Editor’s Note: Connecting the Dots is a series of monthly conversations with Michael Dominguez, President and CEO of Associated Luxury Hotels International. The series examines issues in the global economy that will “connect the dots” to be helpful not only in business but in life as well.
We've just wrapped up Destination Capitol Hill the first week in April in Washington, D.C., on behalf of the U.S. Travel Association. Your main lobbying organization did a wonderful job of organizing these meetings where we could have really fruitful conversations with all of our legislative leaders up on the Hill.
I can tell you what I think is very positive, even with a change in administrations, the travel industry as a whole is something that is bipartisan as far as what we do and our importance to the overall economy, the overall jobs picture and overall communities. What you do find is, on the whole, everybody understands that. There is a commitment and everybody should be excited.
There is a commission that has been started that is all things World Cup that is bringing together security, travel and transportation, and making sure that this opportunity we have to expose the United States to the world doesn't get wasted. This has been a big push on the U.S. Travel Association's forefront. It's something they consistently talk about.
Some of those asks in these meetings were around improving the customs experience and moving it faster as people are coming into the country at airports. That is something that is necessary and is something for our future, and really part of that, as well as a continued investment around biometrics and catching up to other parts of the world. Our TSA experience, and some of the TSA technology, needs to be improved and automated. What you will see is there is an ask that down the road, do we really need to have liquids removed from baggage as other parts of the world don't require that anymore, because the technology has gotten better. That requires investment on our part. That overall was very, very well received.
We talked about labor and the definite need for temporary labor that is seasonal. That has to do with our H-2B visa program. That I can tell you is sometimes where you get a little bit of confusion on what that visa process is and what that visa process isn't, and understanding that these are temporary jobs, seasonal jobs. The way we explained it, it's very simple, is when everybody's out of school and you're traveling with your family in the middle of summer, all of our resorts start to spike.
Now that spike is only going to last until everybody goes back to school. So, I need labor to help get us through that. But it's not labor that we're going to need for the entire year. Now, that is a job that is not taking away a job from an American worker and that is sometimes the confusion where we have to do a better job of explaining this. Temporary work has always been needed, and it's something we're going to need in the future. Now, one of the positives: they have extended almost over 60,000 of those visas this year, where anybody returning on the visa isn't getting counted, against this cap this year. That's a positive for us and that's going to be a positive for us moving forward.
Overall, we were very excited with the meetings. There's a lot of positivity on the Hill. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention a lot of focus on the FAA and hiring in the FAA because what we read in the headlines and it kind of gets lost is they've hired over 8,000 new FAA employees, and candidly, it's the air traffic controllers that have caused us to have cancellations and or delays in certain areas, specifically when there's inclement weather or anything else that's happening. That is not saying they're not doing their job. We just don't have enough of them, so to see this expedited and to look at a real focus on air travel and safety and air travel, that's a benefit to our industry.
Overall, I was very positive, with our conversations on the Hill. I left very optimistic. You see a lot of movement and a lot of movement moving quickly and with intention, and that gives me great hope that our industry is going to be well served by our legislators.