager you want a benefit review and get a quote to explore how much money you can save each month. Keep opening your emails and use our website to link to vital industry information. And consider using your free 30-minute consultation through the Advisory Network to help you resolve a legal issue or bounce an idea off of a profitability expert like Rick Braa. We’re here to help you win.

Finally, use the resources in this Buyer’s Guide to tackle some of the supply chain challenges you may be facing or to explore new tech options. There may still be headwinds, but we have resources to help you weather them.

Don’t be afraid of starting fresh or rebuilding where you need to rebuild. Instead, embrace change like you’re opening the shades and breathing in a sunrise. It’s a new day – make it yours.