A turning point for the hospitality industry
Interview with Anders Braks, Founder & CEO of Event Hotels
When in 2022 the hospitality industry seemed to have found a good and promising way out of COVID crisis, the impact of the war in Ukraine brought new and unprecedented challenges on worldwide economy that still affect business in 2025 and beyond. What is Event Hotels’ response?
As was the case in previous crises, we used the agility, the skills and the creativity of our experienced team to implement adequate measures to mitigate the financial impact. As an example, when energy prices started to skyrocket, we initiated tailor-made measures per hotel and successfully brought down consumption of electricity and heating 20 % below 2019 levels. Of course there was also a generally stronger focus on all cost items, however in previously efficiently run hotels, this only brings limited effect without fundamentally changing the operational setup.
Anders Braks
© Crispin-Iven Mokry, 2024
And on a central level?
By moving all our data to the cloud, our employees have the benefit of Microsoft Copilot as their virtual assistant, easing workflows and allowing the focus on important matters. We will also enhance and bring down the cost of our centralized services. Our central bookkeeping now deploys Microsoft Dynamics with the goal that 90 % of all invoices will be processed automatically without human interaction. Within our reservation center we have introduced the first voice bots, answering questions of guests and taking indi vidual reservations. This will allow increased efficiency and focus on revenue enhancing workstreams.
What role does ESG play within Event Hotels?
The environmental, social and governance responsibility plays a very important role. One of our corporate beliefs is earmarked to diversity and we welcome and support our hotels’ initiatives in their local neighbourhoods. Recently we launched our initiative ‚Sustainable Hospitality‘ which encompasses initiatives around our ecological footprint, to include certification of buildings and hotel operation. And as partner of international financial players, while being a family office our corporate setup is institutional.
Will the focus now be on expansion?
Event Hotels is very opportunistic in its growth – we will always go after interesting assets with potential. However we do not have a strategic growth plan and there is no map with locations we need to cover. In the current market environment there is still a mismatch between profitability and price expectations. We do not have pressure to deploy our capital we wait for the right asset at the right price.
What are the consequences that you see for your business?
We set an efficiency target per hotel for 2026, basically adding inflation on 2019 results, and challenged our teams to think outside the box and propose dedicated concepts and measures to achieve the targets, both on a hotel and on a central level within our central service organization. We jointly scrutinized all the proposed actions and put together individual plans, materializing the upside in 2025 and 2026.
What is at the heart of those plans?
It is a combination of new service concepts and new technology, including Al. We have always been at the forefront of new technology and hence we took the decision to move all our IT, may it be hotel or head office based, to the cloud, in order to benefit from new automated and Al systems and increased efficiency. As part of that initiative we equip each of our hotels with a welcome lounge, eliminating the traditional concept of front desk. Guests will be able to check in and check out either via self-service terminals or via smartphone app and there will be dedicated hosts to welcome the guests, assist if needed and focus on guest service and upsell. This will be complemented by chatbots enhancing the digital guest journey. On the food & beverage side of our business we make use of the progress within the convenience food industry, meanwhile offering a wide range from pizza and burgers to meals created by Michelin-star chefs. By adapting our F&B offering to those concepts, we ensure a consistent level of quality to our guests while at the same time liberating us from the vulnerability of a tight labor market and secure efficiency. In addition we have been deploying service robots from the early stages of that technology. By the end of 2025 around 70 robots and 20-30 more in 2026 will be supporting our teams in F&B service, housekeeping and room service.
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With the help of new concepts the hotel industry will continue to succeed and strive.
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But you were not entirely idle the past years …
Together with partners we have realized two lighthouse projects in Berlin and Vienna, the repositioning of two big aged existing hotel assets into upper upscale lifestyle hotels. In each case Event Hotels’ project management team steered the entire project and achieved outstanding results in terms of quality, design and atmosphere. This is complemented by the wholly-owned acquisition of a German hotel portfolio that we were previously engaged in as minority investor; this portfolio will undergo transformation in the next two to three years.
How do you see the future of the hospitality industry?
Hospitality has proven very resilient in times of crises as last proven post COVID with a rapid bounce-back of performance.
However the industry has arrived at a turning point and needs to adapt to a new normal of high cost levels and limited staff resources. But with the help of new concepts it will continue to succeed and strive.