Dear Insiders,

Children and 5 stars, can those two things reconcilable? The newly opened Falkensteiner Family Hotel in Montafon, Austria, says yes and proves it with its new Open Plaza concept: Over an area of some 1,795 square meters, games, sports, fun, edu- and ecotainment flow seamlessly into each other and also into the 1,245 square meter restaurant with sprawling buffet stations and live cooking. Children play, whilst adults read and relax: Everyone has everyone within eyeshot in this open space, between the climbing wall and football, multimedia room and science lab, catering and bar.

The hotel opened five weeks ago and was full at Christmas. After that, Falkensteiner CEO Michael Otmar raised rates. In the small Montafon, in the west of Austria, he now pushes through prices like in Sardinia. This is also helped by the spacious "rooms", which have a separate children's room for three, complete with its own bathroom. Michaeler wants more: to raise high-quality family hotels higher. The Leading Hotels, inspired by this concept, will now introduce a new "Family Hotel" label. I attended the official opening last weekend and enjoyed myself as well.

The name Falkensteiner appears again today - unintentionally - in another highly interesting article: My colleague Stefan Loipifinger, a respected critical financial analyst, explains the meaningful elements and pitfalls of crowdinvesting. As a financing alternative in an era of low interest rates, these crowd investments remain popular, but continue to operate in the grey capital market. Falkensteiner has now raised €41 million in capital via this route.

Costs and margins are the subject of my first presentation summary at the new investor conference AOHIS last week in Madrid. As mentioned last Friday, a successful premiere. Data analyst Hotstats identified laundry and energy as hefty cost drivers. The article is available free of charge to all on our page 1.

On our homepage you will also find detailed information about stand sizes and variations, prices and conditions for your exhibitor post at our "World Hospitality". Yes! There are only nine months left until Expo Real 2023. Time flies. Official registration begins in February! Talk to our stand professionals and secure your table or your individual special area that can be designed to your own stipulations. Being part of our annually growing premium network has many benefits!

Back to the magazine: Travel will be on the cards again this year, however: Economists, as well as hoteliers and restaurateurs, have words of caution and see tentative consumers who are looking to make savings after the inflation surge and are already cancelling trips. In Europe, white label operators are growing, and Austria still managed are respectable number of hotel transactions in 2022.

TUI is now also an OTA - and starts in the system with non-TUI hotels. The launch took place in online-affine Sweden, in DACH it is still taking time. We asked TUI about this. 

Sustainability is an ongoing topic, even among travellers. For you, the sustainability makers, we have therefore filtered out 15 important press releases today from a flood of announcements - focusing on the keywords of climate death, e-mobility and waste. In this context: Our next HITT Think Tank will take place on 26/27 June in Berlin. The programme is a work in progress, so keep checking back at www.hitt.world and watch our new video: Scenes from Think Tank 2022. And for the bargain hunters: The Super-Early-Bird rate is still available until 31 January!

We're all staying in the swing of things... Have a good week.

Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
editor-in-chief

Your opinion? editor@hospitalityInside.com

Dear Insiders,

Just three weeks into January and everything is already coming to a head. Don't you have the same impression? How else can one explain the fact that hotel groups are once again posting record figures. Have you noticed that most of the time they only talk about revenue and not about KPIs and not about EBITDA? And in the meantime, even renovations of two hotels have been exaggerated into big press releases. We keep such little announcements small for the moment, or don't mention it at all. What's going on out there? Is this simple actionism before the end?

A reader asked me last week why we didn't do an annual review. Quite simply: Everything negative about 2022 has already been said anyway, there's no need to repeat it. And why haven’t we posted our outlook? Because that would be like reading tea leaves this year. As never before, there is no blanket forecast; every case is different.

