Dear Karsten, we are very happy that we finally managed to sit down together. Since it’s likely not all readers were present at our last conversation, could you please give us a brief insight into your work and IDA14?

I am very pleased to receive the invitation to an interview from you, Magdalena, and MAp! For me it is an inspiration and an invitation to reflect on my work with you! In a nutshell, I work with my team of mostly around 10 young interior designers and architects on mainly hotel projects. We see ourselves as a boutique style design and architecture studio: the team size is deliberately kept manageable, our clients are mostly smaller - individual hotels or small hotel chains in Switzerland.

This has to do with the small-scale hotel structure in Switzerland on the one hand, but also with our preference for individuality on the other. The mutual appreciation is often more noticeable here than in international hotel groups. I see my work in this context as a contribution to a high-quality hotel culture, as it has historically emerged in Switzerland.

Here I am addressing a point that is important to me: as we all know, culture does not only take place in the opera. Culture is diverse, a high-quality craft; the maintenance of traditional knowledge and the respectful handling of it are an important part of my motivation to always tackle new projects without lapsing into repetitive thinking and acting.

Personally, I have been working in this profession for almost 30 years. As described in my first interview with you, I was interested in art, history, literature and politics from an early age. This interest in the world and my study of history and politics before studying architecture are probably the driving force and also the basis for my work as a specialist author. I write in the relevant media on topics related to the hotel industry. I am concerned with the social context of the industry. Here you can read developments and observe trends that go far beyond the usual understanding of design and architecture.

I have worked as a consultant for hotel chains like Swissôtel around the world. I also support various hotels with my knowledge of the correct interior design conception and proportioning. But also banks like Credit Suisse for larger projects.

One topic that we have talked about a lot recently is sustainability. How do you integrate this into your work? Was there a moment or maybe a place for you that put you on this path?

When I'm looking for a place or time where and when my interest in sustainability began, it seems to me to be a natural development, a kind of evolutionary design process.

I remember that many years ago, design, visually tangible aesthetics, was dominant and central. In Switzerland, there was traditionally an additional attitude that valued aspects such as material authenticity and high-quality craftsmanship.

As Director Interior Design, I spent several years for a Swiss 5 * hotel brand on all continents, briefing and coaching the design and architecture teams on many renovation and new construction projects. I clearly realized how much we differ in continental Europe and especially in Switzerland from the mostly Anglo-Saxon design firms that implement large hotel projects around the world. Fascinating and for me an absolute exception in this context was my collaboration with a Japanese interior designer. During a renovation project in Japan, I saw how close we got to each other in our views on architecture and design. That's why I'm really looking forward to my upcoming trip to Japan, for which I have made craft, architecture and design - in addition to nature - the central themes of my travel planning. And of course the anticipation is great: the trip has been "on hold" for a year and a half and I hope it happens in the next year.

We keep our fingers crossed that your trip to Japan will finally work out. If we stay in the future: which principles and trends do you think will become more and more important in design?

The principles are complex and will continue to develop. There are various labels and certificates for sustainability, also in the hotel industry. Magdalena, you showed me the sophisticated label B Corp, on which you focus with your company: I am now dealing with it, I respect the effort and will pursue it.

As far as our daily work in planning interior design is concerned, various basic principles of sustainability meet my quality standards. For example, when selecting products and materials, researching how sensible and justifiable the use is in terms of energy use and ethical principles in production and transport. I also value material authenticity, which also connects to recyclability. The extraction and, above all, the processing of raw materials should also take place regionally if possible. For example when using wood and stone.

Handicrafts are right at the top of my list of preferences: As far as I am concerned, I am talking about a high-quality culture that will hopefully gain in importance again and find a place in economic thinking. I love good handicrafts and often take the opportunity to visit handicraft businesses. For me, this also includes glass manufacturers such as Barovier & Toso on Murano, with a continuous company history since the 15th century. Or lighting companies like Louis Poulsen in Copenhagen, who not only produce everything themselves in Denmark, but also invite their employees to daily work breaks with music and gymnastics.

I see these European companies as regional; for me regionality is not a question of national borders, but of possibilities. Therefore, there will probably also be products in the future that come from far away, from Asia, Africa, South and North America.

As already mentioned, research is important here: How and under what conditions was production carried out? To what extent have ethical standards been adhered to in a credible manner, e.g. in terms of working conditions and human dignity, animal welfare and environmental pollution.

