#this is why we have occupational health and safety regulations folks | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nothingman · 8 years ago

Link

House Speaker Paul Ryan discusses health care reform (Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

This post originally appeared on Bill Moyers.

The one question you never hear journalists ask Republicans is why?

Why do so many Republicans want to throw 24 million struggling Americans off the health insurance rolls? Why does the allegedly populist Trump administration submit a budget that slashes job training programs for the very same jobless white folks he claimed to represent?

Why cut Meals on Wheels, child care, after-school programs and learning centers for the poor, affordable housing and aid to the homeless? Why “zero out” occupational safety training and economic growth assistance in distressed communities in Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta (more Trump constituents)? Why slash legal aid and medicine and food for the sick and hungry in the developing world, among many others?

Journalists ask Republicans about policies, mechanisms and money, but those are technical questions when the real and simple question they should be asking is a moral one: Why do Republicans seem intent on hurting the most vulnerable among us?

Unfortunately, the answer may just be, to paraphrase Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry on why serial killers murder: because they like it.

Sure, we know the rote answers. Republicans love to talk about “choice” and “freedom” and “markets” and “deficit reduction” and “personal responsibility” and all sorts of ideological claptrap that seems to slap principle on what really is punishment. At best these are smokescreens, at worst traps that have succeeded in entangling the media, Democrats and Americans generally in arguments about tactics or priorities rather than arguments about motives and their real-life consequences.

There was a time when Republicans worried they might be perceived as being on the wrong side of morality, even if that worry didn’t move them to get on the right side. They used to dress up their cruelty not only in those old Milton Friedman free market clichés but in new ones like “compassionate conservatism,” because even as they knew there was nothing compassionate about it, they also knew that most Americans weren’t buying into letting the poor fend for themselves. That wasn’t American. That wasn’t human.

Some of that window dressing remains in the Trump era, but not much. Republicans still feel obliged to declare that their health care plan will cover more Americans at a lower cost, but everyone knows they are lying. By one report, when the White House ran the numbers, it predicted 26 million would lose health coverage — 2 million more than the Congressional Budget Office figure.

Speaker Paul Ryan was more than sanguine about those sufferers. He flashed a vulpine smile in recounting the CBO numbers, actually saying they were better than he had thought, which is to say that the American Health Care Act, as they call it, may have been intended to deny coverage, just as Trump’s budget clearly was intended to hurt the most vulnerable, including those vulnerable supporters of his. To my mind, these weren’t collateral effects. They were the very reasons for the AHCA and the budget.

So, again, why? What kind of people seem dedicated to inflicting pain on others?

It is not an easy question to answer, since it violates all precepts of basic decency. I suspect it comes from a meld of Calvinism with social Darwinism. From Calvinism, conservatives borrowed both a pinched and unsparing view of humanity as well as the idea of “election” — namely, that God “elects” some folks for redemption, which, when rebooted for modern conservatism, has an economic component. Plain and simple, rich people are rich because they are better than poor people.

By the same token, poor people are poor because they are worse. This is God’s edict, so to speak. (The so-called Calvinist revival has an awful lot in common with Trumpism.) From social Darwinism, they borrowed the idea that this is the way the world should be: winners and losers, those who can succeed and those who can’t. It is a world without luck, except for tough luck.

From this perspective, conservatives may not really think they are harming the vulnerable but instead harming the undeserving, which is very different. In effect, conservatives believe they are only meting out divine and natural justice. It’s convenient, of course, that this justice turns out to be redistributive, taking resources from the poor and middle class and funneling them to the wealthy, who happen to be the benefactors of conservatism as well as its beneficiaries. (Just note how Republicans howl about redistribution when it is the other way around.) Where many of us see need, they only see indolence and impotence. It is, by almost any gauge, not only self-serving but also plainly wrong — moralistic rather than moral.

