SMACK Hospitality

After 3 years of absence, the ITB Berlin, the world’s largest exhibition event for the hospitality industry, will be back in full throttle this year. We know you are as excited as we are, so here is a little personal service for you from us. Deborah Rothe, the Exhibition Director of the ITB Berlin, joined us on the podcast and we asked her what to expect from ITB Berlin 2023 and how it will differ...

Missing the beach? So are we, so we brought somebody to the podcast that knows all about beaches, hotels and hospitality. Alexander Schneider, president of Nikki Beach’s Hotels & Resorts division came to visit us and told us the touching story of how the name “Nikki Beach” came about, the company’s transition from beaches and F&B to hotels and what a true “Nikki Beach experience” for guests is all...

Christoph Hoffmann, Founder of the 25hours Hotels, came to visit us on the show and talked to us about his path into hospitality and founding 25hours Hotels, their success, his way of thinking in concept & design to create a certain atmosphere with food & beverages, staying local and his future plans with Bikini Island & Mountain Hotels. The successful hotelier, who started in a wine shop, explain...

Torgeir Silseth, the CEO of Nordic Choice Hotels, joined us on the podcast after the Nordic Hotel Conference in Copenhagen and talked to us about the Conference itself, including his participation in the talk “The Battle of the Giants”, how he got to Nordic Choice Hotels, their challenges and what’s coming in the near future. Patrizia and Torgeir talked about his way into hospitality and the indus...

The Leading Hotels of the World have cemented their legacy in hospitality for years. Their current President and CEO, Shannon Knapp, joined us on the show and Patrizia and her spoke about the importance of remaining open to new opportunities, that success is not always a linear path and the essence of having mentors in your life that help you navigate through your career. Shannon highlighted the g...

Pascal Jenny, the president of Arosa Tourism in Switzerland came to visit us on the show and talked to us about saving bears, the Arosa 2030 vision and the uniqueness of skiing. The former professional handball player told Philip about the Arosa Bärenland Foundation, whose mission is to save bears, and how they do it by complementing their tourism marketing efforts. Pascal talked to us about visit...

You heard it here first and to mark the occasion, Mieke Veldhuis, Chief People & Culture Officer at The Social Hub, is our guest on our next podcast episode. She revealed to us why The Student Hotel outgrew its name and is changing it to The Social Hub and why the new name is true to the core meaning of TSH. Fritz and Mieke talked about hybrid hospitality and how it resonates with the hub, change...

In this episode we had the chance to speak to the Co-founder and Managing Director of Limehome, Dr. Josef Vollmayr. We were introduced to the rise of alternative accommodations and the success of sharing economies. Florian and Josef spoke about the companies USP of having no manual interaction in the guest journey as well as building value through technology following the change in customer behavi...

We are back with a brand new podcast season of #smackstories and stopped at nothing short of one of the biggest names in Hospitality globally to kick off the season in style. Sébastien Bazin, Chairman & CEO of Accor Group, joined us on the show and had a lot of fun giving us a recap on his past 10 years with Accor and what is planned for the upcoming years. Sébastien & Fritz discussed Accor’s idea...

For our 18th episode this season we got the chance to speak to Edith Gerhardt, CEO of Hirmer Hospitality. We discussed her personal career path from The Ritz Carlton to Marriott International, which ultimately lead her to Travel Charme and Hirmer Hospitality. Edith told us about employee motivation and success factors for a hospitality company and emphasized the importance of clear values and meas...

Innovation never stops! Welcome to a brand new podcast episode featuring Julian Trautwein, Co-founder and Managing Director at Raus. Before Julian started his career in hospitality he was spinning records, so it’s no surprise he met his first boss in a bar. From there he went on to work for an agency, 6 years at Airbnb and finally Tourlane, before creating the concept of Raus. Julian shared some i...

More top-level insights you ask?! Your prayers have been answered [emojis] Check out our brand new podcast episode featuring Satya Anand, President of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) for Marriott International. Satya talked to us through his career path into hospitality, starting as a night auditor and making it all the way to the top of the company in EMEA, after having been with the compan...

