kirby d payne
Key Takeaways from AHLA & AAHOA’s Legislative Action Summit 2017
Kirby D. Payne | June 6, 2017
By Kirby D. Payne and Chelsey Leffet The American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA) and the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) held their annual Legislative Action Summit (LAS) on May 17 and 18 in Washington, D.C. Year after year this event brings together a strong showing of general managers, owners, operators, developers, investors, asset managers, hotel employees, and government affairs experts to meet with congressional representatives from their respective states in their Capitol Hill offices to share stories and educate Congress on the issues presently affecting the hotel and lodging industry. The event included re...
What Time Is The 3 PM Parade? (Should your hotel have some Mickey Mouse® in it?)
Kirby D. Payne | May 9, 2016
By Kirby D. Payne and Victoria 'Vicki' S Richman, May 9, 2016 Vicki Richman attended Disney Institute. We have incorporated much of what she learned into our company. Every year we improve our company's culture and that of our hotels. If the Walt Disney Company is any benchmark, it's clearly worth doing. Years ago the Disney Institute held a seminar in Minneapolis . Among the co-sponsors was the Minnesota Hotel & Lodging Association. Vicki Richman, our CFO, attended and I have adapted her notes for this article. There is a lot of information provided in this seminar which we have incorporated into our company culture. Ou...
Room Service or Is It Food Delivery?
Kirby D. Payne | October 26, 2015
By Kirby D. Payne, Oct 26, 2015 Room service should be more than just food delivery. This article has reminders for full service hotels and ideas for limited service hotels. I admit I am addicted to certain cartoons, including some serial ones. As a result, I regularly turn to the cartoon pages of the daily paper. I could not help but get an extra chuckle when I saw "The Family Circus" by Bill Keane on October 24, 1997. I wish we could reprint it here but they wanted $150 for that, which is reasonable, but would not let us use it on the internet version of this column which is unreasonable as it would have been a nice promo for the...
Sales Tax Audit!
Kirby D. Payne | February 23, 2015
By Kirby D. Payne, Feb 20, 2015 This description of a sales tax audit is an opportunity to minimize potential problems with sales taxes. While focused on Minnesota much of it applies to any state with sales taxes. Do not construe this article as legal or tax advice. I am a believer that the best kind of bad experience is second hand. This article is your opportunity to have a second hand bad experience and minimize your own potential problems with sales taxes. While this happened in Minnesota much of it applies to any state with sales taxes. This article can give the reader ideas as to items to inquire about in each state where your com...