Incidentally, this was also noticeable at the AOHIS investor conference in Madrid, where I spent two days this week. Finally, an event again where those on the panels were willing to make a deep dive into the content and didn't do a PR dance on stage. With 280 top-class participants, organizer Hoftel managed an impressive premiere. Nevertheless, I will write about it only from next week. First, I need to sort through the many opinions and highly interesting facts. We don't want to drift into generalities.

I also visited the Spanish tourism fair FITUR for the first time. The Spanish prime minister had already proclaimed it the "new ITB" last year, but Spanish blood must have run away with him. I saw an all-Spanish fair with gigantically large booths of the national hotel groups and noisy South America halls full of garish light installations. From international hotel exhibitors I saw only one: Hilton. And the stand was empty at noon on the first day. Getting information in English was difficult. Speeches at the Tech Forum were also only in Spanish. Only the exit was correctly described as Exit. Is that a sign? The FITUR far away from being able to describe itself as international.

Accor raised its own claim again this week. Three news items chased each other one after the other: CEO Sébastien Bazin sold the remaining shares to Huazhu and made a lot of money in the process; Accor, like other chains, is now reaching out to the mid-sized private hotel industry with its new "Handwritten" brand and, thirdly, is also bundling the new "Living" feeling - after Lifestyle - on a new platform for investors, which is intended to stimulate their appetite for branded residences and private apartments in mixed-use projects. As always, Accor has set its sights on great things. And we wait again to see if it works.

Booking.com's cyber security system did not work. The president of the digital commission of the GNI, one of the largest hotelier associations in France, described to our colleague Sarah Douag how hoteliers identified the cyber attacks and how weak and far too late Booking reacted. Fabienne Ardouin is horrified: "If hackers can gain access to a platform, use our extranet, steal our emails, change a hotel's name and email address and phone number, change rooms and their rates, and create a mirror site without the many developers at Booking knowing.... this platform has a serious problem. And so do we!"

In Austria, tourism professionals have initiated an energy stress test for upscale hotels after policymakers made another tweak to the initial energy cost subsidy. Despite higher sales and subsidies, hotels will suffer losses. The cost spiral is fast becoming a stranglehold.

This oscillation between the super positive and the frustratingly negative runs through today's latest UNWTO data on tourism recovery, hotel real estate investments in Spain, and two court rulings on corona travel liability and lockdown business closures.

The new year has executives rotating again, just as the news mix reflects the project floods in the market. Another highly dynamic year has begun, a dance of temperaments.

Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
editor-in-chief

Your opinion? editor@hospitalityInside.com

Dear Insiders,

The leap into the new year has not changed much in the world. All the same, the people on the phone sounded much more positive again this week. We continue to hope and go further. And the Chinese are literally taking off again: They are flying again. Out of their frustration, they have developed "creative protests" in recent months, forcing a rethink in the Party. Michael Henssler, Kempinski's COO for Asia, has lived in China for 13 years and explains to us today how this turnaround came about within just a few weeks.

We back up his observations with an array of facts and current figures compiled by our China expert Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Arlt of the COTRI Research Institute: on the key questions now facing tourism professionals and hoteliers. But the travellers who are now lining up to get new passports will go for new destinations and with new expectations. Three years of lost travel opportunities have changed their desires.

Experts expect the first wave of travel from China at Easter. Visibly more will come in the autumn. They will also help European hoteliers to overcome their crisis.

If they weren't good and creative hosts, there wouldn't be as many to bring the positivity of the industry to other niches. The Flag, Lively, wohnvoll, GBI or Soravia - more and more founders, developers and investors from the hospitality scene are now diversifying their portfolios with modern apartment concepts and service models for people over 60. Or they start new companies. Certainly they are reporting on it today. Hospitality meets Senior Living.

Hospitality also meets Transformation. We've known that for a long time; the industry is in the middle of it. But now the insiders are talking specifically about transformation real estate. Those are existing properties across all assets that change their use or restructure at least 30% of the building: In view of the new climate targets, they have the greatest chance of survival if they are part of a mixed-use development. According to a study, this is the model investors trust most; hospitality experts should pay attention.

