ALIS remains on schedule for January 27

LOS ANGELES – The BHN Group, producers of the Americas Lodging Investment Summit (ALIS), is closely monitoring the Los Angeles wildfires and stated on Monday afternoon that it is moving forward with ALIS, ALIS DESIGN+, and ALIS Law scheduled for the week of January 27.

“The devastating wildfires in the Los Angeles area are top of mind for all of us. We hope all those affected make it through the disaster safe and sound,” said BHN Group President Jeff Higley. “We are staying in contact with appropriate local authorities and hotel partners. Based on those communications, today we feel comfortable moving ahead with ALIS.

“We thank all first responders, firefighters and law enforcement officials for their efforts in keeping the public safe.”

The ALIS team added that the JW Marriott/Ritz-Carlton L.A. LIVE and Courtyard/Residence Inn Los Angeles L.A. LIVE are not directly in the path of the disaster, flights into the Los Angeles area have had minimal disruption, and local officials have expressed optimism that the fires will be contained soon.

Higley spoke to Javier Cano, area general manager for Marriott International, who oversees the JW Marriott/Ritz-Carlton Los Angeles at L.A. Live and is vice chair of the Hotel Association of Los Angeles.

“The Hotel Association (of Los Angeles) has been working very closely with the mayor's office and trying to talk about the importance of our industry, the visitors serving industry, whether it be meetings, conferences, conventions, all of those that bring business here to Los Angeles, and the importance of that.”

Cano said the areas affected by the fire are certainly “horrific situations” but not all areas of Los Angeles are in that category.

“There's a lot of other parts of Los Angeles where we’re not as impacted in many cases, like where we’re at here… It’s a juxtaposition of what is happening in some parts (of Los Angeles). LA, as you know, is an enormously large area… in terms of just the square miles.”

He said he understands there are people concerned about coming to Los Angeles and take a hotel room away from somebody who may need it, such as an evacuee, a first responder, and others. However, they should not have that concern.

“The hotel inventory in Los Angeles is really, really, really big, and in most cases, a lot of the evacuees, a lot of the first responders, are in areas much, much closer to where the areas that are affected,” Cano said. “We in downtown… our inventories are wide open. Unfortunately, we’re not running very high occupancy, maybe 30% in our building right now. So, we have plenty of rooms. The same happens with many of my colleagues here, and that’s speaking just for the downtown area. There are many other parts of Los Angeles as well have varying degrees of occupancy, but there are plenty of rooms in Los Angeles right now.”

The current ALIS schedule includes:

ALIS Law: Monday, January 27-Tuesday, January 28

ALIS: Tuesday, January 28-Thursday, January 30

ALIS DESIGN+: Thursday, January 30-Friday, January 31