196+ forum Munich: Five start-ups shortlisted as finalists for the “Hospitality UPGRADE Award 2023” competition
Munich, 21 September 2023 – 196+ forum Munich will be presenting this year’s “Hospitality UPGRADE Award” for innovative start-ups, once more in cooperation with Hospitality Pioneers and GNERATOR powered by GIRA.
An advisory board made up of nine people, chaired by Christian Fiedler, founder of Hospitality Pioneers, had an engaged discussion at the beginning of September regarding all the applications, and reached a selection from a large number of business ideas in the categories business management, guest experience, real estate and mobility. The advisory board has selected the following finalists (in alphabetical order) from 31 applications, and they will be appearing on 6 October at the 196+ forum Munich at the Bayerischer Hof for the sixth “Hospitality UPGRADE Award” competition:
Avanera is a software platform for holistic sustainability management in the hotel industry. Cost efficiency is combined with sustainability. Sustainability is made accessible, plannable and measurable by using AI-assisted potential analyses, advance simulations of the cost-benefit analysis, and matching algorithms for the best action to take. Sustainability as a service
Korbsauna® is a combination bringing together a traditional beach basket seat (Strandkorb) with a sauna. This mobile innovation does not require planning permission, so that it can be installed anywhere. It is the first item of lounge furniture offering a maximum of Finnish sauna enjoyment at the same time as minimising energy costs, as it gets by with a 230 Volt connection. It uses two-thirds less energy than a traditional outside sauna.
Remberg offers a one-stop CRM software solution helping companies to manage equipment on the go. Remberg digitalises all the adjacent processes in the areas service, maintenance and repair, so that buildings and their equipment can be managed using a single solution.
Slooom is a design-orientated, modular sleep concept which transforms empty spaces into lively places of hospitality, whilst using wood as a sustainable building material. The advantages lie in re-using instead of making new constructions, a healthy indoor environment, shorter completion times, as well as more design freedom and greater versatility.
Xingular offers a green button allowing guests to press a button and cancel room cleaning for the next day. This information is digitally communicated to the housekeeping department via integration into existing systems requiring no alterations to be made to the building. The advantages are savings in housekeeping costs, automatic evaluations, incentivising and upselling, as well as a green image.
The members of this year’s advisory board were:
- Stefan Catic, Managing Consultant, Head of Operator Search at the PKF hospitality group
- Madlen Dietrich, Head of Department for Digitalisation and Start-up Management at the Berlin-Brandenburg Business Association
- Markus Fromm-Wittenberg, Start-up Ambassador at Gira
- Harro Grimmer, Managing Director of ProjektPuls
- Olga Heuser, Founder and Managing Director of Dialogshift
- Fabian König, Investment Manager at PropTech1 Ventures
- Andreas Martin, Managing Director of hotelforum
- Erich Nagl, Member of the Board of ETL Unternehmensberatung AG and ETL ADHOGA
- Zeèv Rosenberg, President of HSMA Deutschland, Head of Business Development at the AMANO Group
This is what some of the members of the advisory board had to say about the finalists:
Olga Heuser: “We have selected five great start-ups from among impressive applicants which influence a wide variety of areas along the entire value chain of the hotel industry with their ground-breaking ideas and products.”
Erich Nagl: “The Hospitality UPGRADE Award has shown itself to be a place where innovative technology start-ups help to shape the future of hospitality. The spectrum was very wide. Along with complex systems, it is sometimes the simple things which are convincing.”
Start-ups were invited to apply that were founded within the past ten years, have a scalable business model, and are active on the market with innovation and growth orientation.
More information about 196+ forum Munich:
196+ forum Munich is the European Hotel Development Conference, which has been a regular annual feature accommodating networking and exchanges between experts when it comes to hotel properties since 2002. As a specialist conference, 196+ forum Munich offers a highly-qualified communication platform, with a varied stage programme and various networking formats for the hotel properties industry, as well as an established start-up pitch for the “Hospitality Upgrade Award” competition. It will culminate in the presentation of the “Hotel Property Award”. 2023’s 196+ forum Munich will be held on 6 and 7 October. We are back at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich, and you can find us at KaSpaces on the second day.
Media contact:
Martina Rozok
T +49 30 40044681
M +49 170 2355988
martina.rozok@196plus.com
www.196plus.com