As far as future trends in terms of sustainability are concerned, I hope for positive social developments: It cannot be that everyone has to acquire a doctorate to understand sustainability. For me, sustainability and our major crises speak to simple feelings: those who are with themselves also have easy access to an understanding of sustainability. “We are one world” is a question of awareness, not education.

What do you say to those people who believe that it is simply impossible to be both design-oriented and sustainable? How do you create beautiful places and spaces that are sustainable for mankind and our earth in the long-term?

We have gone through many changes in good taste in human history. The 25,000-year-old stone sculpture of Venus von Willendorf is the first known sculptural representation of a human ideal: a very fat woman. It represented an ideal of beauty, because in times of hunger and cold it was a dream to be well fed. From today's point of view, being overweight would be seen as a problematic undesirable development ... Ideals of beauty can therefore survive if they are no longer appropriate, if they contradict knowledge. I believe in a collective, universal sense of aesthetics. Just as all people understand laughing and crying, regardless of their culture, there are also similarities in the perception of beautiful and ugly, of friendly and hostile.

Many of our readers work in the hotel industry: What are the 5 most important things hotels should do to make their interiors more sustainable?

Anyone planning to hire an interior designer must take the time to clarify, in conversation and on the basis of reference projects, whether and how sustainability is part of the design process of the relevant design office. If you want to take action yourself, you should consult with good regional craft businesses and choose the right partners. There are very good and sustainable furniture manufacturers in Switzerland and in neighbouring countries. Companies such as De Sede, Horgen Glarus, Embru, Alias, Girsberger and others promise longevity; But not only that: after many years of use, they also restore this furniture. A hotel may pay a higher price than with no-name products from somewhere, but these last for decades. The lifespan of a piece of furniture is an important criterion for sustainability. As a rule, this furniture is carefully designed and exudes a high level of quality, which guests are happy to take note of.

This also and especially applies to leather furniture: high-quality companies communicate exactly where the cowhide comes from and how and with which chemicals it was tanned. For me it is like eating: If a frozen pizza with a meat topping does not cost CHF 3.50, it is clear to everyone that there cannot be any respectful animal husbandry or appreciation ...

I am critical of the current inflationary hype around plastic recycling: I ask manufacturers exactly about their processes of extraction of plastic and how and where the processing and transport take place. We have a plastic litter problem in the world. But does processing into more or less short-lived products make sense? Does that solve a problem or does it create a new one?

What other sustainable measures are there? Before renovating hotels and restaurants, I check whether all furniture really needs to be disposed of. We are working on a project in Ticino, where a technically sophisticated secretary looked old-fashioned in the rooms. But lacquered in matte black, supplemented with modern, silver-coloured fittings and a cool table lamp, it now looks like a newborn - a lifestyle element that is beginning its second life.

The triad of downcycling, recycling and upcycling should be part of the research into possibilities. Good designers should find solutions that are convincingly sustainable and meet high design standards.

What are your hopes for the hospitality industry in terms of sustainability?

The hotel and catering industry are facing major challenges and have to question their traditional and previously well-functioning business models. Much of sustainability is familiar to them through the F&B area: regionality and good products as a prerequisite for success, clear communication and declaration of products and services.

The contemporary and respectful treatment of employees is moving more into the foreground, new working time models are required.

I hope that these challenges will lead to a rethinking with positive effects for the future: higher motivation of employees through cooperative management; Trust of guests and employees in the company, achieved through honest communication; and the avoidance of “green washing”, as one honestly strives for sustainability and makes this visible.

Karsten, you already know our final MAp meets question. Because even after all these years this revolves around our core service - the development of sustainable hotel concepts and hotel brands. What makes a hotel stay unique for you personally?

Like my partner, I am a passionate restaurant and hotel connoisseur.

We study various offers online and choose carefully. If the hotel and the restaurant are then an experience, give me a unique, non-exchangeable memory, then I'll come back home happy! This happiness requires employees who make me feel a real “welcome”. Rooms that surprise, with details and as an overall impression. Rooms that exude a warm and friendly atmosphere and at the same time have a contemporary, modern design, maybe sometimes even taken to the limit in an unforgettable way ... Hotels and restaurants whose food is tempting in the morning, at noon and in the evening.

Places that trigger longing when I later remember them.

Dear Jennifer, congratulations on receiving top marks on your thesis! As you noted in your thesis, hotel concept development has barely been addressed in academic literature, so why did you choose to tackle it as the subject of your bachelor thesis? What sparked your interest – besides our close contact during your mentoring year?

