Dear Insider,

Rarely has the mood at Expo Real been so good in unstable times. And nobody knows why. But it was great. The noise level went up by the hour, the hotel booths were buzzing with activity, the talks were excellent, and the conference forum was packed with visitors as it had not been for a long time. It was the hour of the experts, subtleties and mutual exchange. We asked people about trends, added a bit of industry gossip and gathered statements from the worlds of hospitality and finance. And on our first page, you will find the first 30 pictures of Expo Real and our activities as well as a short summary of our own Expo Real booth. More pictures will follow next week!

The entire HospitalityInside team would like to take this opportunity to thank our exhibitors and BRICKS & BRAINS sponsors – for their loyalty, cooperation and the many compliments! What a motivation! With our announcement of a new event format for Europe’s hospitality Insiders, we obviously struck a chord. HOT – "Hotels Tomorrow" on February 17/18 at the Pullman Montparnasse Paris has received an almost overwhelming response since Monday morning. "We", that is Marc Werner (Hogan Lovells), Marius Gomola (Horwath HTL Hungary) and myself – three experienced conference organisers with a large network. You can read more about this on our first page and there will be more on the programme by next Friday!

And now on to the current issue. Airbnb is changing its business model to challenge luxury and lifestyle providers as well as serviced apartments with long-stay. This is a direct attack on the profitable hospitality segments. There is positive news on the business travel front. One outlook report predicts a global increase in business travel of 3.2 trillion dollars. Companies are clearly willing to spend money on in-person meetings and conferences again.

Germany's hotel investment market is finally out of the doldrums and looking more optimistically to the future. The Treugast Ranking has once again named its new (old) top hotel companies, but there is also something new on the asset side: a matchmaking tool enables institutional investors and asset managers to find each other more quickly.

And the easyHotel budget brand is returning to Germany – nicely renovated in a wooden style with low carbon rooms and lots of equity behind it. You find it in our extra News Mix on Expo Real. Our staff news (VIPs) and the News Mix are also quite full today!

Digital Germany demonstrates its slowness once again on our public content sites. The contrasting news: Although the global travel and tourism sector keeps growing, emissions are dropping. Choice is motivating its franchisees to make some conversions with its tempting "Lobby in a Box" concept.

Enjoy reading!

Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems

Editor-in-Chief