But if Republicans see their moral duty as denying help to the weak, that denial is part of a larger and even uglier social equation. In a recent New York Times column, Linda Greenhouse recalled an exchange 30 years ago between Robert Bork and Illinois Sen. Paul Simon during Bork’s confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court. Simon asked Bork about a speech he had given two years earlier, in which the judge said:

“… when a court adds to one person’s constitutional rights, it subtracts from the rights of others.”

The senator asked, “Do you believe that is always true?”

“Yes, Senator,” Judge Bork replied. “I think it’s a matter of plain arithmetic.”

Sen. Simon: “I have long thought it is kind of fundamental in our society that when you expand the liberty of any of us, you expand the liberty of all of us.”

Judge Bork: “I think, Senator, that is not correct.”

Remember that although (or perhaps because!) his Supreme Court nomination failed, Bork is a conservative deity. As far as conservatives and Republicans are concerned, to give anything to the less fortunate is to subtract it from everyone else — a zero-sum game between the rich and the rest of America.

This isn’t politics. This is bedrock conservative philosophy. And it may have no more eager avatar than Donald Trump, who is all about winning and losing. Trump has always professed to want to blow up the system. He is like a child knocking down a tower of blocks, only in his case the blocks are American democracy and decency.

But with the AHCA and his Draconian budget, one that even a few Republicans — no doubt fearing voter retribution — blanched at, Trump may not have blown up the system so much as he has blown the Republicans’ cover. He even seems to have emboldened some of them to come out of hiding and admit that any assistance for the poor is too much.

This we always suspected. What is harder to parse is the joy conservative Republicans seem to get in hurting the weak, making the GOP not just the punishment party, but also the schadenfreude party. Or put in different terms: Conservatism didn’t create meanness, but meanness sure created conservatism.

We might be able to understand that sense of smug moral and social superiority from doctrinaire Republicans who spout Ayn Rand and detest those whose hurdles are the highest. We all know hate can be intoxicating. But these past two weeks Ryan and Trump have been gambling on something else — that many of their fellow Americans agree with them, that these Americans share a deep and abiding hostility to those who need government assistance. Whether Ryan and Trump are right may very well determine the fate of this administration and the country.

So the second big question, alongside why Republicans and conservatives seem to luxuriate in cruelty, is why any other ordinary American would. There have been predictions on the left that once those ordinary Americans feel the sting of losing health care or job training or work safety regulations or clean water and air, they will revolt, and Trump will be dust. But there is no certainty to this. A recent New York Times piece on this very issue indicated that at least some Trump supporters know they will suffer from his budget and still support him.

Another Times article, by Eduardo Porter, quoted a Harvard economist suggesting that the white working class feel they get so little benefit from the so-called welfare state that they see things through the same zero-sum prism as Bork, Ryan and Trump. Whatever the poor gain, the white working class loses.

When you think how much the government does for so many across such a wide spectrum, you wonder what world these people are living in. Indeed, a signal achievement of conservatism, decades in the making, has been pitting the “have littles” against the “have nots” while the “have lots” stayed above the fray. Of course, by that calculation, you might think the struggling white working class would be on the loser side of the ledger, sentenced to defeat by their own deficiencies in our Darwinist world. But in another neat trick, Republicans have managed to convince them they are victims of twin demonic forces, government and liberal elites, that disrupt the natural order of things. In this way, many Republicans helped turn many Americans into brutes and our American community into a state of nature. There couldn’t have been a President Trump without it. There couldn’t have been an ACHA or a Trump budget either.

This, then, is a vital moment for American morality and, to the extent the two are intertwined, American democracy. You can’t pretend Trump and his Republican pals are trying to achieve good ends by different means. They aren’t. You can’t act as if they give a damn about the millions of poor and working-class Americans. They don’t.

But even as their cover is blown, someone needs to keep asking them the fundamental question again and again and again: Why?

via Salon: in-depth news, politics, business, technology & culture Salon

#IFTTT #Feedly #Nothingman uses feedly

2 notes · View notes

soilacribb594-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Tax obligation Advantages From Transferring to Singapore For Uk Entrpreneurs.

