AAHOA Lending streamlines financing for members
By Amy King
At AAHOACON25 in April, AAHOA proudly announced the launch of AAHOALending. com, a digital platform created to make hotel financing easier for members. Powered by Bridge, the leading hotel financing platform and a Club Blue Industry Partner that helps owners access competitive loan terms from a large network of lenders. Through AAHOA Lending, hoteliers can create materials, request financing, and review terms in one place, often within hours.
“We created Bridge to accommodate the hotel community, and we saw a huge overlap between the community and AAHOA Members who control 60 percent of the hotels in this country,” said Rohit Mathur, CEO of Bridge. “We had conversations with AAHOA about how to build a program that would work for their community, and they were very focused on providing value. A major concern for their members was how financing has been a huge challenge for them. That was an area for us to collaborate to provide value, so that is how AAHOA Lending got its start.”
AAHOA Lending is a hospitality-focused lending marketplace for members to find financial lenders that meet their unique needs. Whether the goal is to acquire, refinance, rehabilitate, build from the ground up, or complete a property improvement plan, the platform helps hoteliers f ind competitive rates and flexible financing options on one website. Hotel owners of both flagged and independent properties are eligible to use the service, so every member has access to the same streamlined process and wide selection of lenders.
The website is designed to meet the needs of hoteliers who want to compare financing terms in a standardized format, while offering a competitive way for them to secure financing by making informed decisions.
“AAHOA is dedicated to ensuring our members have access to the best resources available, and AAHOALending.com is a direct result of that commitment,” said AAHOA Vice Chairman Rahul Patel. “Through our member-centric vision, we are continuously working to provide solutions that address our members’ most pressing challenges.
“By partnering with Bridge, we are delivering a transparent, user-friendly platform that empowers our members to secure capital more efficiently in today’s evolving market.”
Easy as 1-2-3
AAHOA Lending makes financing a hotel project refreshingly simple. The entire process can be done in three easy steps. First, hotel owners submit a loan request at AAHOALending.com. Then they compare the offers they receive from multiple lenders. Finally, they choose the offer that best meets their project needs and close the deal. The platform uses artificial intelligence to create materials, build offering memos, and identify ideal lenders for each project.
“The program is simple because it centralizes the entire process,” said Mathur. “You don’t have to talk to a hundred people on the phone. With a traditional financing process, everyone is taking notes on scrap paper and then forgetting stuff. This puts your entire deal summary and all your documents in one place. It helps you reach out to lenders in one place.”
What used to require different platforms and systems is now streamlined to make the whole process easier and more efficient for everyone involved.
“Let’s face it, getting a bank loan these days feels like applying to Harvard,” said AAHOA Chairman Kamalesh (KP) Patel, a user of the platform. “AAHOA Lending is here to change that.”
Behind the scenes, Bridge’s technology uses advanced AI, data-driven screening, and underwriting to generate professional loan documents, such as offering memorandums and pro formas, to help members present their projects in the best light.
“A key feature of the program is that the system helps members create their financing materials for them,” said Mathur. “We have a variety of free tools that help members create the materials they need to start with.”
AAHOA Lending is also set up with a number of different question flows that are customized to the type of deal that a hotel owner is seeking, whether it is buying, building, or refinancing a hotel. After members answer the questions, the system creates a deal summary. Then the program supplements the deal summary with third-party databases and other information it has access to.
Within 24 hours of submitting basic details, such as a project overview, budget, a T12 report, and a pro forma statement, the Bridge team creates an offering memorandum and borrower profile. The system then builds a deal room for members to store their information so lenders can view it.
“By creating offering memos and a deal room, we essentially centralize everything that a lender would want to look at in one place,” said Mathur. “There’s no cost to the user for us to do all of that.”
The platform changed AAHOA Member Dhaval (DK) Patel’s expectations for securing funding. “AAHOA Lending is the most efficient financing process I’ve used because their technology is powered by real people,” said DK, president of Prianna Hospitality. “We’ve now closed multiple deals with them, and I can’t imagine going back to a manual process.”
