There is still great room for ambition and innovation within the hospitality space, said speakers at ITB Berlin 2025.
Taking to the stage early in the morning for the session ‘A New Age for Hospitality’ was Rogier Braakman, CEO and cofounder of Mr Green Boutique Office; Matthijs Welle, CEO of Mews; and Trix van der Vleuten, CMO of The Social Hub. The trio was taking part in a panel discussion hosted by Dr Jan Huizing, research fellow at the Hotelschool in the Hague.
Both Braakman and Welle spoke about the ‘dead space’ that forms in hotel lobbies and whether this could best be repurposed to provide more income for a property.
Welle said: “I came up through the hotel industry. I’ve stood at desks and I’ve stood at receptions, and I’ve felt the pain of bad technology. That’s brought me to where I am today.”
Welle went on to say that while the industry has adopted some new technologies and principles such as adjusting room rates around occupancy rates, pushing prices higher when the venue was busy, it had yet to look at whether this principle could be applied elsewhere. One example he gave was that of parking, where the hotel could charge more as room occupancy went up.
Welle said: “Why are we not doing this? If room rates can be dynamically priced, then why can’t parking? That’s the kind of stuff that pushes me to do and develop something.”
He also pointed to hotel lobbies, which he posited were often just a place for a reception desk and nothing else.
He said: “The lobby is prime real estate, and we use it to queue people for a reception desk. That’s a waste. We could do something like coworking or even a tattoo parlour if you’re a hostel! We can get people down there to spend money. I wish we could take people there and get them to do something!”
Innovation meant risk, agreed the panel. Braakman went further, saying that there was no shame in not having something work out.
He said: “My advice is to fail fast. I’ve made many errors in my career, more of them than successes. You just pick yourself up and try again. When people are younger, they often have a fear of losing that outweighs their will to win. They just need to find a way to overcome this and just go for it. You’re going to bump your head on a wall, but you carry on!”