Kayleigh Wiltshire, Global Learning and Development Manager at the Dorchester Collection came by on the show and discussed the importance of learning and development in hospitality, as the whole industry is facing massive staff shortage. Coming from a background of health science and nutrition we talked about her journey into hospitality and Dorchester in particular, and how the job’s demands, req...

Sustainability is such an important matter! For this episode we spoke to Naomi Mackenzie, Co-founder of KITRO. Naomi told us how she and Anastasia had the idea to found KITRO, when they were still at the hospitality school, seeing how much food was wasted in every day’s hotel operations and how her position in the company has changed since 2017. She explained the idea and digital components behind...

Jan Valentin, Founder and General Partner at ennea capital partners, joined us for another SMACK story. Starting off as a travel journalist, he led us through the stages of his career, including travel24.com and KAYAK Europe, to the venture capital and M&A space. Giving us a current market check of the industry, he talked about how we are almost getting used to the state of “crisis”, how he remain...

Ariel Schiff, the mastermind behind the Amano Hotel Group joined us on SMACK for episode 12 of the podcast and told us all about his roots, his passion for F&B and how his family members supply the names for his hotels and their outlets. Ariel rarely does interviews and doesn’t even have a cell phone (!), so we are all the more thrilled he chose to speak to us about the expansion plans of Amano, t...

A true entrepreneur joined us for this podcast episode. Olivier Bracard, CEO & Co-founder of Hosco. Olivier gave us an insight on his career path into hospitality from his early starts, over EHL, his first internship, his time at JLL Hotels & Hospitality and finally, how he became an entrepreneur and started Hosco. He talked about the challenging times of the crisis but also about the possibilitie...

For the second episode of 2022 we were lucky to catch Gilda Perez-Alvarado for a chat. She talked to us about her time at Cornell University, her love for travel and cultures and how she found her passion for real estate finance in combination with hospitality. Leading a team of 350 professionals all over the world at JLL Hotels & Hospitality, Gilda explained how important it is to invest in peopl...

Kicking off the year in style, we met Cyrus Heydarian, Operator & Managing Director of the Breidenbacher Hof in Düsseldorf. Having been in the business facing two crisis, he elaborated how the employee is the most valuable resource and how important communication is with all the uncertainty the pandemic has caused. He talked about the challenges and chances that arise from Covid-19 for the hotel b...

For the final episode in 2021, Mathieu Jaton, CEO of Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland stopped by, just before Christmas. Having graduated from the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL), Mathieu gives us an insight on what hospitality has taught him and how his background affects his day to day job. He told us about how he and Claude Nobs, the co-founder of the festival and his predecessor, met an...

We had the chance to catch Charlie MacGregor, CEO and founder of The Student Hotel for a quick chat before the end of the year and he told us about how he got into the industry and the origins of his very unique hotel concept with TSH. As travelling is about experiences, Charlie explained how a hybrid company that accommodates students, young professionals, leisure and business guests all at the s...

For this episode we met Jan Starcke, Travel Industry Lead at Meta, formerly Facebook. He allowed us some interesting glimpses behind the scenes of his work and told us, what it was like to join Facebook back in 2013, being part of the first one percent of the company. We learned about trends and evolvements emerging in the world of Meta, especially communication apps such as Instagram or virtual r...

This episode takes us back to the German Hotel Convention 2021 (Deutscher Hotelkongress 2021), hosted by the dfv Mediengruppe and ahgz, where we caught up with Michaela Reitterer, President of the Austrian Hoteliers Association (ÖHV) and Hotel Director of the Boutiquehotel Stadthalle in Vienna. Michaela talked to us about the structure and organisation of the ÖHV, tourism policies and the signific...

In this episode we spoke to Marcus Bernhardt, CEO of the Steigenberger Hotels AG. He talked to us about the chances that arise from Covid, how Deutsche Hospitality has rebuilt and reorganized itself, how new brands like Porsche Design Hotels, House of Beats or MAXX by Steigenberger where established within the portfolio and how the demand for lifestyle and experience has grown. Further, Marcus gav...

The third episode of season three took us to Tyrol, Austria where we spoke to Florian Phleps, CEO of the Tirol Tourist Board. He talked to us about how he made it into the industry, coming from a law background, the development of Tyrol, how the crisis has changed not only his day to day job but the industry as a whole and what issues need to be addressed now and in the future. He also filled us i...