Once users are satisfied with the information, it is sent to interested lenders who then select the deals that align with their criteria. AAHOA Lending features more than 300 lenders, ranging from large, national banks to community banks, SBA lenders, private debt funds, and family off ices. Some of the lenders only lend exclusively through Bridge. Members have the ability to block specific lenders in an effort to maintain confidentiality among their current banking relationships.
“Our program helps members get in front of the right lenders,” said Mathur. “There are 4,500 banks in this country and 3,000 other kinds of lenders. How can you figure out the 10 that you want to talk when there are so many out there? AAHOA Lending helps you do that.”
After receiving offers, members can compare them using a side-by-side format with all the options so they can make the most informed decision. Most members receive indicative terms and lender interest within one to three days, which is significantly less time than traditional financing methods.
“All members can compare options right on the website, which provides an easy-to-compare grid,” said Mathur. “For example, they can compare Lender A versus Lender B versus Lender C all on one screen and pick the lender that’s best for them. The program’s technology makes this type of process more efficient and competitive, which helps hoteliers get better deals.”
AAHOA Lending operates as a marketplace, so rates, fees, and terms vary by lender, borrower, and project type. AAHOA negotiated with Bridge to ensure that fees are only charged once a deal is closed and funded, and those fees are discounted for AAHOA Members. Members should always review each loan’s detailed term sheet before selecting a lender.
As a financial website, security and privacy are a top priority for AAHOA Lending. The platform is SOC 2 compliant, which means it meets strict standards for data protection. Participating lenders must sign non-disclosure agreements, and all deal information remains confidential, so it is never shared with AAHOA Board members or other users.
A Practical Solution for Today
While AI might be the future of technology, many of the tools that currently exist are not focused yet on the hotel community. Capital and lending are one of the biggest challenges for hotel owners, and they need solutions now, not in the future. AAHOA Lending bridges that gap and provides hoteliers with practical solutions for today.
“What AAHOA Lending has done is take all of those market-leading technologies, like AI, language learning models, and other types of data providers that are out there and create something that is targeted specifically for hotel owners,” said Mathur. “It’s easy to talk about AI and technology, but here is something that is very practical, something that we can all point to, and something that has already led to so much success for AAHOA Members.”
Since launching in April of 2025, AAHOA Lending has facilitated more than $1 billion in requests and helped over 100 AAHOA Members negotiate better terms.
“AI and other technology can support all AAHOA Members,” said Mathur. “It really comes down to the vision and the forward thinking of the Board to pilot technologies like this for their members.”
AAHOA Lending is committed to developing tools for the AAHOA community that will continuously streamline the process.
“Just in the last month, we launched our pro forma generator,” Mathur said. “We’re now working with other AAHOA partners to augment the data in that generator for members. As of today, it takes five clicks to generate a pro forma model. We want to reduce it to three clicks.”
AAHOA Lending also remains focused on utilizing the latest technology to develop solutions that benefit members and adapt to their evolving needs.
“As members are looking for different types of lending options, we’re making sure we have those types of lenders on our platform,” said Mathur. “We’re always coming up with creative solutions to help bridge any financing gaps. We’re thinking through any and all solutions we can come up with to improve the experience for members.”
Why It Matters
By merging fintech innovation with the needs of hotel owners, AAHOA Lending offers a faster, more transparent, and more efficient path to financing. Instead of juggling calls, emails, and applications across multiple institutions, members can manage everything in one secure digital space.
“I kept hearing about AAHOA Lending, and it surpassed my expectations,” said AAHOA Member Brian Patel, CEO of Value Hospitality. Patel owns properties in Ohio, Mississippi, and South Carolina. “Their technology gives you real-time updates, and there’s always a team member ready to assist.”
The goal of AAHOA Lending is twofold, Mathur said. First, to make the lending process more efficient for members.
“For too long, we’ve seen how challenging the lending process can be. Everyone thinks it is too hard to get done,” he explained. “It’s never easy and it doesn’t lead to the right outcomes.”
The second goal of AAHOA Lending is to make the platform competitive.
“We’re trying to change the paradigm for AAHOA Members by having lenders come to them,” Mathur said. “Through AAHOA Lending, members can get the right materials in place and in front of the right lenders so they can receive the right format of responses. It makes the financing process cheaper, more efficient, and more competitive to benefit the hotel owner.”
Image: elenabsl/stock.adobe.com
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