Dear WH&LA Independent Property Member:

The American Hotel & Lodging Association is taking on a significant leadership role in addressing recently escalating concerns over the ability of guests at lodging properties to directly dial 911 to access emergency assistance. In order to address this best, they have prepared the message shown at the bottom below.  

As it is critically important that all of our independent (non-brand) properties have an opportunity to be counted in the data that future decisions may be based on, we wanted to get this survey information out to you and ask for your participation by the February 4 deadline. While many independent properties are also members of AH&LA, and they may have already been contacted on this, we want to be sure everyone has this chance.

For your reference, WH&LA is already participating in the AH&LA Task Force on 911 Access referred to below. You may recall that last year our state introduced a bill relating to 911 call dialing, which is currently on hold, but the bill could still be reactivated this session with the new national exposure through Fox News and other outlets. We are one of only a few states that already began looking into implementing phone system requirements, and thus will need to stay close to federal developments on this topic.

Thank you for your quick response-
Trisha 

Trisha A. Pugal, CAE| President, CEO | Wisconsin Hotel & Lodging Association | WisconsinLodging.org | 262.782.2851

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FROM AH&LA:

As many of you may know, there was a recent tragedy in Texas where a woman was killed in a hotel by her estranged husband; her daughter attempted to dial 911 during the incident but couldn't because she was not aware she had to dial "9" first for the call to go out. This has prompteda change.org petition, petitioning government officials to enact a law that requires hotels to have all phone systems updated to accept 911 as an emergency call and be connected automatically to emergency dispatch. The current petition has 400,000+ signatures and has garnered a range of media and Congressional attention.

Given the importance of this issue, and to ensure that any future regulatory and congressional action represents the needs of lodging and is driven by our actions, AH&LA is supporting a proactive industry approach and response. As such, AH&LA is undertaking an effort to better understand the state of emergency services dialing in lodging properties across the nation.      

As part of this effort, AH&LA is asking independent properties to fill out a brief survey on emergency services dialing procedures at their properties. Similar outreach is being done with franchisees, and brand managed and owned properties as well. This survey will help us to gather the information necessary to better understand and find a solution to this issue. It consists of just six questions and should only take a matter of minutes to complete. The survey data will be aggregated together so that the responding properties cannot be identified, and then used to help formulate an industry response to the 911 dialing issue. There are no identifying questions in the survey and no personal information is requested.  

We ask that you complete this survey by close of business next Tuesday, February 4. Your time will help our industry understand this issue better, and work towards preventing any future tragedies.

Access the survey here.