The training from potential personnel or employees is actually essential to the growth as well as efficiency of a business. If you treasured this article and you also would like to collect more info relating to yellow pages residential listings uk (helpful site) kindly visit our own web page. Every commercial property developed just before 2000 must be determined for the presence from asbestos as well as recognition instruction is likewise compulsory for those trades. The Health and wellness Group is the leading company from Obligatory Instruction for registered nurses in the UK. Our company are actually right now enlisting for specialist and also expert Obligatory trainers on a subcontract OR utilized basis in all places. This is important to note that expertly obligatory reporters just mention the uncertainty from sexual abuse: on a regular basis, there are legitimate other explanations for abuse that a Fla statutory offense attorney may have the ability to analyze. Maine is actually likewise more rigorous is marking which employees need to finish the training. Accounts receivable coming from the accounting case has a deep meaning and also intricate venture. Inning accordance with the IRS brand new plan, all paid out tax obligation preparers are actually needed to sign a federal government tax obligation return to enroll with the IRS as well as receive a preparer income tax identity number. Icing up injunction is actually ordinarily granted by the High Courtroom Nonetheless in limited conditions the exact same may be released at Area Courthouse. To irritate early withdrawal of retirement life cost savings, our government establishes a 10% penalty tax about what you take out prior to you turn 59 1/2. Therefore, we can know that healthy and balanced & safety and security indications are actually utilized certainly not only for safety and security, however likewise for protection. If some of these mentioned required aspects is actually overlooking after that the brochure concept loses its impact. Your beauty should generally meet the HMCTS within one schedule month from the time that the compulsory reconsideration notification was sent to you. Due to the fact that the Internal Revenue Service supplies alternatives that are good for the citizen, they have actually set up a really stringent collection of requirements as well as regulations that direct the available applications of income tax alleviation for a citizen. It also showcases easy assimilation along with 3rd gathering requests, that is actually search engine friendly, that has ultimate security performance, this offers commercial support via instruction and also learning, and also it permits administration from information by the end user (i.e. you). It's in fact a great deal to know that is actually why you simply need to occupy a CCNA qualification instruction plan. In our day-to-day lifestyle our company come upon various sites where uses of these signs are must. When you do this, a selection manufacturer are going to take a look at your reconsideration ask for as well as, if they agree with it, they will revise the selection. The healthcare market has to assist necessary training for the process to work but team dedications can make this tough for some registered nurses and care team to join required training. Too much opportunity invest in hyper trophy is going to tax your strength gain while the other carries out certainly not offer you sufficient volume for muscle active trophy or even definition as demanded for body system structure. If an activity or procedure is required, individuals need to do that, due to the fact that that is actually a regulation or a compulsory old age has been brought up. By way of contrast, the current Videos possess sufficient storage space for 2 hrs of standard meaning (SD) photos, while the predisposed 15 gigabyte HDDVD disk can easily store up to eight hours of hd (HD) photos. Absent excellent source, failing from a service provider to submit proof before the issuance from the attention of reconsideration averts subsequential factor from the documentation. One of the types folks take to creating screenwriting occupations is actually in order to get screenwriting instruction at an educational institution. When you relabel the file on the web server to This extension produces the customer profile read-only, user accounts end up being obligatory. Mediators should have instruction in the field of residential violence to assist assist in situations through which domestic physical violence is present. If they deliver any type of instruction courses, before performing this on your own you ought to speak with your state as well as regional health departments to identify. However there are protection indicators which are actually intricate and also made use of in incredibly particular niche business as well as hard to keep in mind. The Singapore tax legislation offers an additional program of complete exemption yet simply for new providers and also merely if they meet the following ailments: to be integrated in Singapore; to be tax citizens in Singapore and also to run out than 20 shareholders. There are actually an amount of depended on online instruction principle which supply these systems through span understanding plans. This is the case when the compulsory papers (Notice from organization as well as Articles from organization) to be embraced are basic. These are very important signs due to the fact that this informs the person of the hazard he will certainly run into ahead of time. As the overview from obligatory reporting needs within a legal system often tends to improve press reporters' and the community's recognition from kid abuse and forget, that can easily cause a significant boost in the number of documents being actually made to child security departments. Training is actually supplied by knowledgeable fighting styles educators who have gotten a label in dealing with craft. This will offer that an edge over smaller competitors as well as independent companies, a lot of which carry out certainly not posses any kind of income tax rule proficiency. The costs would halve crucial necessary minimums, create relief under the Exhibition Penalizing Action accessible to 8,800 federal crack accuseds locked up before 2010 and also save $4 billion at the same time. Tax return preparers which are actually needed to enroll should finish fifteen hours of continuing qualified education and learning (CPE) each year, consisting of three hours of government tax legislation updates, two hours from tax preparer principles as well as ten hrs from government income tax law subjects. AHPRA possesses the electrical power to publish info concerning education suppliers that perform certainly not meet their obligatory coverage commitments. Actually, necessary reporting laws describe the sorts of situations that need to be actually mentioned to judicial child security solutions.

