Author

Simon Martin

Head of Development Hospitality-Catering at IECD

Simon has spent more than 15 years in the hospitality industry and specifically working on sustainability, environmental concerns and social entrepreneurship. After working in Thailand, France, Canada and China for prestigious hospitality brands such as Groupe Alain Ducasse, InterContinental or Shangri-La, in 2013, he joined the European Institute for Cooperation and Development (IECD) a not-for-profit organization leading education and training programs for disadvantaged communities. Simon took a variety of roles including hospitality school Director, Country Representative for Myanmar and South East Asia Program Manager. As Head of Development of the Hospitality Program, Simon currently oversees the strategy and the development of new projects in Asia, Middle-East, Africa, from IECD’s head office, in Paris. Simon holds a Master Degree in International Hotel Management from La Rochelle University and earned, with honors, a Master Degree in International Tourism Development from University of Paris, Panthéon-Sorbonne.

The (Green) Recovery Imperative: Hospitality Re-Set Or Bouncing Forward?

Hospitality will be bouncing forward. In the last months, we heard and watch through countless webinars what will be the strategy and what could be the best move. Despite the several initiatives to put environmental concerns at the front, the curve is still at its early stages.

COVID-19: A stress test for sustainable development in hospitality?

Certainly, the Covid-19's crisis is larger than previous ones and became global rapidly. But at the hotel and tourism level, nationally or regionally, other crises of a similar type (SARS) or with comparable impacts economically (military coup in Thailand in 2014) were observed in the not too distant past.

Hotel Sustainability: Top 3 Technologies to Implement in 2020

The “behavioral change” school of thought is certainly the most important, yet, technology can accompany the process and certainly create awareness and help manage the change.Out of the numerous available, the primary technology to be implemented is certainly one allowing hoteliers to be “in the know”: data collection is key to understand the business and the way it evolves.