As we celebrate Hotel Management’s 150th anniversary year throughout 2025, we will be looking back to see what has changed over a century and a half—and what has stayed the same.
The Asian American Hotel Owners Association launched in 1989 to support a then-growing demographic in hotel ownership. According to the association’s website, Indian Americans saw “tremendous opportunities for prosperity” in the hospitality industry during the 1970s, and a generation of so-called “accidental hoteliers” joined the industry.
At the same time, these new hoteliers faced discrimination within the industry, particularly from banks and insurance companies. To overcome these obstacles, hoteliers collaborated to form various groups for mutual support, and ultimately formed AAHOA just before the new decade.
Today, AAHOA’s 20,000 members own 60 percent of all hotels in the United States, and many of those original “accidental hoteliers” have children who have joined the industry, turning hospitality into a multigenerational business. Moreover, these children are now rising through the ranks, and many of AAHOA’s leaders today are second-generation hoteliers, descendants of the immigrant generation. In April 2024, Miraj S. Patel became chairman of the AAHOA 2024-25 Board of Directors. Patel is a second-generation hotelier who grew up in his family’s first 30-room independent property. “The next wave of owners, operators, leaders are still in the game and they’re going to take it to even further lengths,” Patel said before his election to AAHOA’s leadership.
This article was originally published in the April edition of Hotel Management magazine. Subscribe here.