With almost 4,000 lodging clients, ResNexus has become one of the largest—if not the largest—property management system within the innkeeping industry.

It is ResNexus' opinion that the Association of Lodging Professionals (ALP) has been 1) acting in bad faith with ResNexus, 2) has become a vendor-run association with select vendors controlling content and direction, and 3) that ALP does not follow its own Code of Ethics.

Therefore, ResNexus no longer recommends, endorses, or financially supports the Association of Lodging Professionals.

Imagine you own a business and are also a member of a country club. You come to find out that several of your former clients have been damaging your business by aiding a rival business.

Upon discovery, you commence legal action against the rival. Both you and this rival happen to be major donors of the same country club. During the lawsuit, the country club tells you they want to stay out of the dispute and will not investigate any allegations against your rival.

Your rival settles with you to avoid going to court and having a potential judgment based upon their actions. Once again, the country club is aware of the lawsuit settlement and states that they will remain neutral. 

All of a sudden, the country club approaches you and tells you that you are unprofessional and disrespectful because you are "going after" several of their members who "really did next to nothing... maybe in passing" to aid your rival. Somehow hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages is considered trivial.

Two possible violators even sit on the country club's board and do not recuse themselves. The board claims that your behavior is against their vague and ambiguous Code of Ethics found on their website.

In response, you point out that this rival and these other club members appear to have actually violated the "Intellectual Property" clause of the club's Code of Ethics. You express that you have not violated any section of their Code of Ethics and are the victim and have suffered significant damages from these other members.

You inquire if your rival and these other members are being investigated by the country club as well for violating the Code of Ethics and are told they are not. Instead, the country club disinvites you from attending certain volunteer activities and advisory roles.

You are told that if you do not cease and drop all possible legal action, you will be sanctioned by the board of directors who are made up of the clients of your rival. You feel a great injustice has been done because your rival controls the board.

You indicate to the country club that their interference with your contractual relationships appears to be tortious interference and that they might become liable for damages caused by interfering with a lawful legal dispute. Realizing that they could be sued, the country club finally communicates that no sanctions will be issued.

This is a solid example of what ResNexus has experienced with the Association of Lodging Professionals since May 2023.

As most of the lodging industry knows, ResNexus (Convoyant LLC) had to file a lawsuit against ThinkResevations (DeepThink LLC) to stop them from gaining unauthorized access to ResNexus without ResNexus' permission by requesting ResNexus clients provide their ResNexus credentials.

The lawsuit ended with a settlement from ThinkReservations of $400,000 to be paid over two years and and as a term of the settlement, if ThinkReservations gains unauthorized access to ResNexus again there will be a $2,000,000 penalty.

The settlement happened in May of 2023. During the lawsuit it was discovered that hundreds of past ResNexus clients had shared their ResNexus credentials with ThinkReservations. ThinkReservations, as is their right, did not want to share this list with ResNexus for privacy and legal reasons.

In May of 2023, ResNexus decided to use its own records to try to discover which past clients may have violated their ResNexus Subscriber Agreement. 

All businesses experience bad clients from time to time. Just like our lodging clients, ResNexus experienced bad clients who damaged ResNexus as they left. They provided our competition an unfair advantage and allowed ThinkReservations access to ResNexus to see whatever and whenever they wanted.

Imagine if you had bad guests that did hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to your business each year for nearly a decade? That is what was happening to ResNexus as clients left for ThinkReservations.

As a result, ResNexus commenced emailing and mailing this list of past clients to inquire if they provided their ResNexus access to ThinkReservations without ResNexus' permission. ResNexus highlighted in each of the past clients' ResNexus Subscriber Agreement where they contractually agreed not to share their ResNexus credentials specifically with any competitor and that they had contractually agreed to liquidated damages of $5,000 if they did so. For those that violated this agreement, ResNexus was willing to settle for half of the amount.

These past clients were given the opportunity to explain their actions. Two communications were sent giving them this opportunity.

Those that communicated to ResNexus one of the following were told the matter was resolved:

• Those that represented they did not share their ResNexus credentials with ThinkReservations  
• Those that represented they bought the business after the property moved to ThinkReservations  
• Those that did not recall  
• Those that did recall and offered an apology  
• Those that did recall, felt accountable, and sent a settlement check.

