Antecipazioni per il prossimo Forum dell’ hotellerie a Berlino

Branding Challenges and Investor Insight: Just Two of the Important Topics to be Discussed During IHIF 2014
Continuing the long standing commitment to delivering a varied and comprehensive educational programme, the International Hotel Investment Forum (IHIF) Berlin will host some of the most respected and learned speakers from across the world. Over the follow weeks, we will highlight some key topics to be addressed across the broad IHIF 2014 programme.
The relationship with brands continues to spark debate across the hotel community. IHIF are delighted to announce that Peter Shaindlin, Chief Operating Officer, Halekulani Corporation will be delivering the conference keynote address entitled “Brand Blur; The Benefits And Perils Of Brand Alliances”. Shaindlin is recognised as one of the leading visionaries and change agents in the global luxury hospitality industry. Speaking on his forthcoming keynote address, Shaindlin said: “In recent years there’s a bit of ‘brand mania’ taking over the industry:  we’ve seen the proliferation of core hotel brands, augmented by those same brands selectively partnering with other luxury brands from fashion designers retail, to restaurants, cars and the like. The past two years or more has also witnessed the birth of countless sub-brands, these ‘offspring’ of long-established brands designed to capture broader markets than their just their own original consumer base. There are both internal and external challenges these efforts sometimes provoke. Internally, the physical expression of the product, given the vast array of direct competitors, can result in a sort of collective ‘blur,’ where competitive brands’ product strikes the consumer as suspiciously similar—often the same designers and architects are used inadvertently within a comp set, and externally, many brands contract the same leading restaurant operators as their direct brand competitors. What’s the result of all this? ‘Brand blur,’ a condition where the homogeny of a collective brand comp set—regardless of star level—seems to be growing exponentially with the proliferation of brands themselves. What does this mean for chain brands, and what does it mean for independents—and their consumers? We’ll examine these phenomena during the session at IHIF and resulting issues while identifying both opportunities and solutions that will help those riding these waves navigate successfully and prosperously.”
Exploring investors’ appetite and motivations in 2014 will be high on many delegates agendas. Russell Kett, Chairman, HVS London Office will seek to understand the strategy, mood and foresight of investors as he moderates “Investors Respond; How are Investors Managing Given the Economic Landscape”. HVS are committed supporters of the conference and will be releasing both their European Hotel Valuation Index and European Hotel Transactions publications at IHIF. Looking to the session, Kett said; “My aim as moderator is to extract as much information from the panel as possible. The challenge will be that their respective investment strategies are kept under relatively close guard. I want the panellists to share with the audience where in Europe they are seeking to invest, whether that be cities or provincial locations, the type of hotels they see as sound investments, the various tenure considerations and the preferred terms of business they seek to negotiate with management companies. I’m also going to probe them for further insight into the recent deals we have seen, particularly those that my panellists have been personally involved with. I’m expecting a really insightful panel with honest and genuine investor sentiment being shared”.
On his panel, Kett will be in discussion with Dr Frank Billand, Member of the Management Board, Union Investment Real Estate GmbH; Mike Goodson, Head of Hospitality, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority; Majid Mangalji, Founder and President, Westmont Hospitality Group and Jim Risoleo, Executive Vice President and Managing Director Europe, Host Hotels & Resorts.
Peter Shaindlin’s keynote address will take place on Monday 3^rd March 16.50 – 17.30. Russell Kett will be moderating the Investors Respond session at 14.50 – 15.30 also on Monday 3^rd March.
Branding and investor sentiment are just two of the important topics to be debated at IHIF. The conference consistently addresses all the main areas affecting the hotel investment industry. Our next programme focus will look at the regularly anticipated CEO panel and – new to IHIF 2014 – a session dedicated to understanding how tourism ministers from around the globe are attracting new investment to their regions.
This year’s conference will take place on the 3-5th March 2014 at the InterContinental Hotel Berlin, Germany. IHIF is known as THE place where deals get done and is Europe’s largest gathering of senior-level global hotel industry leaders.
Source : International Hotel Investment Forum (IHIF) Berlin