Some employees in SeaTac, Washington will ring in the new year with a minimum wage increase to $15 dollars an hour, and other benefits including paid sick and safe leave. The new law takes effect on January 1, 2014. Following a judge’s recent ruling, the changes will not apply to employees within the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. If, however, you’re in the hospitality and/or transportation industry operating outside of the airport, and satisfy certain size requirements (for instance, hotels are generally covered if they include 100 or more guest rooms AND are staffed by 30 or more workers), you need to prepare for changes under the new law.
More information to come. You can contact Greg Duff with any questions.
New York State Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, has made waves in recent months by subpoenaing the popular “apartment-sharing” website AirBNB for information on more than 15,000 of the website’s hosts in New York City. The subpoenas were issued as part of Schneiderman’s campaign to enforce a 2010 New York law that took effect last year, clamping down on “illegal hotels” across the state. With the backing of tech trade groups and civil liberties organizations, AirBNB has now mounted a high-profile defense against these subpoenas. Meanwhile, other destination cities around the globe are taking steps to follow New York’s lead.
For those of you who attended, or even those of you who did not attend, below are the slides from today's sales presentation in Portland. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
For those readers and followers unable to attend last month’s AHIA Fall Meeting in Los Angeles, we have posted below our PowerPoint presentation, “On-Line Distribution: Overview, Issues and Tips.” A huge thanks to AHIA for hosting us last month.
If you have any questions regarding the presentation or distribution generally, please let Ruth or me know.
About the Editor
Greg Duff founded and chairs Foster Garvey’s national Hospitality, Travel & Tourism group. His practice largely focuses on operations-oriented matters faced by hospitality industry members, including sales and marketing, distribution and e-commerce, procurement and technology. Greg also serves as counsel and legal advisor to many of the hospitality industry’s associations and trade groups, including AH&LA, HFTP and HSMAI.