Duff on Hospitality Law

This year's HSMAI Lodging Chief Digital Officer Executive Roundtable was held on December 8, 2015 at Washington, D.C.

For those of you who attended, or did not attend the Roundtable, my presentation, "Distribution Parity: Where Do We Go From Here?", is available below. It features an overview of recent worldwide parity developments in the online distribution world.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

This week finds me at LA Live in downtown Los Angeles attending this year's PhoCusWright Conference. Those in the hotel industry know LA live well - for the past few years the JW Marriott at LA Live has served as the host hotel for the industry's annual ALIS Conference. While ALIS is known for bringing together the hotel industry's best and brightest, I would submit that the 1600 plus attendees (from 40 plus countries) at this year's PhocusWright represent the future of travel and the hotel industry.

The hospitality industry regularly faces tremendous challenges, ranging from unexpected tornadoes to salmonella lurking in organic eggs requested by guests. However, negative reviews on TripAdvisor.com or similar sites pose particularly perplexing challenges. Should the business respond or ignore them? Our newest post discusses the latest legal developments regarding negative on-line reviews. – Greg 

I’m pleased to introduce guest author Sam Engel, from BrandVerity. BrandVerity provides services that detect online brand and trademark abuse for a variety of industries including hospitality. Sam spoke recently to members of our Hospitality, Travel and Tourism team at our monthly meeting. We’re grateful that Sam has offered to now share his experience and knowledge with our readers. Welcome, Sam, and thank you for today’s post. – Greg

Today’s blog post was contributed by Garvey Schubert Barer’s D.C. attorney and member of the firm's China Practice, Richard Gluck, based on original research by GSB’s Yi Zhang. His extensive knowledge of international business and collaboration between the U.S. and China is a great resource to the firm. We’re grateful to have him as a new author to the Duff on Hospitality blog. – Greg

For those of you who attended, or even those of you who did not attend, below are the slides from my recent presentation in New Orleans at the Executive Vendor Summit. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

On February 5, 2014 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched the “WaterSense H2Otel” challenge, a program encouraging hotels to implement best management practices for reducing their water usage. As part of “WaterSense H2Otel,” the EPA is providing technical assistance using webinars and other forms of outreach including case studies on the “lessons learned” from other hotels’ efforts to reduce water usage. The challenge is designed for any individual hotel with five or more rooms, as well as hotel management groups and chains. EPA explains that WaterSense H2Otel is part of the agency’s broader (multi-sector) “WaterSense” program to promote water-efficient products, services and practices in an effort to address ever increasing demand for water in the U.S.

In September, 2013, Governor Jerry Brown of California signed into law Assembly Bill No. 370, which amends the California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA) to require that website and mobile app operators disclose whether they honor web browser “Do Not Track” signals. AB 370 took effect on January 1, 2014.

Today's blog is a litigation update on the devastating North Carolina hotel carbon monoxide leak. Please make sure that your business and hotel guests are protected. - Greg

It seems fitting that my first post of 2014 would come from the year's first major industry conference - the Americas Lodging Investment Summit (ALIS) held each January in Los Angeles. As expected, this year's Summit set near record attendance (nearly 2,600 registered attendees) and its attendees were brimming with confidence.