Of the 160 past clients who violated the ResNexus Subscriber Agreement, 128 have been amicably resolved. The others remain in bad standing with ResNexus and in our opinion lack candor and integrity. They are our equivalent of a banned guest. ResNexus reserves the right, like our lodging clients do, to seek compensation for damages made by these bad actors.

After two years of claiming neutrality between two of its largest donors, ALP quickly became involved on behalf of their innkeeper members once ResNexus started inquiring of the 160 prior clients regarding possible violations of the ResNexus Subscriber Agreement. Of the 160 prior clients, around 60 were members of ALP. ALP currently has 416 innkeeper members.

After a few discussions with ALP, ResNexus inquired why ALP was now becoming involved by sending ResNexus an ALP Ethics Committee Decision indicating ALP would sanction ResNexus for supposed Code of Ethics violations. ResNexus was asked to respond which it did, indicating that the claims were baseless, vague, and without legal foundation.

Trying to interfere with ResNexus' lawful right to pursue damages agreed upon by a legally binding Subscriber Agreement is the definition of tortious interference. ResNexus indicated that it would unfortunately have to file litigation against ALP if it became involved with its lawful legal actions. ALP eventually wisely declined to sanction ResNexus.

The cherry on top during these discussions was ALP demanding that ResNexus grant access to competitors like Acorn Marketing and Jeff Logan Marketing, who are not in good standing with ResNexus. It shows just how much power and sway these vendors have over the board of ALP to make such an unlawful and unreasonable demand of ResNexus.

ResNexus is a direct competitor to these two website and marketing companies and in no way needs to grant access to any third party to any of its products or services, especially to those who are hostile towards ResNexus.

When ResNexus entered the industry twenty years ago, the Professional Association of International Innkeepers (PAII) had thousands of members. Over time, PAII was slowly becoming the "Rezovations Association" who was the major sponsor at the time. At PAII, ResNexus was not allowed to speak and often had our booth moved at the last minute so as not to be by some other vendor we happened to be competing against.

From our viewpoint, as PAII let Rezovations take over and it became overly political and biased, PAII started to bleed members, dropping from thousands to hundreds of members.

Rezovations sold and a few years passed. Then some PAII members who, in our opinion, could not get the political power they desired, broke off to form the Association of Independent Hospitality Professionals (AIHP). AIHP promised to be a new kind of association. ResNexus was the largest financial sponsor at its inception, even bringing hundreds of ResNexus clients to their first conference.

After this very successful AIHP conference in Nashville and ResNexus' huge involvement the first year to get AIHP launched, several vendors approached AIHP and told them ResNexus should not be as involved. When we asked if AIHP wanted help the next year, we were shocked to be turned down since we did not want special treatment. ResNexus was then constantly mistreated, not allowed equal opportunity such as speaking time, and experienced the same last-minute booth moves, etc.

As such, AIHP slowly morphed into what several vendors called the "ThinkReservations Association." At PAII, it was easy to see that Acorn Internet was running the show. ResNexus stopped recommending and participating in both these associations as they became hostile, biased, political, and less meaningful to innkeeper and vendor members not part of the group in power.

Our ResNexus clients complained about the lack of value of both organizations, so ResNexus Academy was born and has become a great success, even matching the number of attendees of these associations, even through COVID.

As PAII and AIHP struggled to retain members, they eventually merged together almost four years ago to form yet another "new association" called the Association of Lodging Professionals. ResNexus once again invested as the premier sponsor hoping this time it would be different.

Unfortunately, like PAII and AIHP before them, it is our opinion that ALP has become run by the same vendors and as such has become very political and biased. As such, two 300-400 member organizations have now become one 400 member association, not the 900 member association that was promoted.

ResNexus has nearly 4,000 clients which is more than ALP, ThinkReservations, and Acorn Internet, etc. combined. ALP has only 416 members which is less than 1% of their industry demographic. And with the down economy the US is in, membership and vendor fees and sponsorships will mostly likely become harder to come by.

In our opinion, ALP's current model does not bode well since strategically these national innkeeping organizations continue to cut themselves off from one of the largest sources of members in their industry by playing politics against ResNexus. While these associations and vendors gang up against ResNexus, ResNexus continues to consistently outgrow these competitors in multiple industries and around the world.

