We want to appeal to international hospitality experts with a modified concept. Day 1 will be dedicated to sustainability, while Day 2 will focus on innovations and future topics, including best practice. You can take part in one day or both. The motto is fixed, the programme is a work in progress.
And there is a third HITT news item: A new team of presenters takes the lead in Amsterdam. We are looking forward to Xenia zu Hohenlohe and Prof. Dr. Willy Legrand. Our first host, Tim Davis, moves to the Advisory Board. The first event details can be found in the corresponding article on the HITT page.
HITT 2024 will also highlight our new cooperation with Hotelschool The Hague (HSTH), which is also based in Amsterdam and itself has an innovation hotspot in Delft University of Technology. That's why we're starting today with a series of articles on the topic of robotics and automation. Our partners on this topic are the HSTH research team and Prof. Dr. Alexander Lennart Schmidt, our author is Sarah Douag.
With readers in 20 countries, hospitalityInside has long ceased to be a German medium. It is therefore all the more exciting to see that the next "original German" hotel group, H-Hotels with currently 64 hotels, is also venturing into more major European cities. I met Alexander Fitz and Thomas Haas, the shareholder and his CEO, in Berlin. Following corona, the multi-crisis and cyberattacks, both are realigning their focus: sharper brand profiles, less volume and more quality. What I appreciate about this unusual duo is: Thomas Haas always remains calm and Alexander Fitz gives great expression to his complaints.
H-Hotels will open a mega-convention hotel in Paris. Conversely, investors and asset managers such as LFPI are also very interested in Germany. Their German subsidiary, with Managing Director Philipp Bessler, reports today on why they have now become more open to many investors. Up to now, they have been an owner-operator and are now developing a white label profile.
The hotel industry will continue to grow, and until 2026 growth will be massive, as figures from the construction pipelines for Europe and the Middle East make clear. The new white paper from Apartmentservice makes a similar point: This form of living is gaining a foothold wherever adequate solutions are lacking.
All of this is good news because the industry is staying on the ball and proving that it can react to change. In political circles in Berlin, on the other hand, good humour has been in short supply this week. On Wednesday, the German Federal Constitutional Court (BVG) stopped the German government from spending money that it does not have. €60 billion. Politicians are scrambling and it is the perfect excuse not to grant the gastronomy industry an extended VAT rate of 7%. Pure chaos, pure emotions... Frank Tetzel has summarised everything in our new column "Politics Inside Berlin".
This section is BEFORE the paywall, as are a number of other small and interesting reports and larger articles that deserve your attention: One of them is a detailed guest article about the first trainee hotel from Living Hotels. A unique approach, which I think is fabulous.
And I am just as happy to draw attention to another conference in Madrid at the end of January: For the second time, the AOHIS will take place there and an event that attracts a large number of international investors who look beyond Europe. I was there at the European premier last January and I can only say: Simon Allison, with his Hoftel investors' club in the background, creates a manageable, personal framework for exchange - just like HOTCO does in Vienna with its focus on CEE.
We are also grateful for your feedback on the website and are constantly adjusting details. It's a work in progress that involved not only a change to our website cosmetics, but also changes many things in the “back office”. Because we are also for change - in the most positive sense of the word.
This link takes our subscribers directly to the usual current issue (all HI+ articles).
And with this link you can dive into the homepage, from where you can navigate to all the articles!
Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
Editor-in-Chief