Even if, in retrospect, transactions in Germany did not fill up many an account in 2022, the mood here also remains positive at its core. The major real estate brokers and consultants have compared activity. Italian investors are also somewhat more modest at the moment and are currently preferring to seek value appreciation rather than M&A.

You always have to keep an eye on the digital world and increasingly on the dynamics in robotics, in which many countries are also investing a lot of money. A short global excursion into this niche... And as always at the beginning of the year, there is a tremendous flood of personalia as well as market and real estate news. A few will certainly sound familiar to you, but as always after a break, we bring you a larger summary. So that you always have something to browse through.

See you again next Friday, with the next news... This year will be again very dynamic. There is no lack of good ideas nor of goodwill anywhere. Everything else can hardly be influenced.

Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
editor-in-chief

Your opinion? editor@hospitalityInside.com

Dear Insiders,

Maybe the 730 windowless rooms in London's Zedwell boutique budget design hotel symbolise the current state of the industry at the end of the year in the best way possible: zero outlook, not even from a nice room with lots of wood. And during the night, the sun rises artificially: as a wreath of light at the round bath mirror ... Outside, around Piccadilly Circus, there is a lot going on: tourism is catching up and with it both rates and costs.

Up to 1,000 rooms could be easily scaled based on the Zedwell pattern, says the owner, Criterion Hospitality. The hotel is a profit maker. I'm convinced of that after I experienced the high-quality, but spartan room with 6 hooks. And yet: it is backed by a sophisticated declaration concept.

On the market this year, there is increased hyper dynamism – or total silence. In the third year, politics is throwing the whole industry to and from between these two extremes. Inflation and increasing costs eat up any additional turnover. Energy bills are becoming a matter of survival, not only in Germany. Hoteliers in the Italian alps are considering closing their businesses over certain periods.

At some point, things are going to explode, but much louder than the aquarium at Radisson Collection Hotel Berlin last Friday. Susanne Stauss researched background information for our Insiders. The shockwave after and thinking about what else could have happened are somehow symbolic for the current state of the industry: life after the gas bill depends on a due portion of luck and chance.

For three years, hoteliers in Europe have been fighting for their mere existence, often for their life achievement. They usually don't have capital giants in their backs like with Oyo, which have perfectly presented themselves as second world conquerors after Airbnb. Now, unsatisfied customers and sacked employees are taking the unicorn by the horn, and in China, local competition threw the unicorn right out of the market. After reading Sarah Douag's article, you will no longer have any sympathy for Oyo.

We are taking on the final issue of the year with additional news on the supply chain law taking effect in 2023, the new 500-million hotel fund by Engel & Voelkers and Gorgeous Smiling Hotels for medium-sized hotels, on the downward spiral of the German hospitality sector and on the soothing political support with respect to seasonal workers in Austria – even if it is just a small drop in the bucket.

I would have loved to end the year with more positive news, but journalists like us are not storytellers – we describe reality. hospitalityInside does not make up dream headlines just because they generate clicks. We know that our articles are still read.

In the name of the entire team, my husband Michael, our Managing Director, and I want to thank you very much for the numerous compliments and words of gratitude in the Christmas mail! It feels good, and we are happy to hand them on to our employees, our authors, and translators. Each of them has been there for us even in these uncertain times.

Our year 2022 was once again characterized by positive and constructive cooperation with business partners who, among other things, made a successful Think Tank and a lively Expo Real possible. Thank you! We are starting with new ideas and projects – and we are giving 2023 a new chance to become better.

The first issue in 2023 will be out on 13 January. Then it will be Friday again – the Hospi day.

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
editor-in-chief

Your opinion? editor@hospitalityInside.com

Dear Insiders,

It's been very quiet around AccorInvest lately. This prompted Macy Marvel to make a deep dive into the figures from Europe's largest owner-operator. Two-thirds of its portfolio is spread across Germany, France and the UK. But the giant has huge debts. It seems fragile. Its exclusive agreement with the Accor brands also expires on 31 December. From 2023, other franchisors could thus also fly their flag above AccorInvest hotels. Will it come to this? We asked in Paris.

