AHLA’s 2022 Board Chair Justin Knight on Strengthening the Hospitality Industry as it Advances Into Recovery
Justin Knight has been a part of the American Hotel & Lodging Association’s (AHLA) Executive Committee for three years and has served on the Board of Directors for twice as long. Knight, who is CEO of Apple Hospitality REIT, Inc., was recently named chair of the 2022 AHLA Board of Directors. His dedication to hospitality dates back to his graduate school days when he began working shifts at a Homewood Suites near Salt Lake City that was owned by Apple Suites, a company Knight’s father launched in 1999. “Over a period of months, I did everything from cleaning rooms to serving breakfast to folding laundry to working the front desk—and I got amazing exposure to the hotel industry that way,” Knight recalls. “When I graduated from the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University, I came back and joined Apple Suites as one of the initial employees. The rest is history.”
Over the course of his more than 20 years in the business, Knight has been an integral part of the leadership team at Apple Hospitality REIT and its predecessor companies, guiding them through the purchase of hundreds of properties and across several economic cycles. LODGING caught up with Knight as he took the helm as 2022 AHLA Board chair to discuss the state of the industry today, his top priorities for the year ahead, and his optimism for the industry’s recovery from the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
When did you first get involved in AHLA?
When AHLA’s past President and CEO Katherine Lugar joined the association in 2013, she visited our office and met with our team. During that conversation, she asked us what we thought the organization could accomplish under her leadership and inspired optimism around the impact of our combined efforts. Five years later, under Chip Rogers’ leadership, the organization continued down that path and has become a powerful voice for the industry. The value of the organization has been incredibly evident over the past couple of years as we have worked to navigate the pandemic environment as an industry. AHLA’s work around Stay Safe, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), and helping elected officials understand what our industry needed over the past two years—those efforts have been exceptional.
