5. ITB Hospitality Day: Top conference with top contents for zero extra cost.
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Berlin (January 29, 2010). The economic crisis, just like long-changing travel behaviour, is forcing the hotel industry to reinvent itself and become more innovative. This is reflected in the subjects chosen for the 5th "ITB Hospitality Day", the hotel conference at the world''s biggest tourism trade fair, the ITB in Berlin, which will take place between 10 and 14 March 2010. On ITB Thursday, 11 March, renowned experts and top managers from the international hotel industry will explain how the sector will approach new target groups, how it will develop new ideas to foster customer loyalty and how it will adapt to incorporate developments in technology and environment. A further highlight: the CEO panel. hospitalityInside is not only media partner to the event for the fifth time, Editor-in-Chief, Maria Puetz-Willems will again organise the day''s contents and invite 25 competent speakers to attend.
The ITB Hospitality Day is among the top 3 forums of the ITB congress and attracts more and more visitors every year. Anyone in possession of a ticket to the fair is free to visit the talk rounds with no prior registration required (The event takes place in Hall 7.1b, London Room: start 10:30 a.m. Discussions will be held every 60 minutes with 15 minute breaks). 12,000 participants attended the various subject days last year with over 1,100 visitors coming for the hotel conference alone.
"Meanwhile, the ITB Hospitality Day has managed to fill the largest conference room within the congress hall 7.1," Maria Puetz-Willems says, who organises the event. "And we are very happy that the subjects presented at the event continue attract the interest of those working in hotels across the entire globe." This year''s subjects will also reflect the questions and discussions most important to the sector.
Recipes against boring hotels and survival strategies
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| Dr. Ingo Burmester. |
Talk round 1: Tour operators (start 10:30 a.m.). How tour operators are responding to changing customer needs in the hotel industry is the issue under the looking glass in the first talk round, beginning at 10:30 am. Professor of Tourism, Karl Born, from Harz University takes the pulse of three tour operators: Dr Ingo Burmester, Executive Director of TUI Germany, Wybcke Meier from the management of Oeger Tours and Dr Ulrich Sperl, Director of Hotel Contracting and Destination Management at Thomas Cook AG.
Talk round 2: Innovation (start 11:45 a.m.). For the first time, the Hospitality Day will feature a discussion on innovation. The motto: recipes against boring hotels. Prof Geoff Maree from the Dutch University of Tourism NHTV asserts: If costs can''t be pushed down further, creativity is what''s needed. Using Michael Levie, Chief Executive Officer of the luxury budget group citizenM, and Christoph Hoffmann, CEO of the hot group The 25hours Hotel Company, as examples, the presenter will bounce ideas off two innovative hoteliers as well as the audience.
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| David Fattal. |
Talk round 3: CEO panel (start 1:00 p.m.). The CEO panel consists of two experienced top-managers from leading hotel chains: David Fattal, Founder and CEO of the Israel Fattal Group, and Wolfgang M. Neumann, CEO of Arabella Hospitality Group. Both will talk of their own "survival" strategies and of global market trends. The plans of Arabella Hospitality Group for the German-speaking market and the quick expansion of Leonardo Hotels shows that Central Europe is still a very attractive market in spite of lower margins. The round will be presented by Maria Puetz-Willems, Editor-in-Chief of hospitalityInside.com. Questions and comments will also be made by Matthias Schroeder, an independent Chartered Accountant and for many years a critical observer of the hotel industry.
Talk round 4: Mobile devices (start 2:15 p.m.). More relevant than ever is the talk round on mobile devices. After Web 2.0 and social media, many hotel offers are already accessible by mobile phone and in some hotels, the guest is already able to check in using this most common of devices. How ''smartphones'' will change the hotel world and how sensible online applications are is discussed by Martin Thyssen, Senior Manager Alliance Partner at Blackberry, Tobis Ragge, Managing Director of the online platform, HRS, Marco Nussbaun, Managing Director of the young budget hotel prizeotel in Bremen and a representative from Hilton Worldwide. The discussion round will be presented by Carolin Brauer, Managing Director of Quality Reservations.
Talk round 5: Climate (start 3:30 p.m.). Equally as pressing in today''s day and age is the subject of climate change. Will hotels have to adapt their offers or even change them completely if it becomes warmer and dryer or if the weather becomes more stormy and unpredictable? The Viennese trend researcher Andreas Reiter will present future scenarios for hotels at various altitudes providing material for the talk round to follow with Philipp Ehmer, Tourism Analyst with Deutsche Bank Research, and Thomas Reisenzahn, General Secretary of OEHV (Austrian Hotelier Association). The round will be presented by English University Lecturer on Environment, Dr Andreas Walmsley from Leeds Metropolitan University.
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| Pierre-Frédéric Roulot. |
Talk round 6: Budget (start 4:45 p.m.). Cheap and stylish - this is how the new generation of budget hotels presents itself. The trends expanded upon in the previous talk round also throw up a number of questions. For instance, how will budget be in Asia, USA and Europe? What do they have in common and how are they different? Leading managers from international hotel groups will discuss the question. Macy Marvel, from Lausanne Hospitality Consulting, Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne will present the round. Attendance at the event has already been confirmed by: Prabhat Pani, CEO of the Indian Ginger Hotels, Pierre-Frédéric Roulot, President of the French Louvre Hotels, Michael Muecke, Managing Director and General Director of the economy brands by Accor Hotellerie Deutschland, as well as Sascha Gechter, Managing Director of Meininger Hotels, a group which has successfully mastered the transition from hostel to hotel group.
Updates in the Hospitality Day programme can be found under this link.
The full programme of the congress can be found at www.itb-kongress.de/programm .
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Dec 18, 2009 5th ITB Hospitality Day at ITB 2010 - CEO and innovation panel
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