It was just as quiet on the German side around GSH, the Gorgeous Smiling Hotels of the busy shareholder Heiko Grothe and his PE partner Auctus. GSH was also hit by the corona low, but its performance curve is now pointing steeply upwards. There is a new leadership team and centralised revenue management driving both ADR and RevPAR. Occupancy becomes a side issue. CFO Marco El Manchi and COO Edwin Jebbink are stepping on the gas: with own brands and a triple-digit million sum for conversions. "We want to get over the finish line before anyone else," Jebbink says.

In other news, the new Treugast "Investment Rating" contains 13 downgrades and only three upgrades. This also reflects the industry’s recent turbulence. The chaos in the wake of corona had meant the annual assessment of operating companies had to be paused, but it is now re-emerging as a digitized product. And with additional criteria such as sustainability. Next year, it will be interesting to see how companies that have their furniture manufactured in China will be rated.

It never gets boring in this industry; every week we could talk for hours with the industry. Will the insolvencies feared as early as 2021 soon be a reality? Creditreform thinks so. The holiday hotel group Upstalsboom establishes its own tour operator, also open to hotel colleagues. Will this mean only work or will it also generate profit? Hard to say.

If we take TUI's Q4 figures, we are in for a new mega travel wave in 2023. That would be nice. We may hear more about this at ITB in March; programme details are now slowly emerging. Jörg Frehse, CEO of operator Munich Hotel Partners, has a little more time to analyse travel flows: He will not open Germany's first Conrad Hotel in Hamburg until the end of 2024/25. The franchise deal with Hilton gives MHP wings: Frehse wants to operate even more luxury hotels in the future - and finally catch up with international price levels. And already we’re fired up with new discussion topics…

We hope that you are too, inspired by our articles. There will be another edition next Friday.


Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
editor-in-chief

Your opinion? editor@hospitalityInside.com

Dear Insiders,

Oliver Bonke fell out of the hospitality sky to the surprise of everybody six months ago: As CEO Deutsche Hospitality, he succeeded Marcus Bernhardt. In Central Europe, the industry knows him from his time at Starwood Hotels, then he moved to the United States and finally to the CEO chair of Shangri-La in Hong Kong. The latter position should now help him to develop the German hotel subsidiary of the Chinese Huazhu Group just as owner Qi Ji would like.

Oliver talks to us about his adapted strategy for the first time today: soberly, matter-of-factly, without a magic bag in his hand. He remains cautious, but is stepping on the accelerator. He has tailwind here from the historically good 3rd quarter, which gives Qi Ji hope for cash for the first time. The €300 million that was talked about two years ago for rapid global expansion is now forgotten.

All the more urgent is the mission to create even leaner structures, to screen each hotel brand for its profitable core and to grow both in and outside China. Oliver, be agile! Qi Ji is agile too. He has been cranking up the marketing cosmetics in order to drive forward international operations stealthily and smartly: Huazhu is now H World.

Non-profitable hotels will not survive even at tour operator FTI Touristik. It is rethinking its hotel division, reducing hotel brands and strengthening their distribution through the power of the tour operator. "Less is more" is how Hotel CEO Sabine Dorn-Aglagul describes the path to significantly more revenue. This no longer works through bed occupancy, but through prices and quality.

Macy Marvel introduces us today - after Extendam last week - to another rather quietly operating French company with expansion plans into neighbouring markets: Covivio, formerly Foncière des Mûrs. He is the largest hotel owner in Europe, with close ties to AccorInvest and B&B Hotels.

Europe's hotel investors are on the move. This can also be seen in Peakside which is on the road in several countries and has acquired the now vacant luxury hotel Hessischer Hof in Frankfurt's prime location. Who will become the operator?

