Where sustainability and wellness merge

Bangkok (June 11, 2021). "Sustainability has to be honest". Neil Jacobs, CEO of Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas, knows it. The wellness pioneer of the global wellness scene sells his guests wellness, health and now follows their new lifestyle. Neil Jacobs opens the second day of the HospitalityInside Think Tank (HITT) on 14 September.

Editorial: Creative and sustainable into the future

Dear Insiders,

Creative minds have a new focus - on Food & Beverage. There hasn't been this much lateral thinking in a long time. The future lies in vegetables, not in meat. The latter will only be produced from cell cultures anyway in a not too distant period. Vegan is here to stay. Local and exotic will no longer be a contradiction in terms.

Susanne Stauss asked German restaurant professional Jean Ploner about new concepts, as well as former Rotana CEO Omer Kaddouri, who now drives forward (as consultant and creator) mainly vegan food chains from Amsterdam. The examples provided by the two interviewees form a veritable cascade of ideas, with the appropriate links attached for your perusal. Ploner is also worried about the future of gastronomy though. Among other things, he could imagine systematising restaurant kitchens in a kind of cooperative model.

In the F&B sector, a lot revolves around sustainability, and at the French hotel group EKLO, it's all about that. Founder Emmanuel Petit builds and operates urban green hybrid and eco-friendly low budget hotels under this brand. He himself comes from Accor and is now co-financed by the two Accor founders Dubrule and Pélisson. A charming detail. They also seem to affirm what our writer Sarah Douag presents to us as an opening question today: Can aggressive pricing be reconciled with style, award-winning interior design, sociability and sustainability? An extremely interesting article with a lot of concrete information about construction and materials.

"Sustainability must be honest". Neil Jacobs, CEO of Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas, knows it: The wellness pioneer of the global wellness scene sells its guests wellness, health and now follows their new lifestyle where life, work and play merge. We introduce Neil to you today on our front page, and you can find out how he and Six Senses put this into practice on the second day of the HospitalityInside Think Tank (www.hitt.world) in September. Another top speaker of international renown. We are very happy about his acceptance.

Meanwhile, German hoteliers will continue to move between relaxation and tension in the coming months. The state aid has been extended until the end of September and the limits have been significantly increased. But is all this enough to keep city and MICE hotels alive? Dehoga Managing Director Ingrid Hartges sees herself in the commentary for us between joy and frustration and wants to continue fighting in August for an extension until the end of the year.

Meanwhile, Austrian hoteliers have already celebrated their survival at the ÖHV congress this week, the first physical meeting since corona. 450 hoteliers were in attendance. The industry has received €4.5 billion in funding.

At Booking.com, government aid is now flowing in the other direction. The OTA is now "spontaneously" paying back support from the Dutch government of some €65 million and €40 million more - after a massive outcry: Last week, the U.S. holding company announced it was giving three executives €28 million in bonuses.

Europeans cannot understand the ups and downs of Chinese state-owned companies. It has now come to light how very deep in debt the former and now insolvent giant HNA is: Creditors are claiming €153 billion.

Amadeus Hospitality asked which of the (post-)corona trends are here to stay, and Ascott is already providing its guests with telemedicine. More industry news in our News Mix.

Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
editor-in-chief

Your opinion? maria[at]hospitalityInside.com