AAHOA Chairman Bharat Patel was featured in an article by Lydia DePillis with The New York Times titled, “Hotel Owners Push Back on Merger of National Brands.”

The article, with the headline, “Franchisees are fighting Choice Hotels’ attempted takeover of its biggest rival, which would create a dominant player in the budget hotel sector,” does a great job representing AAHOA's views.

Here’s an excerpt from it: “As the weeks have passed, however, the reaction has not been positive. Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, the target of the proposed deal, rejected the offer from Choice Hotels International, which is now pursuing a hostile takeover. And in early December, an association representing the majority of hoteliers who own Choice and Wyndham-branded properties came out strongly against it.”

“We all don’t know what’s driving this merger. Many of us feel it’s not needed,” said Bharat Patel, the chairman of the organization, the Asian American Hotel Owners Association. The group surveyed its 20,000 members and found that about 77 percent of respondents who own hotels under either brand or both thought a merger would hurt their business.

“I’m not against Choice or Wyndham,” said Mr. Patel, who owns two Choice hotels. “We just need robust competition in the markets.”

You can read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/eaDdm6jw