Within the CEE markets, Budapest has emerged stronger from the crisis. And in London, ADR growth has even outpaced inflation. The mood is positive in Italy too, albeit still in a small growth area: student housing. Investors sense opportunities.

Yesterday, the headlines were made by the Adlon family, respectively their heirs: They want the property and the hotel building of the Adlon in Berlin back; both had been unjustly expropriated by the Federal Republic after the war. The Administrative Court of Berlin dismissed the lawsuit immediately after the hearing yesterday.

We'd like to close today by referring to something of our own: our new Think Tank video, shot at this year's HITT in Berlin. Let yourself be inspired by this spirit: "HITT - The Film" can be found on www.hitt.world. Or better yet: book now at hitt.world and benefit from Super Early Bird rate! Enjoy reading and watching the film!

Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
editor-in-chief

Your opinion? editor@hospitalityInside.com

Dear Insiders,

On 23 November, Chancellor Olaf Scholz told the German daily newspaper Welt that "for this winter, Germany's energy security is guaranteed." According to recent reports from Usedom though, this is not true. Rolf Seelige-Steinhoff of Seetel Hotels and other hoteliers received a letter a few days ago from their regional network operator officially "informing" them that the gas supply in their area may be "threatened" or "disturbed" in the future. Do utilities really send such warnings to entrepreneurs when energy security is assured? In the background, a delicate legal dance is already beginning.

We are republishing this article today and making it available for all to read on our page 1. And please share it further! As a provider of quality media, hospitalityInside is not about headlines or clicks, what matters to us is content. As so, beginning today, I will be doing one thing: I will subject all political promises to a reality check! It’s quite incredible how ambiguous words can be used to put pressure on entrepreneurs and at the same time transfer political responsibility to them too. Behind this terse letter stands an avalanche.

I, too, will probably be told again this week that "everything will be fine" and that we shouldn't panic. Nobody wants to panic - but panic can be avoided through awareness, forward thinking and a frank word. Professional journalists have a duty to point out grievances and developments that are getting out of hand, but few have the backbone to do so today. We’ll stay alert to the issues on Usedom and the experiences of the hoteliers there. Our research continues.

Fortunately, things are less dramatic in the serviced apartment sector. Concepts of the "new kids on the block" somehow also mirror our current crazy world though. A new brand wants to make every day Party Friday with its event, bar and store model! Wow. Let’s celebrate everything and not question anything any more.

It can always get better! Some things even still happen in silence. The second largest owner-operator in France is Extendam. Since June 2019, when the group had 180 properties, it has grown by about 60%. And that through the corona pandemic! Growth triggers for the new hotels outside France are the 60 hotel partners.

The next one to grow is Hyatt. With Dream Hotels, they are further expanding their Lifestyle Leisure segment internationally. Hopefully there won't be a nightmare. Hyatt currently counts 26 brands. IHG with Iberostar last week just announced its 18th brand. But the chain remains buoyant, as a brand update from IHG manager Mario Maxeiner showed in Munich on Wednesday.

Austrian hoteliers also enjoyed the super summer of 2022, but they remain cautious: They look to the current cost increases with concern. They could spoil everything in 2023. With that in mind, it’s good to keep your feet on the ground!

Many people do a reality check automatically, e.g. new GMs or investors and developers today. And for the non-German readers, we have briefly listed resolutions and plans that are currently being talked about in this country.

Take a look at AOHIS, the new investor conference in Madrid in mid-January on our page 1. We support this event as a media partner because it also wants to reflect reality.

Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
editor-in-chief

Your opinion? editor@hospitalityInside.com

Dear Insiders,

Five days after the opening of the 2022 World Cup, Qatar is the place where power and manipulation became visible worldwide. It is pathetic and shameful. Sport connects the world. Football must not die, FIFA should. And Qatar, a still largely undiscovered, beautiful tourist destination with kind people, has ruined its great opportunity. For years to come, the destination will endure the stigma of having bought the World Cup. Billions of dollars won't change that.