0 notes

melbagottlieb43-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Effective Strategies For Fighting for Reviews By Andrew Wachler

Refer to SMC-XXVII/2006/Report, A/61/255 and Memorandum ASG OHRM to Minds of Departments as well as Offices from 10 July 2007. It is essential for the employers to conduct routine training systems to enlighten their employees on health & safety indicators. Groups, such as Aldersgate Group as well as the CBI, have voiced help for mandatory reporting. UK resident providers are actually assessed to company tax obligation on their income as well as rechargeable increases anywhere they occur. Greater than 260,000 people have actually been imprisoned under government medicine necessary minimums required, and more will continue to pattern through the device-- also as others are given clemency-- just as long as reforms remain delayed. Considering that they deliver effective and reliable instruction at smaller prices, one from the absolute best methods in organizational learning nowadays is actually using elearning training options. Baseding on the Internal Revenue Service new proposal, all paid tax obligation preparers are actually required to sign a government tax return to enroll with the Internal Revenue Service and also receive a preparer tax obligation id number. Freezing injunction is typically granted by High Courtroom Nevertheless in limited instances the exact same could be issued at County Courthouse. Necessary consumer profiles carry out certainly not enable changes to become applied to the consumer account stored on the server. The overview of required reporting and going along with instruction efforts intend to enable professionals to establish a recognition of scenarios of child misuse and produce conditions which require all of them to disclose those cases and safeguard them as press reporters. There are actually some tools from the business that are practically necessary in laying marble ceramic tiles. In Western Australia, there is no lawful commitment for handling wellness specialists making compulsory alerts (complaints) about individuals (or even customers) which are actually likewise wellness practitioners in some of the regulated health and wellness occupations. Under this plan, it was rather achievable for a gamer to just be evaluated when from the get go from spring training throughout the regular time. If you liked this write-up and you would like to obtain much more data concerning yellow pages residential directory uk (maging--fit.info) kindly check out the web page. When looking for Internal Revenue Service tax comfort is actually that you need to continue to be patient as well as has to play by the Internal Revenue Service's policies, two from the most crucial factors to remember. This actual interpretation of dealing with water end up being preferred for many years as well as that has actually evolved to think about all kinds of horticulture without the dirt. Notably, the QIC reconsideration is an on-the-record" review, unlike an in-person hearing evaluation. Every males and female at the health club looked at me. And folks were viewing me like hawks for months then occurred ... Everytime I carried out the woodchopper health and fitness toughness instruction workout session. Permit me initial reference that a lot of tax-advantaged savings plannings include tax obligation deductible contributions you bring in off your working income. Equipment producers are actually hedging their wagers, with the current wrinkle being that Blu-Ray-aligned Hewlett Packard has requested that compulsory dealt with duplicate and also the iHD specification be actually included in Blu-Ray's function collection. The laws relating to employment creates this required for employers to show wellness & protection indications at work areas for the perks from the workers. The current strategy demands paid out preparers to fulfill the proficiency screening needs no behind the preliminary called for renewal date for tax return preparer sign up. Newspaper filed yields are actually by hand taken part in the authorities's device, meaning that an input mistake could possibly activate a tax notice. Loved ones Code 3181 deals with the domestic brutality training criteria for moderators. It is actually extremely important for the employers to perform frequent instruction plans to inform their workers on health and wellness & security indications. Teams, including Aldersgate Group as well as the CBI, have voiced support for necessary coverage. UK resident companies are actually analyzed to corporation income tax on their income and also rechargeable increases anywhere they develop. Getting a high degree of dedication is actually a required vital for any powerlifter. You ought to detail why you think the decision is actually inappropriate when you inquire for a compulsory reconsideration. The paycheck will be actually featured in his property for inheritance tax functions and also is tired to whoever received the check. When you take required distributions, you spend income tax on all of them at your existing low tax obligation fee. All the compulsory components including pictures, shades, tagline as well as graphics need to have the capacity to magnify the truly worth of your organisation; thereby, they all need to be associated with the attributes of business or item. With the raising demand for THAT services, that ends up being a necessary component in every institution. ITIL online programs in Greater london are actually offered by well-known ITIL training establishments in the metropolitan area. Individual productivity can be conveyed in terms of the amount from work performed during the course of the obligatory hours from work. To irritate very early withdrawal of retirement savings, our authorities enforces a 10% fine tax obligation what you take out prior to you switch 59 1/2. Therefore, we can understand that healthy and balanced & safety signs are made use of certainly not merely for safety and security, yet additionally for protection. If some of these pointed out compulsory aspects is overlooking then the brochure layout drops its impact.

