"Define the Challenge"

Online workshop

12 May 2023

196+ forum Munich and Hospitality Pioneers were supported by ProTech1 Ventures and a 17-member committee in analysing the challenges facing the hospitality industry in the areas hotel development, hotel operation and guest journey at the workshop entitled "Define the Challenge".

The difficult macroeconomic situation, where prices and interest rates are high, and in the face of climate change, staff shortages and bottlenecks when it comes to finding specialists, as well as political and legal constraints, call for an approach that involves using resources, raw materials and energy in a more deliberate manner, improving networking in the communication between all the stakeholders involved, as well as slimming down and standardising processes via digitalisation.

There are also more and more voices calling for greater clarity and guidance to achieve better planning certainty and feasibility when it comes to sustainability and ESG criteria.

In the face of all this, however, unambiguous brand positioning between providers from the hospitality segment, individual experiences, and the "human touch", continue to be highly relevant in the industry, and do not clash with the demands set out above.

In detail:

Team hotel development with Harro Grimmer, Sylvia Schnelle, Henning Schneekloth-Plöger, Jens Philipsenburg and Peter Bachmann concluded:

The greatest challenge for the development and realization of hospitality projects lies:
✅ in overcoming the toxic climate of high construction prices coupled with high interest rates,
✅ in the uncertain legal situation regarding the required sustainability and ESG criteria,
✅ in the lack of knowledge about what level of sustainability is required, feasible, fundable or desirable.

Team hotel operation with Tobias Berghäuser, Hakan Ardic, Jana Hövels, Hagen Zumpe and Andreas Martin summarizes:

It needs interfaces:
✅ for a better networked communication between developers, owners and operators,
✅ for improving communication among different service providers (PMS, building control system…)

The aim:
✅ Efficient staff deployment in times of staff shortages.
✅ Improved guest communication.
✅ Cost savings, e.g., through lower energy consumption.

Team gust journey with Stefan Catic, Christoph Müller, Christian Strieder and Sebastian Lindner agreed on:

✅ All processes that can be standardised from check-in to check-out must be digitalised.
✅ The human touch must not be neglected in the process.

Solutions must be found to:
✅ overcome the alleged contradiction between guests' desire for standardising processes such as booking, checking-in and checking-out, but without losing sight of the relevance attaching to the specific brand, tailored experiences and the "human touch".

What's next?

Based on the achieved results 196+ forum Munich, Hospitality Pioneers and PropTech1 Ventures are launching a call for up to 30 start-ups from Europe to present their solutions during a hospitality speed dating "Design the Future" on 4 July and 6 September 2023.