Behind the scenes, many people have worked hard to make the event happen. This includes the team led by Marc Descrozaille, COO Middle East for Accor. Around 120,000 rooms will be available in Doha during the 2022 FIFA World Cup, 67,000 of which will be managed by Europe's largest hotel chain - and it will ensure that these houses and apartments are also returned to the housing market after the World Cup ends. 14,000 employees have been recruited and trained by Accor for this purpose. The group holds a key to the fan beds in their hands. Not many people are likely to know that. Sarah Douag put many questions to the COO.

From a Western perspective, many questions also arise when looking at China. The government is once again risking 20% of GDP just because the Omicron variant of corona is now taking hold - in small numbers - and because they are unwilling to abandon their zero-covid strategy. Accordingly, European hotels will have to wait even longer for the world's biggest-spending tourists. Also, the Chinese government is once again calling off Chinese investors from Europe: They have been expressly instructed to de-invest! China is "muted".

Is this good or bad news for the industry? In the near term, a bad one. It means a loss of consumer revenues and parts of the supply chain in this country. In the medium and long term though, the end to the globalisation craze is also a huge opportunity.

Though not everyone with money worries can borrow "from the future" at the moment. Only the German Finance Minister, Christian Lindner, can do that, handing out millions each month. Meanwhile, hotel CEOs and CFOs are poring over their budgets and despair as they conclude: Budgeting for 2023 is sheer impossible! Old methods no longer work. Susanne Stauss asked Austria's Verkehrsbüro Group, IHG, Motel One, Numa, Lindner Hotels and Art-Invest how they approach the subject.

An issue full of questions, it really is. Why is GBI AG, Germany's largest hotel developer, selling the majority share of its business? Why is the big player IHG getting together with the small Iberostar from Spain?

Meanwhile, two-thirds of those who were travelling before Covid are now travelling again. And there will certainly be more. Project plans are starting to thin out a bit, as we can see from our news mix, but the growth isn't stopping yet.

We’ll keep an ear to the ground for you...

Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
editor-in-chief

Your opinion? editor@hospitalityInside.com

Dear Insiders,

Qatar and the 2022 Football World Cup: Sarah Douag has done in-depth research and highlights both good and other more critical elements. Without a ticket, nobody will be allowed into the country; the Hayya Card must be loaded on the smartphone, and only then will it be possible to access public transport. In return, the Qataris gain access to everyone's data. For this, the state has capped hotel prices to keep accommodation affordable, but when the last 70,000 rooms were recently released, prices exploded going up to eight times higher... There are definitely many controls and many rules, even for hotels.

From Sunday and until 18 December, we will see, hear and read how the first World Cup winter football matches will go and how the Qataris will deal with the million fans they expect to arrive in the small Gulf state. They will be judged by their honesty and their hosting skills; though for that, media would also have to be just as honest, less one-sided and less moralising in their reporting. In any case, we will certainly have some hot games in the middle of the desert winter.

In Spain, the summer was also hot - in the most positive sense. The tourism association has now provided figures to prove it. KPIs have increased, but inflation has eaten into hoteliers' margins. Luxury hotels suffer somewhat less than mid-range properties.

In terms of popularity, Spain is hard to beat as a tourist destination. That's why even German tour operators are staying cool: For the Canary and Balearic Islands, they do not expect any big dramas next year, but they do face smaller budgets. And all-inclusive is becoming the new old hit. FTI, TUI, Arabella Hospitality as well as Grupotel and Barceló as Spanish groups in this round remain mercilessly optimistic.

The British also have their place in the emotional roller coaster that is today's issue. The industry association UKHospitality is appealing to politicians: Hospitality companies are considered "high-risk" and therefore have to pay inflated prices for fixed contracts. Over a third of the hospitality sector in the UK is reportedly at risk of going bust in early 2023.