Thank you very much! I remember a conversation with a fellow student who enthusiastically told me about your work at MAp. My first thought was: “Hotel concept creators? Is there such a thing?" As probably many others, I had never heard of hotel concept development. A bitter conclusion when you consider that the subject is all the more important nowadays. After all, the hotel industry is facing completely different challenges than it was 10 years ago, when free WiFi was a unique selling point.

During my time as a flight attendant, I had the privilege of staying in many well-known hotels around the world. In contrast to the hotel chains, which can pull a suitable brand out of the drawer for every guest need, independent hotels have to develop their "concept" themselves.

The complexity already begins here; a hotel concept sounds fancy, everyone claims to have one, but in truth the term is abstract and difficult to define. So on the one hand there was the hotel concept development, which from a theoretical point of view is almost undefined, and on the other hand there was the urgency for unique and competitive hotel concepts in practice. A paradox that was made for research work ;-)

Before we get into it, how would you define what a hotel concept is? And why is it so critical to the strategic planning process for hotels?

The simple answer is: a tailor-made and long-term oriented document for the strategic direction of the hotel project. However, this definition would not do justice to the term “hotel concept.” A hotel is much more than a restaurant and overnight accommodation. It is a place of encounter, interaction and sensory experiences. Furthermore, it is also a property and a business model where the needs and expectations of a wide variety of stakeholders meet. As a result, a harmonious interplay of so-called hard and soft factors is required in order to develop a coherent and holistic hotel concept.

The hotel concept is like a puzzle. To solve it, you need a methodical approach and creative imagination. Specifically, a strategic basis is required. This results from a well-founded analysis of the market, environment and trends. An individual concept can then be formed from this, which takes into account aspects such as architecture, design, sensors but also the direct and indirect influences on people and the environment. The result of this development process is a clear “raison d’être” for the hotel project.

What did your study set out to achieve? And what approach and methods did you use to reach this destination, i.e. your overall aim?

Although there are numerous studies on hotel management and project development, to the best of my knowledge, hotel concept development has not been discussed much in theory or in practice. Consequently, with my thesis I wanted to make a small but significant contribution to this existing knowledge gap.

To do this, I wanted to research how the industry understands the term “hotel concept” and how widespread hotel concept development is in the Swiss hotel industry. To this end, I conducted interviews with industry experts, hotel owners and managers. The research focus was on non-branded hotels in rural areas. The exploratory nature of my research enabled me to develop a deep understanding of the topic and to gain insights into the status quo of hotel concept development.

You interviewed both industry experts and hotel managers/owners: what did your findings reveal in terms of their understanding of what hotel concepts are and their practical use? What did you deduce from this?

Basically, the industry experts as well as the hotel owners and managers found it difficult to define a hotel concept in words. This is because a concept is more often associated with an idea than with a strategic document. It is not uncommon for the concept to be understood as part of the business plan in practice.

While the industry experts are generally of the opinion that a hotel concept should be as holistic as possible, hotel owners and managers primarily associate it with their hotel product. For example, they named the extraordinary interior design or the diverse gastronomic offer as important for “their” hotel concept. It was noticeable that the questioned hoteliers developed their concept based on experience, assumptions and gut feeling. Some even honestly admitted that nothing was planned in their hotel, but simply made. This approach is contrary to the expert opinion and the current literature, which suggests that a concept should be based on facts. As a result, it was not surprising that in the five out of six hotel projects examined, no written hotel concept was developed using a strategic planning process.

These facts strongly suggest that written hotel concepts are the exception rather than the rule in the Swiss hotel industry (unless an external consulting agency is involved). A possible reason for this is the fact that the purpose and benefits of hotel concepts are simply too unknown in the hotel industry.

What do you see as the risks to not having a proper hotel concept in place for hotel managers/owners? As it relates to the hospitality industry as a whole, what can we do to mitigate these risks and ensure hotel concept development becomes more commonplace?

Hotel projects are usually long-term, costly and risky projects. I believe that if you want to sail to a distant destination, you need to know the right course to actually get there. Only very few people manage to steer “on gut feeling,” so navigation is the only solution. This guiding document is a holistic hotel concept for all stakeholders involved. Without a hotel concept, however, those stakeholders and partners involved run the risk of losing the course or missing the right one from the start. This may only show up after the opening in the form of operational and financial difficulties. That is why it is important to deal with the hotel concept at a very early stage of the hotel project, regardless of whether it is a new building or renovation.