0 notes

rollinbrigittenv8 · 7 years ago

Text

Most Hotel CEOs Dismiss Airbnb’s Impact But Demand Level Playing Field

AccorHotels CEO Sebastien Bazin in knows that Airbnb will continue to grow, and feels strongly there needs to be more transparency about the identity of hosts. He's pictured above in a promotional video. Accorhotels

Skift Take: Most CEOs said the same thing they’ve said about Airbnb countless times before — ‘We need a level playing field’ — but there are signs that some are starting to take the $31 billion alternative accommodations provider a bit more seriously.

— Deanna Ting

Ask any hotel CEO what his or her thoughts are about Airbnb, the homesharing platform that’s valued at $31 billion — just a little less than Marriott International’s $38.7 billion market cap — and you’re likely to hear the same refrains:

“No, they’re not a threat.” Or “We just want a level playing field.” Or the admission that, “Yes, sometimes we see an impact on compression nights [periods when hotel occupancy is saturated because of a city-wide event or large convention.]”

That was the case at the NYU Hospitality Industry Investment Conference in New York City last week. However, there are signs that some CEOs are beginning to view Airbnb as more of a direct competitor, if not a threat, including Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts CEO J. Allen Smith.

And then, of course, there’s iconic hotelier Ian Schrager, who’s often been quoted as saying Airbnb is a “mortal threat” to the hotel industry — so much so, in fact, that his newest hotel, Public New York, is a direct response to it.

Skift spoke to a half-dozen hospitality CEOs, as well as other executives, to learn their thoughts about Airbnb, as well as the ongoing battle between the company and the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA). Here’s what they had to say:

Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson: We Need a Level Playing Field

“Well I’m not deeply expert in all of these [things] that AHLA is doing,” Sorenson said. “But I think the core aim is to achieve a level playing field, period. And that means if we pay larger taxes, those platforms should pay larger taxes. It means if we’ve got to go through a process of getting approval and registered to do business in markets, they should be, too.

“And obviously, that becomes less controversial the more their [Airbnb-like platforms] growth is in dedicated units as opposed to someone’s extra bedrooms. But where there are dedicated units, they raise real questions around accessibility, around fire life safety, around lodging taxes, and to some extent what cities want around residential policy. How many units do they want to be essentially off the market to local residents because it’s some sort of micro hotel? And so there are dozens of questions in all of that, but in the first instance, it’s about a level playing field.”

