"ITB Hospitality Day" 2014 discusses luxury and ecology and the new Chinese
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The Chinese start loving to travel and discover |
Berlin (February 21, 2014). The CEO is this year a President, and his counterpart isn't a hotelier, but an engineer. All the same, Bernhard Bohnenberger from Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas and Ross Harding from Infinity Finder are an impressive pair. Both are committed to sustainability. The two gentleman make up the "CEO Panel" at this year's ITB hotel conference "ITB Hospitality Day" on Thursday, March 6, 2014. Other interesting experts will also sit on stage beside them: a researcher, two hoteliers and a hotel purchaser. They are all passionate about one target group: the travelling Chinese. Now, the next generation of Chinese are making their way towards Europe. Every ITB visitor is welcome to attend the hotel conference, without registration, and admission is free: from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. in Hall 7.1b/London Room.
Munich-born Bernhard Bohnenberger has shaped Six Senses: The group has a global reputation as a pioneer in "eco-luxury" and, roughly twenty years ago, was the first to encourage well-healed travellers to spend a lot of money on walking barefoot in the sand... In return they got an unconventional holiday in a dream destination coupled with an ecological lifestyle: Guests live in wooden villas, drink from recycled glasses and enjoy cooking courses in the resort's own vegetable garden. Six Senses led the way with such trailblazing ideas - and even managed to serve it all up at luxury level...
For years, environmentally friendly guests have been taking batteries home in order to dispose of them properly. On site, Six Senses takes care of its staff and their families, who often live in the local area, and supports these in numerous ways, including with the education of their children. For Six Senses, luxury and ecology aren't a contradiction.
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| Engineer Ross Harding. |
And how does Ross Harding see this? The founder and CEO of Finding Infinity is an engineer and able to judge environmental commitments from quite a different perspective. He found his way into the hotel industry through architecture and business contacts and now works a lot for Design Hotels and design hoteliers. With long tours on a vegetable-oil-driven motorbike and eccentric parties in London, he manages to infect others with his enthusiasm for sustainability. And working together with hoteliers on site, he often finds environmentally friendly solutions for everyday problems and has ideas for sustainable marketing.
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| Hotelier Bernhard Bohnenberger. |
The CEO Panel "Luxury & Ecology - Contradiction or Claim?" will take place on Thursday from 2p.m to 3p.m. The event will be hosted by Maria Puetz-Willems, Editor in Chief of hospitalityInside.com.
The unknown new Chinese
The image of masses of Chinese tourists is meanwhile is meanwhile fixed minds of many. Now, that image is slowly changing from the group to the individual tourist. At least this is the research finding. For this reason, Prof. Wolfgang Arlt will also hold a short presentation to the panel on "Quality in Chinese". He is the founder and director of the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute (COTRI). His podium guests are Yufei Gu, Manager of Hotel Procurement for the Chinese tour operator Caissa Touristic (Group) AG for travel to and from China, and two other hoteliers:
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| Darren Gearing, Shangri-La Hotels. |
Darren Gearing, Regional Vice President Europe of the luxury chain Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts and General Manager of the Hotel Shangri-La London At the Shard, will represent the Asian perspective; the European view will be represented by Luis del Olmo, Executive Vice President Asia Pacific for the Spanish hotel group Meliá Hotels International. A Chinese company recently bought a stake in the latter.
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| Yufei Gu, Manager of Purchasing Department for Caissa. |
They will all, hopefully, be able to provide conference guests with ideas on how they can meet the demands of these "new" Chinese travellers and what one should change in the hotel in order to turn these new individual travellers into regular guests.
The discussion round will take place from 12:15 p.m. to 1:15 p.m.
hospitalityInside.com is exclusive media partner for the "ITB Hospitality Day" and responsible for the contents of the conference. Those who cannot attend the conference, will be able to watch live on the Internet - under this link. You will also be able to read summaries after March 14 on hospitalityInside.com under the "Network" (ITB Berlin) column. / kn
Continuative Links:
- Feb 14, 2014 Against firewalls and too much power: ITB Hospitality Day 2014 discusses data leaks and new online distribution
- Jan 31, 2014 Data, online, eco, the Chinese, Peer-2-Peer, reviews: 9th ITB Hotel Conference with subjects that greatly influence the industry
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