By Gary Cross, Executive Director, NABHA
 
What’s is all of this new found excitement over the potential of African Americans becoming hotel owners in the U S ? Have they not been active in this industry before now?

Well the answer to the first question is, there is presently a certain quantity of people who have been fortunate enough to acquire corporate assignments with attractive salaries and other benefits that could qualify them as prospects to the many hotel franchise companies in this nation !

Number two, is yes there are somewhere around two thousand registered lodging businesses in the U S which are owned by blacks, however most of them are not of the quality to be granted a franchise flag ! Therefore what has been missing in this equation of black hoteliers is an existing relationship with corporate American enterprises.

All over this nation are pockets of activity is evolving around this subject. The National Association of Black Hospitality Allies Inc., the non-profit organization headquartered in Atlanta,  Georgia was established for the purpose of informing blacks about opportunities regarding ownership in the lodging arena.

Quite often we receive calls from various sections of the nation (says Kathleen Cross who is director of educational services with NABHA) from people who may own land or have money but do not know how to go about developing a hotel project. As a matter of fact we recently spoke with perhaps the most competent group of black hospitality professionals in the industry.

The National Society of Minorities in Hospitality was founded on the campus of Cornell University nearly ten years ago. This highly experienced group of managers and operations people are prime candidates to become owner / operators.

Many people believe that because the members of NSMH attended one of the best institutions in this country, that they would not want to work on perhaps a small property. What some of them told NABHA is that they would very much rather be working in an environment of which they would have an ownership interest instead of just having a good job.

This is just one of the many area’s within the industry that NABHA is identifying. Also there is the subject of minority supplier relations. Many intelligent blacks should be working as sales reps for the providers of products and services to this industry. A good example of how to take advantage of the black market is to look at how much IBM benefited when they began to hire blacks to sell their products.

Why are there not a couple of black franchise sales representatives working for the major hotel companies? Why do we only see few black faces when we attend the major trade shows ?

The black community now has more disposable income than ever before. This is the best time for all companies who are interested in increasing their market niche to expand and to take advantage of this newly opened window of opportunity. Those who are quick to react will position themselves for new and increased revenue over next ten years in business. If for any reason you do not believe this statement, ask those companies who were first to join forces with AAHOA ! The real question is, Do you desire to not take advantage of the momentum in this new found market ?