Editorial Board   Guest Author

Ms. Kula

Stacy Kula

Team Leader Hospitality & Alcohol, Steptoe Johnson

Stacy Kula is the Team Leader of the Hospitality & Resort Team and Alcohol Team at the law firm of Steptoe & Johnson PLLC. She practices law throughout the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Although Ms. Kula has a wide range of experience, she focuses her practice on alcohol licensing, hospitality law, mergers and acquisitions, entity formation, real estate purchases and leases, and general contract law.

She works closely with the alcoholic beverage industry, representing, among others, hotels, developers, national franchises, night clubs, restaurants, bars and alcohol manufacturers. Ms. Kula regularly applies for all types of alcoholic beverage licenses with state regulatory agencies and the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) and works with licensees through all phases of their business. She has acted as lead ABC counsel to a number of licensees in multi-state transactions, obtaining licenses in numerous jurisdictions and conducting nationwide research projects. She also defends licensees against allegations of misconduct and alcohol violations.

She is a second term elected member of the Board of Directors of Academy of Hospitality Industry Attorneys (AHIA). She is also a member of the National Association of Alcoholic Beverage Licensing Attorneys (NAABLA) and the National Association of Licensing Compliance Professional (NALCP).

She has published a number of articles about the alcohol industry and is a regular contributor to the Distiller magazine. She speaks frequently at national conventions about relevant issues in the alcohol industry.

Ms. Kula graduated with a B.S. from the University of Maryland and a J.D. from North Carolina Central University. In addition, Ms. Kula received her LL.M. in Taxation from the University of Florida.

Please visit http://www.steptoe-johnson.com for more information.

Ms. Kula can be contacted at +1 859-219-8222 or stacy.kula@steptoe-johnson.com

Coming up in February 2020...

Social Media: Social Listening Tools

The reach and influence of social media is staggering. Nearly 3 billion people use social media daily, posting a range of messages, selfies, images, and everything in-between. According to HubSpot, almost 4 million posts are uploaded to the major social networks every single minute! That's an astounding amount of content and it is crucial for hotels to skillfully use social media in order to effectively compete. From establishing a suitable brand identity and voice to creating content across all the major networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.), the goal is to actively engage consumers and to eventually convert them to customers. Some hotels are initiating online contests as a way to attract new customers, while others are rewarding customers with discounts who subscribe to the their email lists or follow their social media pages. Another recent strategy is to employ social media listening tools that track what people are posting online about their businesses. These tools allow hotels to monitor - or listen to - what's being said about a brand across the entire social web, and this can prove to be very valuable, unfiltered information. Social listening permits hotels to be aware of people's opinions about their business, industry or competitors, and some of these tools even listen beyond social media platforms. They also monitor publicly available information on blogs, forums, news outlets and websites. Some listening tools are more focused on gathering and analyzing data, while others offer more engagement-oriented features, which allow hotels to interact with people right from the platform. Often the information that is gleaned from these listening tools ends up being the most authentic, unbiased insights a business can get. The February Hotel Business Review will document what some hotels are doing to successfully integrate social media strategies into their operations.


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