Choice Hotels CEO to Trump: Travel Rhetoric Is ‘Offensive’ and ‘Incongruent’

When the Trump Administration announced its first travel ban in January, most hotel companies remained silent on the matter, deferring to the industry's trade association, the American Hotel & Lodging Association to speak for them collectively. Choice Hotels, however, was a lone exception, and its CEO, Stephen P. Joyce, recently reiterated his thoughts about the Trump Administration's various stances on travel, including trying to reinstate yet another travel ban and cutting funding for Brand USA, the organization tasked with promoting tourism to the U.S. Joyce spoke to Skift on June 6 at the NYU Hospitality Industry Investment Conference in New York City. We began by asking him for his thoughts on Loews Hotels CEO Jonathan Tisch's opening remarks at the conference, calling on the travel industry to work together to prevent another "lost decade" of