hotelforum 2020

The 18th edition of hotelforum was held on 7 October 2020 under the motto "The ABC of XYZ - New generations, new rules" for the first time as a hybrid conference. Decision-makers from the European hotel and real estate industry joined up again for industry know-how transfer and networking from 12-18 p.m. Around 60 guests were on-site at the ball room of Bayerischer Hof and more than 300 virtual attendees participated online. The conference was chaired by Andreas Martin, Managing Partner of hotelforum, and streamed live on the internet.

Michael Widmann, CEO PKF hotelexperts group, abducted the audience into the world of the extraordinary French boutique hotel brand Mama Shelter by the pre-recorded interview with Jérémie Trigano, Co-Founder & CEO of Mama Shelter.

On site, Franziska Heuschkel, presented the new Berlin House concept to be followed by Walter C. Neumann and Rolf Seelige-Steinhoff, Managing Partners IHR, who introduced the new hotel brand “Roots”. Dimitri Chandogin, President of COSI Hospitality presented the young hotel chain COSI Group.

The project showcases were followed by an exciting techno-pitch with five young start-ups: Avisio, Hotellistat, Room.Building.Partner, squarelovin and Tutaka competed with their innovative digital technologies for the Hospitality UPGRADE Award 2020 in front of an expert jury on-site. The winner of this year's Hospitality UPGRADE Award was the Viennese start-up Avisio, an "intelligent merchandise management platform for the hotel industry", with Matthias Depenbusch, Co-Founder & CEO.

For the first time the Hospitality UPGRADE Award was presented by hotelforum and Gastgewerbe-Magazin in cooperation with GNERATOR powered by GIRA.

Once again the highlight of the day was the Hotel Property Award 2020 ceremony. Together with Jan-Oliver Meding, Managing Director, MPP MEDING PLAN + PROJEKT & jury speaker, Andreas Martin outlined the exciting selection process of the expert jury. Winner of the award in 2020 was the Grand Park Hotel Rovinj (Rovinj, Croatia).

Peter Lösch, General Manager of the hotel accepted the award in Munich.

40 hotels from 12 European countries had applied this year, the top 10 were nominated at the beginning of September. The following three hotels were selected for the final round (in alphabetical order):

Grand Park Hotel Rovinj (Rovinj, Croatia)

Hotel Ottilia (Copenhagen, Denmark)

Lighthouse Hotel & Spa (Büsum, Germany)

Jens Sroka, Lighthouse Hotel & Spa and Lene Larsen, Hotel Ottilia were digitally brought on stage from Büsum and Copenhagen.

Parallel to the main stage three virtual panel discussions on the topics of digitalisation, investment and design were streamed live with a top line-up of experts:

• "Sustainable Hotels are Smart - efficiency thru digitalisation of processes" hosted by Drees & Sommer,
• "Let’s rise up from the ashes of the crisis by acting decisively and strategically!" hosted by mrp hotels, Warth & Klein Grant Thornton and HANSE Consulting
• "New guidelines for hotel design - enforced by pandemic experiences" hosted by BETTE and ena european network architecture.

Even as a hybrid conference, the 18th hotelforum was a highly-qualified communication platform for networking and an exchange of information among hotel property experts. Furthermore, more than 21 companies presented themselves with creative and informative digital exhibitor stands.

Thank you to all sponsors, partners and attendees for a successful hybrid hotelforum 2020! We are looking forward to seeing you again on Wednesday 13 October 2021 - hopefully under normal conditions again!

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