I see a great opportunity here for hotel consulting agencies as well as industry associations and universities, which can take up the topic further and spread the necessary know-how. For example, students at the Graubünden University of Applied Sciences develop a hotel concept directly on a case study. As young professionals, they can use this knowledge to bring new impulses to companies.

Now that you’ve successfully defended your thesis, what are your post-graduation goals and plans? How do you want to change the hospitality industry?

During my research time, I received great positive feedback and interest from the interviewees surveyed. I'm pleased because it shows that the industry is already rethinking. As a practitioner, however, it is important for me not to lose an understanding of the daily challenges in practice, despite having all the theoretical basics. After all, we don't just want hotel concepts that sound good on paper, but also ones that work in everyday business over the long term. This is a tightrope walk that I will certainly take on in the future.

As always, our final MAp meets question: what makes a hotel experience a truly outstanding one for you personally?

Being a “guest” is always a very personal experience for me and it becomes unforgettable when I am in harmony with the place and the people around me. It doesn't matter whether it's a luxury resort or a guesthouse - because the feeling of "arriving" is not created by star categories or brands, but from the heart.

The book “Humankind – a hopeful history” is a very careful, deep-dive analysis into our human history from a modern perspective, with the aim to provide an answer to the longstanding question whether human beings are innately “good” or “bad.” Rutger Bregman, the 33 year-old historian, philosopher and bestselling author from the Netherlands, did a great job digging deep enough to bring about some surprising new insights and facts about our history. He analyzed research pieces, reports and historical events that paint the picture of humans being a selfish, aggressive and greedy species. By looking very carefully “behind the scenes” of cannibalistic behaviors, wars, psychological experiments, and criminal scandals, he discovers - even despite utmost cruel behaviors - evidence for our prosocial and cooperative nature. But why do we all tend to believe in a rather dark picture of our species? Ironically, it’s exactly our greatest evolutionary strength - our ability of social learning – that misleads us here and draws a one-sided, dark picture. This in turn evokes in us mistrust and aggression against each other, which leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy. At the end of the book the author details how we can get out of this spiral by consciously designing institutions and individual encounters based on trusting our natural goodness.

What were my three most inspiring insights?

Kelsi : 1) The reason humans exist to this day, as opposed to other species that have died off, is because we’re friendly! Evolutionary biologists call this “survival of the friendliest,” and it’s what has allowed us to survive millennia. 2) Infants and toddlers, studies suggest, have an innate bias toward fairness and cooperation, which goes to show that we’re hard-wired for good. 3) There are hopeful examples of institutions that have done away with the culture of greed and selfishness to empower people to follow in the direction of their own instincts and motivations. It sounds utopian and too good to be true - but it’s not!

Eva: There were so many! But I guess the most intriguing ones were those I was not aware of before: 1) We are born with a moral compass of goodness. Rousseau was right. It’s inevitable in our nature. Babies can seemingly distinguish good from bad already before speaking and walking. 2) Our evolutionary advantage is – surprise surprise: kindness and blush. Individually, we are a pretty weak species: we are not bigger and don’t have a larger brain than other primates. Only relating, cooperating and learning together make us pretty amazing. So, the ability to be kind, and on the other side, be ashamed if we’re not, is our true hard-wired evolutionary advantage. It guarantees relating and cooperating - our survival. 3) When switching from a nomad to a more civilized existence, protectionism was born. When traveling around in nomadic times, we naturally accepted sharing natural resources and land with others, treating them and mother nature with respect. Our prosocial and kind nature helped us all to survive. With civilization and property we implanted a feeling of superiority and the need to defend our property, which increasingly disconnected us from our true nature of relating and cooperating.

How does the content relate to today’s times?

Kelsi: I think Humankind is the right book for this moment. There is this narrative that, when a crisis takes shape, the cracks in civilization appear and people devolve into the worst versions of themselves. But this book shows us the opposite is true; when faced with a crisis, humans are indeed more cooperative, altruistic and caring. And when you look at the pandemic through this “rose-colored” lens, you find that poignant examples of people coming together to help each other out – delivering food to those home bound, donating supplies to frontline workers – far outweigh any negative stories out there in the world.

Eva: Bregman indirectly provides us with the reason for today’s increasing rates of burnout, depression, addiction, loneliness and other psychological diseases: Due to our underlying competitive economic system, in the past 100 years we were trained only to compete. This me-or-you paradigm has been an exceptional motor for welfare, innovation and growth, but at the price of disconnecting our true human nature of being relational and cooperative. Bregman helps us understand the hard way what we all have experienced during the pandemic: We are relational and cooperative creatures but hard-wired for a me-and-you paradigm. I personally think if we trust this core and play out our cooperative and kind strengths, there is much hope that we can master all the burning societal issues of our times.

