The Young Hoteliers Summit (YHS): Industry professionals and hotel management students from all around the world meet for a unique creativity challenge

The countdown has started: The Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne and the Career Club are eagerly awaiting the arrival of 40 of the brightest minds in the hospitality industry from across the globe. The event, sponsored by Taj Hotels & Resorts () and Lausanne Hospitality Consulting (), will focus on a creativity challenge given by the Jumeirah group (), with the goal to find innovative solutions for contending against the global trend of decreased demand within the luxury hotel sector.

The two days of the Young Hoteliers Summit will be divided into three phases: idea creation, idea development and idea presentation.

For the first stage “idea creation”, industry leaders, participating students as well as members of the organizing team will be working closely together with the idea factory BrainStore (www.brainstore.com), Brainstore’s innovative process of idea generation will guide the participating students to create original solutions to fight decreasing demand in the luxury sector.

During the second phase; “idea development”, teams will generate an innovative strategy for the given problem. Mixing teams will ensure higher creativity as well as different and interesting approaches towards problem solving. It will moreover trigger an active exchange of knowledge amongst the students coming from different schools and continents. Teams will be guided through the two days by three guest speakers, three workshops held by hospitality professionals and a panel consisting of three EHL students and three industry professionals. The YHS key note speakers include Guy Crawford (CEO Jumeirah Group), David Cochrane (CEO Hospitality Industry Trust Scotland) and Michael Levie (CEO CitizenM). The three industry professionals taking part in the panel will include Guy Crawford, Michael Levie as well as Bernard Fierens (Director Private Bank Edmond de Rothschild).

The third phase “idea presentation” will be the opportunity for all groups to convince Mr. David Cochrane, Mr Guy Crawford, Mr.Coleman and Mr. Trocme of their chosen concepts. The final ceremony will take place on Friday, the 29th of January, on the campus of the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne. The “idea presentation” will be open to industry leaders, press and the general public, while being a unique opportunity to meet 40 of the most talented hospitality students in the world (please see contact details below for registration purposes and any other concerns or questions).

The YHS organizing team, together with EHL, are excited in welcoming hospitality students from around the globe, industry professionals and press on the 28th and 29th of January for this year inaugural Young Hoteliers Summit.

What is the Young Hoteliers Summit?
The Young Hotelier Summit (YHS) is a project initiated by the Career Club, a student-run organization at the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL). The event will be held on January 28th & 29th 2010 with the aim of broadening the communication between international hotel schools. YHS will feature a competition amongst teams composed of members from different participating schools competing against each other to give solutions to a creativity challenge proposed by the Jumeirah Group. In addition, an enriching program of presentations, panels and workshops will be organized around the topics raised in the creativity challenge.

Participating schools

• Hotelschool the Hague (Netherlands)
• Rosen College of Hospitality Management (USA)
• Hong Kong Polytechnic University School of Hotel and Tourism Management
• Sagesse University of Hospitality Management (Lebanon)
• Breda University of Applied Sciences (Netherlands)
• Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management (United Arab Emirates)
• Institute of Hotel Management Aurangabad (India)
• Shannon College of Hotel Management (Ireland)