Red Lion Hotel owner David Canny elected as Australian Hotels Association president

David Canny, owner of the Red Lion Hotel and Victorian president of the AHA, was elected unopposed after Scott Leach stood down from the role after five years.

Mr Canny said it was a privilege to be elected.

"I thank Scott for his leadership at the national level - particularly during the darkest days of the pandemic. He has commanded a unified and committed Board," Mr Canny said.

"It's an honour to be elected as national president and I look forward to working closely with all state and territory branches as the industry continues to recover from the pandemic and we work to solve issues such as the chronic worker shortage."

The labour and skills shortages facing the hospitality industry around Australia is something Mr Canny will be working hard on.

"That certainly will take the lead in the short-term," he said.

"The thing that's holding our venues back at the moment is not demand, it's actually being able to service the demand.

"The demand is back, customers are back big time which is fantastic, [we've] just got to be able to service that with both skills and labour - there's a shortage for both.

"So we've got to be looking at training and how we're going to train up the workforce going forward as well -we've got a responsibility there."

Mr Canny knows how important it is for the industry to keep working hard as the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic continues.

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He was among the thousands of hospitality owners hit hard during and after the lockdowns in 2020 and 2021.

"The way to recover is to trade our way back," Mr Canny said.

"For us to trade our way back we need to be able to staff the venues with suitably qualified people so that [customers] will get the experiences they want.

"If they get what they want they'll come back and if they don't, they'll be frustrated and they might not come out as often if they don't think they're getting the service.

"It's about 'how do we recover?' and the way we want to recover is by trading our way to prosperity rather than with the handout method." he said.

Mr Canny said support from the government was still needed, but not in the way of handouts.

"Support now is about 'how do we encourage people to employ?', 'how do we help venues train staff?'," he said.

"It's a matter of investment in the training, it's about fast tracking the visa process to get the skilled workers in that we can't meet. They're the things that we now need from government.

"It's a different focus in the recovery that we need now, where as coming out of COVID was about the financial side of support that we really needed."

Mr Canny also said another important issue was the rising cost of doing business, particularly around power costs and insurance.

"We need to address the insurance challenge that we have," he said.

"The more long-term stuff will be around the cost of doing business and making sure we have a sustainable business model."

Mr Canny has been the licensee at the Red Lion Hotel since 1995 and is a second-generation hotelier. He is also the director of the Montague Hotel, South Melbourne.

Mr Canny joined the association's Victorian council in 1998 and was elected to the Victorian Executive Committee in 2008.

He also most recently served as AHA national Senior vice-president.

The Australian Hotels Association represents 5000 businesses across Australia, from country pubs to five-star resorts.

Its mission is to ensure a national legislative, social, economic and commercial environment that secures the viability of Australian hotels.

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