How did the book change my thinking?

Kelsi: It completely changed my perspective on history. The history books teach us it’s all “doom-and-gloom,” that history is marked by nothing but turbulent times and horrific events. And while I’m certainly not denying our (very) dark chapters, history has predominantly and overwhelmingly been peaceful and good – it’s just that “feel good” stories and events don’t make it into the history books.

Eva: Reading the book broadened, of course, my view on our hard-wired cooperative roots. But maybe more importantly, it changed how I categorize my own thinking. Up to now I always thought I must live with the label of being a helpless “idealist” when believing that human beings are prosocial and good in their nature. Reading the book I realized that all who trust in the human nature to be “good” are rather the “realists” among us. It inspired me wherever I can to support such a thinking, to stand up for it and to promote all empirical evidence around it.

What did I appreciate most reading?

Kelsi: I appreciated that Bregman deconstructed and presented counter-narratives to studies and events we thought we knew. Take, for example, the Stanford Prison Experiment. Recent discoveries and evidence suggest that the experiment was a hoax, with the guards being coached on how to mistreat the prisoners as opposed to being driven by their hunger for power. These anecdotes and case studies - there are over 700 in the book (!) – not only present compelling evidence in favor of his argument that humans are actually pretty decent (puncturing the Veneer Theory that we’re all brutes), but reassure me that some things are not always as bad as they seem.

Eva: I must admit I normally stay away from historical books. But this one I truly loved reading. Bregman writes in a very catchy storytelling manner, artfully weaving in all research evidence. What I appreciated is that Bregman offers not only reasons for his thesis; in the last chapters he offers as well institutional examples where it paid-off and worked to build upon a positive view of human beings. He outlines a school, a company and a prison where it paid-off to trust our cooperative and prosocial core, as it helped grow humanity and efficiency in reducing costs.

What wisdom in this book will I use in my daily life?

Eva: At the very end of the book, Bregman outlines 10 very concrete rules for everybody who would like to more consciously live-up our prosocial nature, which I find all very helpful: (1) When in doubt, assume the best 2) Think in win-win scenarios 3) Ask more questions 4) Temper your empathy, train your compassion 5) Try to understand the other, even if you don’t get where they’re coming from 6) Love your own as others love their own 7) Avoid the news 8) Don’t punch Nazis 9) Come out of the closet: don’t be ashamed to do good 10) Be realistic. Personally, No. 1 – when in doubt, assume the best - sang particularly to me. I would say it is the most important one of the 10. So whatever happens, if we assume everybody has good intentions, our minds, lives and our world become radically much more peaceful as self-fulfilling prophecy power is put at work.

Kelsi: I hail from the land of the 24-hour news cycle, from FOX News to CNN, where we are constantly bombarded with sensationalist stories that stoke fear and spread misinformation. It’s so easy to get sucked in and feel depressed, anxious and cynical. To adopt this bleak view of human nature. But it’s important to know that these news organizations have their own agendas, and it’s not to report on world events, but to get more eyeballs. So my take-away for daily life is simple: turn off the TV! And believe in the generosity and kindness of my fellow humans.

My most inspiring quote

Kelsi: “An old man says to his grandson: ‘There’s a fight going on inside me. It’s a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil–angry, greedy, jealous, arrogant, and cowardly. The other is good–peaceful, loving, modest, generous, honest, and trustworthy. These two wolves are also fighting within you, and inside every other person too.’ After a moment, the boy asks, ‘Which wolf will win?’ The old man smiles. ‘The one you feed.’”

Eva: “What is truth? Some things are true whether you believe in them or not. Water boils at 100 degree Celsius. Smoking kills. President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on 22 November 1963. Other things have the potential to be true, if we believe in them. Our belief becomes what sociologists dub a self-fulfilling-prophecy: if you predict a bank will go bust and that convinces lots of people to close their accounts, then, sure enough, the bank will go bust.”

Who should read this book?

Kelsi: The simple answer is: everyone. But it’s especially suited for those who are feeling down or finding themselves in a rut, thanks to the pandemic and life’s other challenges. You will walk away feeling inspired and – to borrow a term from the title – hopeful.

