courtesy of Camelback Inn
The Camelback Inn near Phoenix has just lost a convention for immigration lawyers, who are boycotting the state due to Arizona’s draconian immigration law. San Francisco has banned city workers from most business travel to Arizona as well. On the other hand, the American Hotel & Lodging Association pledged to hold its June summer summit meeting in Arizona as scheduled. Since tourists spend $18.5 billion in Arizona in 2008, and the hotel industry employs a large number of immigrant labor, the Arizona immigration law will impact the state’s hotels and resorts. Everyone seems to have an opinion. (Ours? This immigration law sucks, and seems to be unconstitutional, but let’s leave that for another day.) One of the worst things about it is the unrestrained prejudice and anger it has unleashed on both sides of the border. (Mexico has just issued a travel advisory for Arizona.) As if to illustrate our point, the Arizona Hotel and Lodging Association has set up its own Facebook page to counter calls for a boycott of the state, provoking a firestorm of comments both for and against. Ugly stuff. We’ll follow how this immigration law shakes out in the tourism industry, especially as it affects hotels.
Arizona, Hotels
American Hotel & Lodging Association, Arizona Hotel and Lodging Association, Camelback Inn
According to a USA Today article by Roger Yu, Arizona’s new immigration policy may have dangerous repercussions in the hotel industry.
•The American Immigration Lawyers Association notified JW Marriott in Scottsdale that it’s canceling a meeting of about 300 scheduled for later this year.
•Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., has called for an economic boycott by businesses that would locate in his state or visitors who would meet there.
•Janet Murguia, head of the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights group, says she’s considering “economic actions that can be taken.”
•Asian American Hotel Owners Association (don’t laugh; its 10,000 members own more than 20,000 U.S. hotels) want lawmakers to reconsider, says Ash Patel, the group’s former chairman who owns several hotels in Arizona. “(Hotel owners) are very afraid right now,” he says.
Don’t forget that Arizona has a history of shooting itself in the foot. The state lost about 170 conventions from 1990 to 1993 from boycotts because of the state’s failure to approve a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
Arizona, Hotels
The Supreme Court has denied the petition to prevent Arizona Snowbowl Resort from making snow from treated sewage water on Arizona’s San Francisco Peak, a mountain that 13 Native American nations hold sacred. Crux of issue: does residual human waste desecrate land deemed sacred? Construction may start soon on a pipeline that will pump treated, reclaimed water up the mountain from a treatment plant in Flagstaff, which is key to the resort’s expansion plans. “To Native Americans, desecrating the San Francisco Peaks with wastewater is like flushing the Koran down the toilet,” said Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr.
TAKE ACTION: Contact Congress & the Obama Administration and urge them to take action to guarantee protection for Native American Religious freedom.
Arizona
Arizona, Flagstaff, Native American, Navajo, San Francisco, San Francisco Peak, Sewage
