The California Hotel & Lodging Association is placing advocacy at the centre of its 2026 agenda as hotels confront lawsuits, taxes and wage mandates.
The California Hotel & Lodging Association has named Kristi Allen, executive vice president of hotels at Ensemble, as its 2026 chair, putting policy advocacy at the centre of the organisation’s priorities for California’s hotel sector. Allen succeeds Cormac O’Modhrain, who becomes immediate past chair, while the association’s newly elected board prepares to represent more than 6,000 hotels and the 235,000 people employed across the state’s lodging industry. The leadership change places a trade group’s political and regulatory role alongside its member services as a defining concern for the year ahead.
Allen said the California Hotel & Lodging Association, also known as CHLA, must respond to what she described as predatory lawsuits, onerous taxes and unsustainable wage mandates. Her assessment frames the association’s work around the operating conditions facing hotels rather than around individual properties or brands. The emphasis is particularly significant for a sector that includes hotels, motels and boutique inns, giving the organisation a broad constituency across California’s accommodation market.
The association’s 33-member 2026 board was elected at its annual meeting at the Marriott Long Beach Downtown. Three new directors joined the board: Robert Gleason, president and chief executive of Evans Hotels; Scott Mills, general manager of The Garland; and Steve Choe, dual general manager of Marriott International’s Moxy and AC Hotel Downtown Los Angeles. Six directors also renewed their terms, including representatives from Mar Vista Farm & Cottage, Pacific Plaza Hotels, Handlery Hotels, Coast Redwood Hospitality, Ridgemont Hospitality and Samata Management.
Tom Patton, general manager and partner of Ramada by Wyndham Santa Barbara, will serve as vice chair, while David Craig, senior vice president of asset management at Pebblebrook Hotel Trust, will be secretary-treasurer. The board will support Allen alongside CHLA president and chief executive Lynn S. Mohrfeld, who said the group is positioned to continue its advocacy for members and the future of hospitality in California. Together, the appointments give the association a leadership structure drawn from hotel ownership, operations, asset management and independent lodging businesses.
CHLA describes itself as the largest state lodging industry association in the United States and says it has represented California lodging interests since 1893. Its 2026 priorities suggest that advocacy will remain closely tied to the commercial pressures affecting hotels, employees and the wider hospitality economy. For the association, the new chair’s mandate is therefore less a change of direction than a renewed effort to make collective representation consequential for businesses operating in a demanding regulatory environment.