Hyatt CEO Mark Hoplamazian: Airbnb Is Impacting Housing

“I guess, in short the AHLA is really leading the way in this effort,” Hoplamazian told a group of reporters. “The particular focus has been on listings … listings by, what could be described as, commercial owners of properties, multiple properties that, first of all, are problematic from a regulatory perspective but also, not really what the site was originally based on, which was allowing the individuals to rent a room in their house or rent their house.

“As a consequence of that, it feels much more like a ‘shadow hotel’ operation. That’s been their principal focus, which is to shine a light on those facts, which is that a very large proportion of total bookings and revenues are coming through those kinds of listings as opposed to the individual or home owner. And to really focus the minds of municipal policymakers on what the pending consequences of that are.”

He continued, “One of the consequences is distortions in the housing market, where you’ve got support for property values for residential properties that are derived from what could be considered to be ‘shadow hotels’ if you will. That’s not a natural marketplace.

“In some markets, I think San Francisco is probably high on the list, you see the consequences of that which are unaffordability and extremely high levels in growth of homelessness. It’s a problem that’s beyond the hotel industry’s focus and attention. There are serious municipal policy issues that are at stake here. That’s really been the primary avenue.”

Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi: Appropriate Regulations Are Needed

Unlike some of the hotel CEOs attending the conference, with the exception of AccorHotels CEO Sebastien Bazin, Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi’s company is anactive and direct player in the alternative accommodations space: Expedia owns HomeAway and sister brand VRBO, among others.

“With HomeAway, [we’re] more involved in traveling to resort destinations, beach destinations, resort destinations where vacation rentals have been rented out for a long period of time. It’s just the channel shift going from offline to online,” he said. “A lot of these destinations already have laws in place, [so] I think it’s the urban market that is appearing. I think any time a new business forms in a marketplace, regulations have a tough time catching up to the formation of new businesses because it just happens more slowly.”

“My caution is that, one, I’m not sure that I factually buy into [the idea that] real estate market prices are going up because of homesharing. They’ve been going up I think because of the technology sector and all the wealth created there; we could debate that.

“With that aside, I think regulations are needed, but I think that appropriate regulations, constructive regulations that are not designed to stop advancement, but are designed to benefit the customer and appropriate regulations for this new sector let say, may not be regulations that may not completely mirror the hotel industry. I do believe in an eveplaying field. I think folks should be paying occupancy taxes just like hoteliers do, so I think this could be a nice local revenue stream as well. I think it’s important to register these homes.”

HomeAway, along with Airbnb, recently settled its lawsuit against the City of San Francisco by agreeing to automatically register all local hosts in compliance with short-term rental laws that went into effect in 2014. However, HomeAway also recently filed a federal lawsuit in Chicago alleging that a somewhat similar law is “deeply flawed.”

“I think a lot of good is happening, it’s just right now there’s a bunch of thrash as regulations catch up,” Khosrowshahi said. “There’s the additional complication that every single local municipality wants their own flavor, which is very difficult for platform companies like ours to build out 50, 60, 70 different flavors.

“What we’re hoping is that you get to some consensus. Is it appropriate consensus? Is it constructive consensus? Because travel is a good thing. This is a new product that consumers want. Let’s not try to block it and then go there and roll out the regulations appropriately.”

AccorHotels CEO Sebastien Bazin: We Need More Transparency

AccorHotels has a number of investments in alternative accommodations platforms that include Oasis and Squarebreak, as well as owning luxury homesharing provider Onefinestay. Accorhotels is also planning to acquire Travel Keys, a luxury vacation rental specialist.

“We’ve been asking for one thing, very simple, which is transparency,” Bazin said. “And for all listings to be reported someplace, so that we know who is behind that home. Is that a primary homeowner, who obviously has a right to put it on the listing? Is it a multi-owner with three or four sites? Is it a commercial developer and is that why he has a big building on which all the flats in it happen to be on Airbnb?