Eva: Everybody who is interested to understand the evidence for why we are rather a kind and prosocial species – despite all we hear in contrary. And particularly those, who once believed that but somehow have given up this belief due to the desperate news surrounding us. Above all, I would wish that teachers, journalists and IT-programmers read this book in order to NOT generate an ill-induced perspective about our nature, understanding their responsibility for the self-fulfilling prophecy dynamic as a consequence of it.

Those who have no time to read the whole book might be interested in an inspiring podcast and interview about Humankind to get a taste of both the book and the author, recorded in 2020 in the U.S.

Link: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/talk-easy-with-sam/a-case-for-human-decency-by-yXHIoP24kV_/#episode

Marlene, thank you for taking the time to speak with us! As a start, can you please tell us a bit more about you? Where does your passion for sustainability and hospitality come from?

Like so many in my generation I came to a point where I could not accept that sustainability was something left to be cared for by others, I just wanted to make an impact myself!

For as long as I can remember I enjoyed travelling and discovering new destinations. With the feeling that a community of travellers with a conscious approach, such as myself, was increasing, I developed the idea of eco suites and just went through with it.

Can you tell our readers a bit more about eco suites? Why did you feel compelled to start the company and what’s your purpose?

ecosuites.travel is an online platform designed to present premium accommodations with a sustainable approach. We aim to support the eco conscious traveller in searching for a fitting hotel and shed light on accommodations that act sustainably. We carefully curate our collection of conscious hotels and are proud of presenting them to our community!

Personally, I aimed to take responsibility for contributing to a sustainable future. Once I had the idea for eco suites, I completely dove into it and wanted to bring it to life! I was convinced that luxury travel can be sustainable. Our purpose is to bring together the eco-conscious traveller with outstanding accommodations that share our approach and values.

eco suites has an impressive portfolio of hotels that are both stylish and sustainable. What makes your hotels “eco suites?”

We are proud to present hotels that are special in every way. Whether it is the design, the concept, the facilities or the team – our eco suites make luxury vacation dreams come true. The huge difference to many other hotels around the world is that they follow a highly sustainable approach and are committed to define modern travel. It is the combination of both aspects that makes them our “eco suites.”

To become an eco suite, what specific criteria and standards are you looking at? What is your process for selection?

We carefully choose every accommodation on ecosuites.travel. All accommodations featured on our platform meet at least five out of ten criteria that have been established as our eco suites standard. After careful consideration, our eco suites criteria have been adapted from internationally acknowledged standards for preserving the environment. It mattered greatly to us to also include criteria like “Female empowerment” or “Social impact”, to show the full range of what we believe sustainability implies.

At MAp, we too believe sustainability is the future. What are your hopes for the hospitality industry as it relates to sustainability in the short- and long-term?

My hopes for the foreseeable future are that the hospitality industry will continue to focus on implementing a wide range of eco-friendly measures, from saving resources to using clean energy. Many short-term solutions can be installed quickly and would have a huge impact on the environment. Speaking of long-term expectations, I hope that travel choices will be made carefully and will increase to focus on slow tourism, on getting to know the destination, its people and its culture.

As many of our readers are hoteliers: what are the 3 most important measures hotels should implement on the road to sustainability?

While every hotel and its guests are different, we do know what our community of responsible travellers is mostly looking for. In our experience, the measure with the highest direct impact on guests is the careful selection of food & drinks. Most exclusive travellers are keen on being offered local, seasonal and organic choices when it comes their catering. They are well informed and try to reduce their footprint with their shopping choices in their everyday lives and do expect the same from their accommodation.

Another measure that directly relates to the guest is the effort to reduce and carefully recycle waste. Many hotels are implementing recycling opportunities in each room or easily accessible in the common areas, and many guests are delighted to see the measures they are used to at home as an option in their hotel as well. Products without packaging are in high demand, and careful sourcing and recycling “behind the scenes” is mandatory.

We do strongly believe that happy employees are key to provide a unique and exceptional experience for their guests. A modern work environment needs to be implemented to include all aspects that sustainability contains. Fair working conditions, diverse perspectives and safety therefore should always be a priority. This is certainly the third measure I would recommend on the path to sustainability.

As always, our final MAp meets question is related to our core business, as we’re specialised in crafting innovative hotel concepts and brands: what makes a hotel experience a truly outstanding one for you personally?

A truly outstanding hotel experience for me comes with the people. Feeling at home away from home is what I am looking for, and that comes with attentive service. I love exploring innovative concepts, hotels that are brave enough to try something new and follow a unique path.