14 March 2011 – Lausanne [Switzerland] – The YHS organising team at the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne is proud to announce the participation of 13 hospitality schools from across the globe and representatives from prestigious companies including The Rezidor Hotel Group, Hublot, STR Global, and Starwood Hotels & Resorts at the imminent Young Hoteliers Summit being held in Lausanne on the 21 and 22 March 2011.

This year’s summit will feature four additional schools compared to YHS 2010, including Maastricht Hotel Management School (The Netherlands), New York University (USA), and Haaga Helia University (Finland). Each will be sending student representatives to take part in the activities over the two days, including the Creativity Challenge proposed by The Rezidor Hotel Group.

The event’s agenda includes Keynote speeches on current industry topics given by Kurt Ritter, President and CEO of The Rezidor Hotel Group, Jean-Claude Biver, CEO of Hublot and Thomas Willms, Vice President and Regional Director in East and Central Europe for Starwood Hotels & Resorts. In a panel discussion composed of students and industry leaders, Brian Ferguson, Vice President of Strategy Expedia, Rose Kutzli, Director Marketing Missoni Hotels and Henrik Mansson, Senior Vice President Human Resources, Mövenpick will discuss whether or not companies are in line with generation Y expectations. The participating delegates will furthermore have the opportunity to attend two workshops led by industry experts: STR Global will host one of the workshops addressing the topic ‘Benchmarking and Market Shares – Success Indicators’ and David Sadigh from the IC Agency in Geneva will focus on the subject of ‘Why and how should luxury brands embrace social media?’ in his workshop.

It is with great honour that YHS welcomes these guest speakers, panellists and students to the summit at EHL that aims to bring current and future hospitality leaders together. The Royal Partners of YHS 2011 are Newrest, Expedia PSG, The Onyx Hospitality Group and Evian, who have contributed significantly to the realization of the YHS 2011.

In addition to the agenda above, this year’s attendees will be witnessing the launch and special announcement of a new YHS initiative that will add a different perspective and entirely new dimensions to the Young Hoteliers Summit.

Please note that the Keynote speeches and the panel are open to the public and the YHS organising team wishes to warmly welcome any external guests to what is going to be a cutting edge event for future and current leaders of the hospitality industry.

What does the Young Hoteliers Summit stand for?

The Young Hoteliers Summit (YHS) is a project initiated by the Career Club, a student-run organization at the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL). The first YHS was held on January 28th & 29th 2010 with the aim of broadening the communication between international hotel schools. YHS featured 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 was organized around the topics raised in the creativity challenge.

Participating schools YHS 2011

• Beijing Hospitality Institute (China)
• Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (Switzerland)
• Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management (Dubai)
• Glion Institute of Higher Education (Switzerland)
• Haaga-Helia University (Finland)
• Hotelschool The Hague (Netherlands)
• Maastricht Hotelschool (Netherlands)
• New York University (USA)
• NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences (Netherlands)
• Shannon College of Hotel Management (Ireland)
• The Hong Kong Polytechnic University School of Hotel and Tourism Management (Hong Kong)
• University La Sagesse (Lebanon)
• University of Guelph (Canada)

Royal Partners YHS 2011

• Newrest
• Expedia PSG
• The Onyx Hospitality Group
• Evian

Presidential Partners YHS 2011

• Fassbind Hotels
• STR Global
• Hetras
• Travelclick
• Tronix GmbH
• LVMH
• Wenger