“The first thing is listings. Listings within a home, so I guess you know how many rooms, how many nights, etc. The second thing is taxes. We as a hotel have so many taxes on so many different items, I guess 90 percent of the European owners of Airbnb do not declare any taxes. The minute that they start having to pay taxes, then it’s going to be much easier to understand who is getting the initial income.

“I’m not asking for those to pay, I’m just asking for an even playing field. But I’m not asking for Airbnb to stop because they will continuing growing, and as I said many times, I wish I could have invested in Airbnb. I just want to make sure they have the same constraint as we do and the same opportunities.”

Best Western CEO David Kong: Regulations for the Public Good

“In general, I don’t think anyone in this industry has anything against the homesharing economy or home sharing for that matter,” Kong said. “I think the industry just wants to make sure that there is an even playing field. It’s not just for our industry. It’s for the general public as well. There are reasons why health and safety and accessibility roles are in place. It’s to provide and care for the general public. When you have companies like Airbnb that purposefully skirt these requirements, it provides a bad name for the accommodation industry. That’s one.”

“The other side of that is the taxes,” Kong continued. “We all have to program our systems to make sure that we comply with paying our taxes and Airbnb somehow doesn’t have to do that. It just seems unfair and it’s also, not just for the industry as competition but also for the communities that they serve, it seems unfair to the community because when are those tax monies going to be useful except for those communities, right? I think that those are the reasons. It’s obviously the level playing field, but also it’s the health and safety measures and taxes. It’s more for the public.”

Loews Hotels CEO Jonathan Tisch: It’s a Matter of Safety

“We as hotel companies spend a lot of money protecting and keeping our guests and our team members safe,” Tisch said. “The safety and security of anybody that walks into a hotel is paramount, anybody that works in a hotel is paramount. [That’s] yet another issue where that is not necessarily in turn with somebody renting out their home.”

Preferred Hotel Group CEO Lindsey Ueberroth: our workforce is Being Impacted

“We have a residence collection because that vacation rental space is huge,” Ueberroth said. “We felt that we had a sweet spot sort of in between what an Airbnb is all the way up to an exclusive resort. We sort of sit in the middle. We have a lot of hotels that actually have a residence product. Let’s really kind of create a platform around that as well as examples like the AKA hotels here, which really lend themselves to more of long term stay, or families that want a hotel experience, but they really want a residential component.

“The residence space is something we’re very interested in growing. We think that we can add that layer of the seal of approval of a brand, the quality assurance process, the fact that it can be booked directly through a consumer, or through a travel professional. We kind of have a nice way to wrap around that, the whole vacation rental/residence area that’s becoming increasingly popular.”

She added, “Is Airbnb a threat? In some ways, but I think it’s been great for the industry. I do think, when you read about all this stuff, I do think the playing field needs to be leveled a bit in terms of some of the regulations and the things that they should have to abide by and follow.

“What’s interesting is we met with our hotel advisory group, and they were saying the effect it’s having on them is less about the loss of room nights but, depending on where they’re based, that the apartment rental market is drying up so that their employees are having a hard time finding places to live. It’s impacting their workforce. It’s impacting their ability to hire and hire well. Their potential employees are having to commute too far to get to the hotel … It’s having other unintended effects that I don’t think we all really thought about beyond room nights.”

Dream Hotel Group CEO Jay Stein: Airbnb Is Having a Small Impact

“I think it’s a small impact, to be honest with you,” Stein said, when asked if Airbnb was having an impact on his hotel business. “On certain nights, it has had an impact, and even a small impact is a big deal. One, 2 percent, if I get that 1 or 2 percent, it’d be great to have it. But I think the way the laws are moving and the way the government is moving, they [Airbnb and other homesharing platforms] need to be put into a box so they operate like a business.

“They can’t just be a cowboy and make a whole bunch of money, not have regulations, and have, basically, hotels that don’t follow hotel rules. That’s changing and I think they’ll fall into a classification that people that want that, they’ll pay taxes, and they’ll have insurance and other types of things.”

