Industry Associations

The National Restaurant Association, founded in 1919, is the leading business association for the restaurant industry, which is comprised of 925,000 restaurant and foodservice outlets and a work force of 12.5 million employees - making it the cornerstone of the economy, career opportunities and community involvement. Along with the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation, the Association works to represent, educate and promote the rapidly growing industry.

Serving the hospitality industry for nearly a century, AH&LA is the sole national association representing all sectors and stakeholders in the lodging industry, including individual hotel property members, hotel companies, student and faculty members, and industry suppliers.

Headquartered in Washington, D.C., AH&LA provides members with national advocacy on Capitol Hill, public relations and image management, education, research and information, and other value-added services to provide bottom line savings and ensure a positive business climate for the lodging industry.

Partner state associations provide local representation and additional cost-saving benefits to members.

CRFA is one of Canada's largest business associations, with 31,000 members representing independent and chain restaurants, hotels, social and contract caterers, bars, nightclubs, and institutional foodservice. CRFA serves its members from coast to coast through offices in Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax.

The members of CHA represent the entire spectrum of the hospitality industry's private sector. Some 849 member hotels in 36 national hotel associations represent approximately 125,476 rooms in the Caribbean, from the small guest houses to the mega-resorts.

The allied members: airlines, tour wholesalers and travel agents, trade and consumer press, advertising and public relations agencies, and hotel and restaurants suppliers, among many, account for more than 536 members. Altogether, they are the hospitality industry of the Caribbean, and CHA is their voice.

The American Resort Development Association (ARDA) is the Washington D.C.-based professional association representing the vacation ownership and resort development industries. Established in 1969, ARDA today has nearly 1,000 members ranging from privately held firms to publicly traded companies and international corporations with interests in timeshare resorts, community development, fractional ownership and resort communities. The membership also includes timeshare owner associations (HOAs), resort management companies, and owners through the ARDA Resort Owners Coalition (ARDA-ROC).

AAHOA's mission is to provide an active forum in which Asian American hotel owners, through an exchange of ideas with a unified voice, can: communicate, interact, and maintain their proper position within the hospitality industry, and be a source of inspiration by promoting professionalism and excellence through education and community involvement. Representing more than 8,300 members, AAHOA is one of the leading forces in the hospitality industry and one of the most powerful Asian American advocacy groups. Together the members own more than 20,000 hotels, which have 1 million rooms representing over 50 percent of the economy lodging properties and nearly 37 percent of all hotel properties in the United States.

Of the hotels owned by AAHOA members, approximately 11,700 are franchised while 6,300 are independent. The market value of the properties owned by AAHOA members is estimated to be $29.9 billion in franchised properties and $8.1 billion in independent properties.

AAHOA supports its members through educational programs and advocacy in the legislature, media and hospitality industry.

The Preferred Hotel Group is a multi-brand organization that delivers cutting-edge sales, marketing, and service solutions to independent luxury hotels and resorts around the world through its three brands, Preferred Hotels® & Resorts, Summit Hotels & Resorts, and Boutique, and connectivity solutions through Sterling Hotels. Collectively, the Preferred Hotel Group offers the traveler a choice of over 300 distinctive properties throughout more than 51 countries.

Headquartered in Chicago, The Preferred Hotel Group is a privately held shareholder-owned company led by industry veteran John Ueberroth. With over 100 employees in 12 countries and 18 sales offices worldwide, Preferred Hotel Group is the industry leader in providing state-of-the-art technology, innovative business solutions, and strategic sales support.

To private hotel owners and managers the Preferred Hotel Group's key strength lies in allowing their hotels to maintain their individuality and distinctive methodology, while still benefiting from the economies of scale that an affiliation with a larger group of like-minded properties can offer.

Founded in 1946, the International Council on Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Education is the global advocate of hospitality and tourism education for schools, colleges, and universities offering programs in hotel and restaurant management, foodservice management and culinary arts.

In recent years, International CHRIE's focus has expanded and its mission statement has evolved, making it a marketplace for facilitating exchanges of information, ideas, research, products and services related to education, training and resource development for the hospitality and tourism industry (food, lodging, recreation and travel services). Serving as the hospitality and tourism education network, International CHRIE strives to unite educators, industry executives and associations.

The Hotel Association of Canada is the national organization representing the lodging industry in Canada. Membership encompasses the provincial and territorial hotel associations, corporate hotel chains, independent hotels, motels and resorts and the many suppliers to the hotel industry. The association’s objective is to assist both national and international members as they endeavour to enhance their competitiveness and achieve their bottom line.

Bizjournals is the online media division of American City Business Journals, the nation's largest publisher of metropolitan business newspapers. It operates the Web sites for each of the company's 41 print business journals and operates a web-only site with local business news and information for Los Angeles. The national bizjournals site features local business news from around the nation, updated throughout the day, top business stories from American City's print editions, industry-specific news from more than 40 industries, advice columns, and a full menu of tools to help business owners and operators manage their businesses more successfully. There's also easy navigation to each of the 42 local business sites.

Hotel Resource is the premier hotel industry business to business portal. Based in Toronto, Canada since 1998, Hotel Resource is owned and operated by Ozean Group, an on-line publishing company featuring news wire services for various segments in the travel industries. Using its proprietary Nevistas publishing platform, the company syndicates industry related news, research and information to journalists, subscribers, websites and company intranets.

Launched in 1998, QSRweb.com is the dominant Quick Service and Fast Casual online resource for news, trends, and industry information. Lead by a team of experts, QSRweb.com offers insights to the latest in trends of very specialized segments in the 500 billion dollar restaurant industry.

With over 8000 opt-in members of the bi-monthly Insights newsletter and over 40,000 unique visitors per month not only from the USA but Canada, Germany, Mexico and Australia as well, QSRweb.com continues to stand-alone as the leading resource in this online segment.

Founded in 1999, eLearners.com is a comprehensive web portal that provides resources to online learners and connects them with online learning providers. eLearners.com, Inc. was established to respond to the explosive growth of the distance learning industry by educating prospective students and helping them to evaluate the wide variety of available learning programs.