Virginia Restaurant, Lodging and Travel Association (“VRLTA)

On Tuesday January 28, 2025 hundreds of professionals from the hospitality industry joined the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging and Travel Association (“VRLTA) in Richmond to lobby Congress for the interests of our industry. Among this group, The Howard Feiertag Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management was represented (see the impact this experience had on our MSBA students).

During the time on the Hill, we broke into groups and spent the morning going from floor to floor to appeal to our Delegates for the legislative priorities in our industry. The link below provides a full list of our concerns. Just the day before we arrived the No Tax on Tips proposal did not pass (see link).

The group I was in spent time lobbying for HB1901/SB927 – Sports Tourism Fund. This bill includes:

This legislation builds on the success of a pilot program operated by VA Tourism using $1million ARPA Funds, in which 45 sporting events and $42.7 million visitor spending were recruited to the Commonwealth in just 18 months. https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20251/HB1901/text/HB1901
It was PASSED on March 21, 2025 https://legiscan.com/VA/bill/HB1901/2025

We also discussed HB1654 – Human Trafficking Prevention Training https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20251/HB1654 At this time this remains local: https://legiscan.com/VA/text/HB1654/2025

Budget Amendment 3-5.06 #1h - https://budget.lis.virginia.gov/amendment/2025/1/HB1600/Introduced/MR/3-5.06/1h/

After spending the morning talking to our Delegates about our industry, we had the honor of sitting in the balcony to observe Session and we were introduced as guests. What an honor and experience to see the power of our numbers representing our industry and the financial impact we have in the Commonwealth. Please consider joining next year…there is power in numbers.

https://vrlta.pixieset.com/2025dayonthehillandtasteofvrltareception/

Virginia Restaurant, Lodging and Travel Association (“VRLTA)

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