He added, “But the big part of Airbnb, where there were whole buildings that were becoming Airbnb buildings, will go away, and I don’t think they’ll find any way to get traction, particularly in New York and now, we’re seeing in other cities. So, I think that’ll be pretty common.”

According to a recent UBS report, Stein may be correct in his assessment that Airbnb’s growth is slowing, at least in New York City, which has some of the strictest short-term rental laws in the U.S.

Meininger Hotel Group CEO Hannes Spanring: Airbnb Is Very Positive

Berlin-based Meininger Hotel Group has a collection of 18 hotels and hostels throughout Europe.

“I see [Airbnb], actually, as a very positive sign,” Spanring said. “People always ask me, ‘What do you think is a disruptor? I don’t think [it is]. Not for our customers or our clientele because I think it, in a way, more opened up the market for us. [It’s] something else [other] than those typically five-star and four-star hotels. I mean, people like when they are going there. Normally, in an Airbnb, they’re staying a little bit longer. I do not think that this is any competition to us, but it’s more pointing out that there is something more actually in the market.”

Red Lion Hotels CMO Bill Linehan: Concern for Timeshares, Online travel agencies

“VRBO, and vacation rentals have been around for years, and so have various timeshares and rental units,” Linehan said. “It’s a different type of accommodation. What Airbnb has done is it’s really made it easy for everyone to get into that marketplace. I would love to see the reports and the market penetration of Airbnb on timeshare rentals. If individuals and companies are concerned about its erosion to lodging, what about this erosion to timeshare rentals? That’s where I think it really is.”

He also said Airbnb is becoming more of a direct competitor to online travel agencies (OTAs) such as Expedia and Priceline.

“I also think that what they’ve built is they’ve built an online platform that, quite honestly, perhaps the OTAs might get concerned [because they’re becoming a new type of OTA],” he said.

When it comes to hotels, Linehan said, “For me, in the hotel space, where they are impacting our business is very much where we need more supply. They are an alternative lodging. They are not, however, a hotel. A hotel has a lobby. It has services. It has a staff. It has experience. You don’t know what you’re getting. You have some reviews and so forth, but you’re getting another residence. You’re not getting a hotel. It’s an alternative lodging.

“So are many other alternative lodgings. Is it one that we are concerned with? One that needs regulation and fairness? Absolutely. What the AHLA is doing, I’m fully supportive of it, yes. But am I going to whine and complain about what are they doing, and say, ‘This isn’t fair,’ and so forth? They are an alternative. What they’ve done is they’ve harnessed and created a new lodging alternative that I don’t think impedes all of lodging. It’s just another option. … Just like I’m not going to villainize the OTAs for having an opportunity for me to go somewhere and get more market share.”

0 notes

touristguidebuzz · 7 years ago

Text

Most Hotel CEOs Dismiss Airbnb’s Impact But Demand Level Playing Field

— Deanna Ting

Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson: We Need a Level Playing Field

Hyatt CEO Mark Hoplamazian: Airbnb Is Impacting Housing

Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi: Appropriate Regulations Are Needed

AccorHotels CEO Sebastien Bazin: We Need More Transparency

Best Western CEO David Kong: Regulations for the Public Good

Loews Hotels CEO Jonathan Tisch: It’s a Matter of Safety

Preferred Hotel Group CEO Lindsey Ueberroth: our workforce is Being Impacted

Dream Hotel Group CEO Jay Stein: Airbnb Is Having a Small Impact

Meininger Hotel Group CEO Hannes Spanring: Airbnb Is Very Positive

Berlin-based Meininger Hotel Group has a collection of 18 hotels and hostels throughout Europe.

Red Lion Hotels CMO Bill Linehan: Concern for Timeshares, Online travel agencies

He also said Airbnb is becoming more of a direct competitor to online travel agencies (OTAs) such as Expedia and Priceline.

“I also think that what they’ve built is they’ve built an online platform that, quite honestly, perhaps the OTAs might get concerned [because they’re becoming a new type of OTA],” he said.

0 notes