Election Impact on Hospitality with Chirag Shah at LendingCon

Glenn: Hey, everybody. It’s your friendly neighborhood. Glenn here. Thanks so much for tuning in. I got over here, Chirag, it’s so great to see you, man. Great to see you, Glenn. So we’re at Lending Con right now and we’ve been really talking about politics and stuff like that. We’re just about 90 days or so from an election. We are. How is that going to be framing what’s going on in the hospitality industry? Because what I like to say is we’re at that time of the cycle now where everybody goes well, we can’t do anything because everyone’s going to wait and see what happens with the election. Yeah.

Chirag: That’s that’s great. You’ve been doing this for a few cycles. It seems like Now, without a doubt. You know, we always say that this is the most important election of our lifetime. That’s right. And, you know, I think to an extent, this is always going to be the case, right? There’s always there’s always some new crisis or new challenge that’s around the corner. And so we’re watching very closely, I think what makes this cycle particularly unique. You’ve got a presidential race where it’s razor thin. Even just over the past couple of weeks, things have gone back and forth. I mean, things that we’ve never seen in our lifetimes, for sure. But but in American history, we’re in a very consequential period of time. So we’re watching that very closely. But also you’ve got razor thin margins in the House and in the Senate, and it’s entirely possible that both or either or neither could flip. But we’re making sure at HLA where we’re building relationships with folks on both sides of the aisle to make sure that the lodging industry is ready when the legislative agenda comes out for next year, we’re ready to do our work.

Glenn: How challenging is it to try to walk that tightrope and be in the middle, and to try to get everyone to be your advocate?

Chirag: Well, the great thing is that everyone loves our industry, right? And so everyone is staying at hotels. They understand they appreciate the workforce. They appreciate the challenges. The small business owners, folks that are not just voters in the district, but they’re also employers in the district. And so when we come to Washington, D.C., and share those stories with members of Congress, do heart of the House tours, they really get it. And so there’s there’s something in it on both sides of the aisle, on the policy side, on the political side, we’re we’re there to make sure that everybody understands the importance of our industry, what we do, what the impact is on the economy, what the impact is, is on taxes. And so that’s why I think it works, that irrespective of who’s in leadership or irrespective of which party is in the majority, we’re going to be there and.

Glenn: You are going to be there not only up on Capitol Hill, but over the last couple of years, you’ve really amped up how many regional and local events that you’ve been doing to really make those important connections.

Chirag: Absolutely. I think we’re at over 120 different events that HLA participates in over the course of the year. And it’s tremendous because you not only get the reach to meet local hoteliers where they are, where their businesses are, but you’re also meeting local officials. We have three members of Congress here at Lending Con. We’ve got the deputy administrator of the Small Business Administration, but there are also local officials. And building those relationships, especially right now, is so critical to when there are things that happen in the future, we’ll be able to walk in the door and they know who we are and.

Glenn: That that is the key to everything. You know, we always talk about what guests want is access. What you need is access to members on Capitol Hill in order to get them to understand how to make your business more successful. Absolutely. Anything else you want to add for today.

Chirag: September 24th and 25th? Make sure you come to Washington, DC for hotels on the Hill. We look forward to seeing you there.

Glenn: I haven’t done one of those in a while, I got to.

Chirag: Please be our guest. We’d love to see you there. And you can teach us a thing or two with your 30 years of experience doing this, we’re grateful to you.

Glenn: All right, everybody, and I want to thank you for watching. Hopefully I’ll be around for another 30 years, but with my habits, not so sure. See you guys later. Bye bye.