Mr. Simon Allison, Chairman and CEO Hoftel Asia Ltd., organizer of SEAHIS 2023, the owner-driven event focused on hotel real estate investors, developers and franchisees, spoke to me before the start of the conference said: “The industry is bouncing back from Covid. Globally, the Middle East never really went down and it’s breaking records, Europe bounced back a bit but is now fading away this year with the Ukraine war. Asia it’s coming back, however, with the Chinese outbound as we all know it’s slow and so it hasn’t bounced back as quickly but it’s gradually recovered.”
In his opening remarks Mr Allison said: “SEAHIS is growing every year. With a record 328 delegates (38 more attendees than last year) we have good support from the industry with a record number of sponsors ranging from owners to operators, lawyers and consultants. A very broad spectrum and we have managed to achieve a truly regional event once more.”
“We grow gradually but we try and keep the quality, 45% of attendees are from companies with heavy hospitality real estate and 38% of attendees are company owners and CEOs, so it’s a high-quality conference that’s also affordable. We felt conferences were getting too expensive so we put the price up a little but we do try and stay about 30% cheaper than the other big conferences and we think that’s fair to the people who attend.“
Speaking to me at the conference, Mr. Jean- Philippe Beghin Managing Partner of All the Angles Hospitality agreed with Allison on pricing saying,
“SEAHIS is very well established, it attracts all the key players and I have to say compared to similar conferences in Southeast Asia, it’s good value with great contacts.”
Delegates commented that they were looking forward to continuing the conversations. At the opening the mood is definitely upbeat and the discussions wide-ranging with 106 speakers over the next two days looks promising. The tourism industry will face in the coming months – labor shortages, the increasing role of technology, challenges of refurbishing older hotels, the benefits and costs of big brands’ global programs, new sources of financing, plus the need for increasing diversity and gender equality and the challenges of adopting sustainable practices that make a real difference.
Commenting on sustainability, Mr. Sean Too of Sentinel Solutions Thailand said, “The industry at the moment, is still very much focusing on the front end of hospitality operations,” but he thinks properties have to reduce waste and manage this effectively as climate change is imminent.
“We need to seriously look into carbon reduction and implementing sustainability initiatives rather than just some green washing CSR program that hardly has any impact on improving the environmental pollution issue,” he added.
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Read more: SEAHIS 2023 Beats Last Year’s Record Attendance
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