Hotel Yearbook Article HYB 2025 Sustainability Tech Edition

A Vision for Hospitality Business Schools: Bridging Technology and Tradition

Hospitality Business Schools’ long tradition in operational excellence and service quality is no longer sufficient to navigate the future of technology-enabled hospitality. While Hospitality Schools successfully trained generations of professionals in living the human-centric nature of hospitality, the industry faces a rapid digital transformation. This transformation creates a unique opportunity for Hospitality Schools to serve as a bridge...

Alexander Lennart Schmidt

Traditionally, Hospitality Schools focused on mastering service excellence, ensuring that future professionals understood every facet of hospitality operations and guest interaction. Over the years, curricula expanded to include business management, financial expertise, and leadership skills. However, digital transformation is not merely an operational upgrade—technology is reshaping the very nature of service, requiring a fundamental shift in how future hospitality professionals are educated.

Consequently, Hospitality Schools must evolve into institutions that facilitate technological adoption without compromising the social essence of hospitality. This requires acting as the linking pin between technology and human-centered service design, ensuring that future professionals can seamlessly integrate digital opportunities while maintaining the essence of hospitality: caring for the guest while creating a warm and welcoming atmosphere.

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HYB 2025 Sustainability Tech Edition

The upcoming edition of the Hotel Yearbook, titled "Sustainable Technology for Hospitality," offers essential insights into the transformative role of sustainable technologies within the hospitality industry. Arriving at a critical moment, a decade after the Paris Agreement, this edition emphasizes the growing urgency for intensified sustainable practices. It explores a broad range of themes, including sustainable hotel architecture, energy- saving designs, and nature-based solutions. The yearbook delves into carbon management tools for Scopes 1, 2, and 3, circular economy practices for waste minimization, water conservation techniques, sustainable supply chains, and AI-driven ESG reporting. Additionally, it covers green finance for real estate and addresses implementation challenges across diverse regions. Through a rich compilation of thought-provoking articles, case studies, and expert opinions, this publication serves as a valuable resource for industry leaders, providing the insights, strategies, and forecasts necessary to advance sustainability through innovative technologies. The HYB 2025 edition aims to guide, inspire, and challenge professionals in the hospitality sector to embrace and drive sustainable technology in their operations.

Dr. Alexander Lennart Schmidt, Professor of Technological Innovation at Hotelschool The Hague, specializes in disruptive business models and digital innovation in hospitality. Holding a PhD from VU Amsterdam, his research explores robotics, AI, and immersive tech, providing practical management tools for industry transformation.

Hotelschool The Hague, founded in 1929, is one of the oldest and most prominent independent hotel schools in the world. With campuses in The Hague and Amsterdam, the school educates more than 2,850 students to become future-facing hospitality professionals and managers in the hospitality industry. Since 2014, Hotelschool The Hague has been annually voted the best public hotel school in the Netherlands and is highly regarded globally according...