Vantage Hospitality CEO Roger Bloss announces the company's 1000th property.

The AAHOA annual convention has been good for Vantage Hospitality. A little more than 11 years ago, the company introduced its first brand, Americas Best Value Inn, to the industry at a AAHOA annual meeting. Yesterday, at the opening of the trade show during this year’s AAHOA conference in Las Vegas, the now two-brand company announced the opening of its 1000^th property. Vantage Founder, President & CEO Roger Bloss said it’s the fastest any hotel chain has reached the milestone.

“This is a proud moment for our company, for me and my partners and for the industry,” said Bloss during a press conference and champagne toast. “While we will certainly continue to grow at an accelerated rate, what we won’t do is lose sight of the close-knit family environment we have worked so hard to create.”

Ray Kumar opened the first ABVI in Inglewood, CA. The 1000^th property is a 141-room Lexington Hotel in Key West, FL operated by Hostmark Hospitality.

The AAHOA convention opened with an address from Chairman C.K. Patel, who outlined the progress the association made in the past year on the agenda for his chairmanship. His aggressive platform focused on five items:

• Under Patel’s leadership, the association developed AAHOA Educational Experience, a new multi-media program to improve educational offerings to members. The program consists of 30 30-minute TV shows on a variety of industry- and operations-related topics. The shows are aired weekly on Sahara One, a cable TV channel based in India and also available to members on the AAHOA website.

• Patel, like many AAHOA leaders before him, is a strong advocate for fair franchising practices among brand companies. Under his leadership, the association reached out to franchisee organizations in other industries to craft a universal franchisee bill of rights. Patel told the convention audience that AAHOA, in concert with other franchisee groups, may also pursue passage on fair franchising legislation in Congress.

• AAHOA recently signed a deal with Birch Street Systems to develop an electronic purchasing co-op for members of the association. Patel said the 11,000 members of AAHOA purchase $3.5 billion a year in ff&e, supplies, food and beverage. The AAHOA eMarket, which launches this fall, will have a frequent buyer program that will reward members based on their purchasing volume.

• Calling it an opportunity to “control your own destiny,” Patel urged members to join a new online travel agency AAHOA is developing in association with InnLink. The OTA, MyBestHotelRate.com, promises to charge members no more than 10% commissions (compared to 25% or more charged by traditional OTAs) and not require control of last room availability. A prototype of the system is already live for hotels in Atlanta, with more markets going online in the coming months.

• The AAHOA board recently approved a project in conjunction with HVS to study return on investment metrics for various hotel franchise systems. Once completed, Patel said the study will give AAHOA members another tool in their negotiations with franchise companies.