Worldwide, Serviced Apartment operators are performing as they did before the pandemic and want to continue growing. But the current crisis situation is already slowing down the pipelines, particularly in Germany. Figures from the So!Apart serviced apartment congress in Leipzig yesterday.  

Positive news again from the caravanning and camping sector: In 2021, they generated almost €15 billion in revenue for Germany's tourist regions. They are now encouraging federal, state and local government as well as the destinations themselves to work more closely together to do sustainable good, including for rural areas.
And in our personnalia today: Accor is getting a new CEO for Raffles and Orient Express, as we've learned from reliable sources. And our News Mix also includes many exciting new projects.

You should also keep an open ear for AOHIS, the new investor conference that will make its début in Madrid in mid-January. We will be supporting the event as a media partner. Instead of PR and window dressing, organiser Hoftel has taken up the cause of quality and clear statements. More on this can be found on our page 1.

We'll talk again next Friday, as always with quality and clear words.

Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
editor-in-chief

Your opinion? editor@hospitalityInside.com

Dear Insiders,

Today is the official start of carnival in Germany. Yet we have enough clowns and strange spirits in the country even without this 240-year-old tradition. HR professionals at the hotel groups are currently facing their own struggles with the ghosts...

Oh sorry: It’s no longer "HR", but "People & Culture". Sounds friendly, in contrast to these new creative titles: There are now professionals for "Permanent Placement" or "Heads of Active Sourcing". It sounds a little rougher, but the terms show exactly where the new challenges are.

Things get really crazy with "ghosting": the unpredictable souls who submit their application, do interviews, even sign the contract - and then simply disappear into thin air. This trend is now intensifying, admittedly not at all, but at many hotel groups. What can be done about it? Bärbel Schwertfeger did the research.

Employees are the new gold, even if the vast majority of investors have not yet developed a finer sense for this and want to shift all responsibility to the operator. To my mind, this is quite out of touch with reality. After all, what's a hotel worth without employees? Nothing! Zero sales, zero profit, zero increase in value.

"I want to be a stakeholder, just as important as a shareholder!" This was a statement from 26-year-old Patrizia, who burns with passion for the industry but was ready to throw in the towel in a moment of frustration through the corona crisis. And she's right in her demand. That's why I brought Patrizia’s voice on this topic to the Expo Real this year and invited her to the stage - to confront the numbers geeks among you with the value-added "soft facts" in this people business.

Massimiliano Sarti describes how sexy the industry still is, against all odds, from an Italian perspective - unfortunately in a rather unsexy way, laden with facts and figures. The number of 5-star properties has increased from 410 in 2013 to 652 in 2022, resulting in the opening of 51 new hotels this year. And not only the luxury hotels in premium locations, but all of them - in every destination, even the hinterlands - will make a killing in the coming years. ADRs of €500 and more are possible. Industry analysts agree on this.

Motel One is currently reinventing itself: the "fireplace" will no longer exist at the second brand The Cloud One Hotels. With the first US project - in New York - the group is playing in a different league. In the future, it will be more attracted to conversions and takeover projects and even more to top locations. Motel One is also getting into development itself. Yesterday, company founder Dieter Müller explained to us the first details of the strategy that literally leads upwards - into the "cloud".

And no week would be complete without sustainability and energy topics: Through its second Sustainability Report, RICS has seen how desperately investors and others are looking for measurement tools whose numbers will nudge them in the right direction.

We also prompted a few people to think last Friday: No LinkedIn post so far has brought us as much feedback as the interview with Rolf Seelige-Steinhoff, Seetel Hotels, about his own personal, perhaps imminent, gas drama. The article is still open access to all on our page 1. The scenarios that the hotel entrepreneur sets out are also spooky in parts. But he thinks ahead, thinks through all the links in the chain. And unlike the ghosts, he knows: He can't disappear. 

Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
editor-in-chief

Your opinion? editor@hospitalityInside.com