Russell KettRussell Kett, chairman of HVS London and long-standing commentator and consultant to the hotel industry, was today awarded the prestigious Hotel Investment Conference Europe (Hot.E) Hall of Fame Award 2017. The Award was presented at this week’s Hot.E conference, being held in London, by Jim Burba, president of host organisation Burba Hotel Network (BHN).The Hall of Fame Award recognises an investor, developer, or hotel leader whose career has had a profound and positive impact on the European hotel industry. The honouree is recognised for their business success, intellectual leadership, and personal dedication to maintaining the highest professional and ethical standards.After gaining his hotel school qualifications some 45 years ago, Kett joined Strand Hotels as an internal auditor before becoming the assistant financial controller of London’s Cumberland Hotel. He entered consultancy initially with accountancy firms Deloitte & Touche and BDO Stoy Hayward (Horwath Consulting), before joining HVS in January 1995. Kett is now chairman of the London office of HVS, the leading global specialist hotel valuation, consulting and brokerage firm. Its London office has some 30 people working exclusively on hotel valuations, feasibility studies, market studies, shared ownership developments, executive search, asset management, investment appraisals, brokerage, and investment banking. He is a frequent writer, moderator and speaker on the international hotel industry and lectures at leading international hotel schools including Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne, IMHI-Essec in Paris, Cornell University, Oxford Brookes University and the Scottish Hotel School, University of Strathclyde, where he was a visiting senior lecturer for 11 years. In 2011 he was awarded the HOSPA Lifetime Achievement Award.