If organizations like ALP were neutral to all vendors, like we have found in other industries like campgrounds, glamping, marinas, etc, ALP could greatly expand their membership numbers. The national glamping association, which formed around the same time as ALP, has 800 - 900 member attendees at their conferences and close to 7% market share.

ResNexus' motto is learn, serve, grow, grow. Learn and serve and help someone grow, and you normally grow as well. This is what we do with our clients and what ResNexus has tried to do with these three innkeeper associations.

Unfortunately from our experience, ALP appears to bet on and give power to a group of smaller vendors, hoping that combination brings the association success. We understand ALP's dilemma in having to make challenging decisions, but we have found ALP to falter at every tough call.

History has shown that this formula of pandering to one group of vendors does not work because it alienates the other vendors and members not of that group. If a business continued to fail and needed to be rebranded 2 times in the last 10 years, that business would easily be considered a failure with a bad business plan.

Any business looking to join or associate with ALP should keep in mind the following:

1) It has been ResNexus' experience that ALP is actually governed by a handful of vendor members through innkeeper members on the board.


In our opinion, ALP can easily be—like PAII and AIHP—, considered the "ThinkReservations/Acorn Internet Association." Those two businesses do almost exclusive business with each other and make strategic moves together.

Seven of the nine board members use or are partnered strategically with ThinkReservations. The board disproportionately misrepresents ALP's member makeup since ThinkReservations doesn't make up 78% of ALP members. There are close to 100 ALP members that don't use any leading property management system that don't have any voice on the board.

It is easy to see that these vendors heavily influence the ALP board members and are allowed to run the show. They determine who speaks and what they speak on.

In our opinion, if ALP is really an association of lodging professionals, why do biased vendors speak at all? Shouldn't these lodging professionals be knowledgeable enough to speak about the various topics or have the ability to bring in actual industry experts?

Why not get Google to come speak about Google Analytics and Google Ads? Why is it some biased website and marketing company? Why not get Airbnb, Lightspeed, Remote Lock, etc. to present about their products and services instead of having a partner talk? We know this is possible because ResNexus has these companies all the time in our webinars and other associations are able to get them out.

When our competitors speak at ALP, it has also been our experience that if you are not part of the ThinkReservations/Acorn Internet crowd, you most likely will be subject to false statements by these vendors or their clients to try to convince you to leave your current provider. They normally come in the form of, "If you are not doing x, or don't have y, you are going out of business or are not competitive." Those items normally are recently released, often copied features or even outdated services. Somehow their version is better and without it you are doomed.

It is clear to see—and ResNexus strongly believes—that these vendors who control the board and speaking arrangements speak often and are allowed to make false claims against their competitors with no sanctions by the association. Competitors to these companies, like ResNexus, attend ALP conferences to dispel these false statements at their booths.

ALP is responsible for policing this. From our experience, they have not and do not, even though they are liable for their member's unlawful actions. It is a huge liability and one that we feel they should take more seriously.

ResNexus spends significant time, effort, and resources to not spread false information about its competitors. ResNexus has on its website a comparison for many of its competitors so as to not spread false information when asked how it compares to a given competitor. These comparisons are public so they can be challenged for veracity and they are frequently updated.

2) In our opinion, ALP's Education Committee is really run by Lisa Kolb at Acorn Internet, now via proxy.

By being the chair and running the education committee, Lisa Kolb of Acorn Internet gave herself and ThinkReservations more speaking and presenting opportunities than ALP's own rules permitted.

For example, at the 2022 ALP Baltimore conference, Lisa Kolb from Acorn Marketing and her team spoke in over 5 sessions. ResNexus, like most other vendors, could speak up to two times, which is according to ALP's own rules.

In addition, Lisa, as a vendor, is in charge of the Aspiring and New Innkeepers workshops. These valuable workshops influence much of the purchasing decision throughout the conference. Although Acorn would ask for volunteers for these workshops, Lisa would limit which vendors could speak and on which topic.

For example, the workshops would cover Google Business Profile (Google Travel), Google Analytics, TripAdvisor Strategies, ADA compliance, and website load times. ResNexus, as the leading website provider in the lodging industry, has extensive knowledge on all of those topics but was only allowed to assist on ADA compliance, even though ResNexus was the only official Google Travel Partner at the time.

