The American Hotel & Lodging Association once again has reached out to the U.S. Congress for increased aid for the hotel industry as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, citing job losses and industry losses that in 2020 could exceed $120 billion, according to CBRE and STR.
"Our industry was among the first impacted by the pandemic and will be one of the last to recover," said AHLA president and CEO Chip Rogers in a statement. "We need Congress to continue to prioritize the industries and employees most affected by the crisis, so that help is directed to the businesses that need it most."
AHLA on Monday sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) calling for assistance through several means, including:
- Providing additional liquidity for severely impacted businesses through a targeted extension of the Paycheck Protection Program
- Creating hotel industry relief opportunities using Federal Reserve and Treasury authority, such as establishing a commercial mortgage backed securities market relief fund, with a focus on the hotel industry and making structural changes to the Main Street Lending Facility established under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act to ensure hotel companies can access the program
- Including language limiting liability for hotels and other places of public accommodation
- Ensuring targeted tax provisions are included that will benefit severely injured businesses and their employees
The latter calls for tax credits for capital expenditure or expenses to meet the industry's Safe Stay cleaning initiative; enhancing the Employee Retention Credit; creating a temporary travel tax credit; exempting taxation on phantom income from loan mediation, forgiveness or cancellation; and allowing full deductibility of the food and entertainment business expense.
In a June survey AHLA commissioned Morning Consult to conduct, 70 percent of 2,200 respondents supported passing additional economic stimulus for the industries most negatively affected by the pandemic, including the travel and hospitality sector. About 61 percent supported restoring the business entertainment expense deduction to encourage business travel, and 63 percent supported efforts by the federal government to require banks to offer debt relief or forbearance on commercial hotel mortgages.
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