California’s Hospitality Industry is a Vital Part of Our Economy

Every year, California’s hotel and hospitality industry injects hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity into communities across the Golden State. It supports quality jobs and also provides critical tax revenue for state and local government services.

The pandemic hit California’s hotel industry hard — resulting in a 50 percent decline in accommodation spending from 2019 to 2020. The impact on jobs was also severe with a 26.8 percent decrease in travel-generated employment.

As travel opens up, the industry is coming back: creating jobs, generating opportunities, and strengthening communities. But a new threat is emerging ...

Now, Special Interest Groups are Backing Local Policies that Harm California’s Hospitality Economy and Jobs

These Policy Proposals Include:

• ​​Adding new fees to the cost of renovating or building new hotels.

• Creating workload limitations that would triple the cost of housekeeping in hotels.

• Requiring all hotels to allow homeless individuals to stay in any vacant hotel room alongside regular paying guests.

• Expanding PAGA by allowing trial lawyers to bring lawsuits against any hotels that refuse to become homeless shelters.

The Effects of these Policy Proposals Would:

• Make California’s tourism and convention industry less competitive — hurting communities and small businesses throughout California.

• Result in the loss of local transient occupancy tax revenue — impacting services like fire protection, health care, and homelessness programs.

• Make it more difficult to recover the lost hospitality jobs from the pandemic.

• Create additional bureaucracy and red tape that will result in lengthy delays or even prevent new hotel developments.