ResNexus feels Lisa Kolb is continually in violation of ALP's Code of Ethics because she approaches vendors to ask that they "gang up against ResNexus." We know because these vendors reach out to tell us she is doing so and they did not want to join that club. ResNexus strongly believes that this is unprofessional and disrespectful behavior that goes against ALP's Code of Ethics.

3) ALP has acted in bad faith with regards to the ALP website

In 2021, ALP asked for proposals to redesign their website. ResNexus was the only partner that supplied a proposal. What's more, to assist the association, ResNexus would professionally design the website as a donation in kind in addition to its $25,000 premier sponsorship.

ALP's board, which from the start has been made up of mostly ThinkReservations and Acorn clients, refused ResNexus' offer even though these companies were unwilling to do the project themselves. ResNexus had the product to do so easily as it had done for other associations.

Some of ALP's leadership/staff communicated that they could not believe such a generous offer would be turned down. ALP's website did not get redesigned until June of 2023.

4) It has been ResNexus' experience that ALP doesn't follow its own Code of Ethics and does not in reality "take all ethics complaints seriously" as they claim.

After threatening sanctions against ResNexus, ALP still would not consider any Code of Ethics complaint by ResNexus. ALP even emailed all members and vendors saying they take all ethics complaints seriously. This is false and as such, in our opinion, ALP is in violation of its own Code of Ethics.

The Association of Lodging Professionals is unprofessional and disrespectful by not taking up ResNexus' valid ethics complaints. If ALP is going to claim ResNexus has violated this Code of Ethics, it is only fair that the other parties be investigated as well.

When offered solid evidence, even a phone call recording where Richard Aday of ThinkReservations admits to unauthorized access to ResNexus, these complaints are ignored.

This appears to be a clear violation of Section 5 (Intellectual Property) of ALP's Code of Ethics:

The Member will not use, by any means, intellectual property, proprietary information, or any content originated by others unless approved in writing by the originator.

After ResNexus' settled with ThinkReservations, other property management systems have reached out and communicated to ResNexus that ThinkReservations has done the same to them.

When asked to file a complaint with ALP's board of directors, they communicated to ResNexus, "What's the point? The board is ThinkReservations. They won't do anything." They even feel that if they bring it up to ALP that they will be ostracized.

For our ResNexus clients that are also ALP members, we strongly encourage you to attend ResNexus Academy in January or March of 2024.


Businesses that have attended both indicate that ResNexus' Academy is more meaningful, affordable, and valuable than ALP's conference. In the past ALP has moved its conference so as not to compete with ResNexus Academy because attendees, if they have to choose, would attend ResNexus Academy over ALP's conference.

Like before COVID, we are expanding back to two Academies in 2024.

ResNexus Academy is three days of peer sharing, breakout sessions with the ResNexus team to answer any questions and to brainstorm about how to improve your business, presentations on new ResNexus innovations, great food, and even Sherp rides on a frozen lake. Park City is close and if you like to ski, you can experience some of the best snow in the US.

In-person Academy is normally $699 per person, but since we will no longer be involved with ALP or attending any ALP conferences, we would love to have you experience ResNexus Academy and bring any team members for only $99 in 2024. Non-ResNexus businesses are always welcome as well at the $99 rate.

Much like ResNexus has created a more valuable experience than PAII, AIHP, and ALP's conferences in ResNexus Academy, ResNexus is now working to create a unique hospitality organization that will be free, highly substantive, and innovative. It will truly be for any hospitality-geared business and have an international reach. Members can learn and share with each other with no vendor sales pitches or politics. More details to come.

ResNexus is withdrawing its endorsement and support for the Association of Lodging Professionals. In our opinion, as long as ALP continues to be the ThinkReservations / Acorn Internet association, ALP will continue to struggle due to a toxic environment and unfair playing field.

ResNexus will once again take a stand and not support any overly biased and political association that is run via proxy by one or more of its competitors.

ResNexus feels it is extremely hypocritical for ALP to not care about clear violations of their Code of Ethics, yet make weak and false claims against ResNexus.

It is very concerning that ALP causally dismisses the material breach of the ResNexus Subscriber Agreement that has caused irreparable harm to ResNexus by claiming the subscribers, who are ALP members, "only inadvertently violated" the Subscriber Agreement.

ResNexus doesn't do business with any organization or entity that it feels lacks candor and is disrespectful of ResNexus' legal rights.