Hundreds of visitors at the 1st "Hospitality Day" of the ITB
Berlin (March 17, 2006). The first hotel congress at the International Tourism Exchange (ITB) in Berlin met with the positive response hoped for. Last week, on Thursday, hundreds of visitors found their way to hall 7.1a, where high-class speakers, such as the easyHotel founder Stelios from London (photo), discussed pricing, energy, luxury, budget and Berlin.
Already the first talk about pricing in the hotel industry filled the hall with about 300 seats. Prof. Hermann Simon wormed the fine differences in strategically dealing with prices out of his guests. The representatives from Hilton, Accor, Marriott and Jumeirah International displayed self-criticism and called upon the industry to finally demand prices required for quality.
The talk about renewable energies and energy efficiency in the tourism and hotel industry was highly fascinating. The Parlimentary State Secretary Michael Mueller, the TUI Environmental Manager Michael Iwand and the representatives of the industry and associations mutually motivated themselves to achieve more collaboration, in the face of the existing know-how on both sides. The extensive knowledge was noticeable which is why it is a pity that some listeners had to leave the event early due to other appointments.
The fact that big hotelier names are the best crowd-pullers was proven by Sir Rocco Forte and the Ritz-Carlton President Simon Cooper in their talk with the CEO of design hotels Claus Sendlinger about new luxury and new customers. They succinctly explained why they all deem "new luxury" to be a question of qualified employees.
The discussion on low-cost hotels was as variable as the temperaments of the talk guests on stage. The dry British humour of host Russell Kett met the forceful statements of easyHotel founder Stelios ("Come in and sleep, take a shower and go!" was his explanation of the concept behind his 7 sq m compact rooms), the design-oriented Philippe Weyland of Motel One and a brand and market experienced Michael Muecke of Accor.
The last talk about the differences between London and Berlin tried to explain Berlin's excess hotel capacities by structural disadvantages. This became truly obvious by the clear statements of the Shangri-La Manager Martin Waechter, whose shareholders would rather invest in Frankfurt than in Berlin due to the lacking airport and luxury infrastructure. Reto Wittwer, Kempinski, and Wilma Kellermann-Baans, Rezidor SAS Hospitality, clearly declared their faith in Berlin, but demanded of the city - just as the bank representative Peter Anscomb of Royal Bank of Scotland - to attract more business.
The first ITB "Hospitality Day" was co-planned and partly hosted by Maria Puetz-Willems, Editor-in-Chief of hospitalityInside.com. The young online magazine presented itself at a separate table in the conference room and announced the expansion of its Internet platform at the ITB.
In about two weeks, the Power Point presentations of the speeches will be available at itb-berlin.de under "Archive". In addition, hospitalityInside.com will summarise the talks and concentrate on them in individual articles within the next weeks. / red
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