Sustainable Hospitality Challenge 2025 Kicks Off: Students Design the Hotel Room of the Future
Amsterdam, The Netherlands – The Sustainable Hospitality Challenge (SHC), founded by Hotelschool The Hague, returns in 2025 with a dynamic new format that reflects the evolving landscape of hospitality innovation. It now features two powerful tracks centered around Impact and Inspiration. SHC continues to empower top students from around the world to redefine the future of sustainable travel and tourism.
Over the past decade, SHC has evolved from a student competition into a global platform for innovation, generating hundreds of ideas showcased at leading industry conferences and impacting thousands of industry professionals.
SHC envisions a hospitality industry where sustainability is embedded not only in products and operations, but in the very mindset of its future and current leaders. By fostering creativity, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and purpose-driven innovation, SHC is shaping a new generation that sees sustainability not as a constraint, but as the engine of progress. As it evolves into a year-round platform for ideation and incubation, SHC remains committed to challenging norms, amplifying young voices, and reimagining sustainable hospitality.
New for 2025, SHC introduces two tracks:
Impact Track – A challenge to design the Hotel Room of the Future, combining sustainability, guest experience, and financial feasibility. Students are encouraged to merge engineering, design, and technology to reimagine the future of in-room hospitality. In collaboration with Guest Supply (a Sysco company), SHC has added a dimension to this track where students will explore waste-reducing technical innovations.
– A challenge to design the Hotel Room of the Future, combining sustainability, guest experience, and financial feasibility. Students are encouraged to merge engineering, design, and technology to reimagine the future of in-room hospitality. In collaboration with Guest Supply (a Sysco company), SHC has added a dimension to this track where students will explore waste-reducing technical innovations. Inspiration Track – A stage for storytelling and social sustainability. Students, past participants, and young professionals are invited to share personal initiatives and perspectives that inspire more human-centered, inclusive hospitality practices.
Top teams from both tracks will present their ideas at two major global hospitality conferences:
WTTC Global Summit – September 2025, Rome, Italy
– September 2025, Rome, Italy FHS World – October 2025, Dubai, UAE
Partnered with the World Travel & Tourism Council and event agency The Bench, SHC again provides unparalleled opportunities for students to showcase sustainable hospitality on a global stage.
Backed by key partners such as UN Tourism, the Caribbean Tourism Organization, and the World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance, SHC 2025 offers unmatched opportunities to engage with industry leaders and investors, helping bring promising ideas closer to market.
With a record 75+ universities participating each year, SHC continues to serve as a launchpad for long-term change, driving innovation and collaboration at the forefront of sustainable hospitality.
To keep up to date with the Sustainable Hospitality Challenge, visit www.sustainablehospitalitychallenge.com/. To get more information about participation or sponsorship opportunities, please reach out to [email protected].
About Sustainable Hospitality Challenge
The Sustainable Hospitality Challenge (SHC) is the leading global student challenge that drives true sustainable impact through collaboration. SHC aims to encourage, develop, and attract investment in innovative and sustainable solutions that push boundaries and have a significant impact on the hospitality industry by creating meaningful connections and creating a memorable student experience. www.sustainablehospitalitychallenge.com/
About Hotelschool The Hague
Hotelschool The Hague is one of the oldest independent hotel schools in the world, with two campuses—one in The Hague and one in Amsterdam—with more than 2,850 students and 250 employees. The school offers a four-year Bachelor of Arts in Hospitality Management, a Fast-Track Bachelor of Arts in Hospitality Management, a Master of Business Administration in International Hospitality Management, a Master in Leading Hotel Transformation and a Professional Doctorate Programme in Leisure, Tourism & Hospitality.
Hotelschool The Hague has been voted the best public hotel school in the Netherlands since 2014 and ranks among the top hospitality management schools worldwide according to QS World University Rankings.
The school is the proud founder of the Sustainable Hospitality Challenge, an international student competition that aims to enhance the evolution of sustainable hospitality.
Graduates of Hotelschool The Hague hold management positions in the hospitality industry worldwide.
www.hotelschool.nl
Ruben Bruin
Hotelschool The Hague
View source
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hospitality Net
3 hours ago
- Hospitality Net
Rebuilding hotel tech stacks for the Agentic AI era Philip Barton
A new kind of traveller is emerging, one who may never visit your website, click an ad, or speak to a human. Instead, they rely on their personal AI agent to plan, compare, negotiate, and book every aspect of their trip. This shift marks a seismic change in how travel is discovered and transacted, demanding a fundamental rethink of hotel technology stacks. Are hoteliers ready for this new class of guests and their digital representatives? Consider how AI-driven website traffic is already having a dramatic impact: According to Ahrefs, 63% of websites receive AI traffic , with smaller sites experiencing the highest proportion. , with smaller sites experiencing the highest proportion. A survey by Adobe reveals that traffic from generative AI sources (chatbots or AI-powered search assistants) on U.S. travel websites rose 1,700% from Jul 2024 to Feb same survey shows that visitors arriving via generative AI tools show 8% higher engagement, view 12% more pages, and have a 23% lower bounce rate than non-AI traffic sources. reveals that traffic from generative AI sources (chatbots or AI-powered search assistants) on U.S. travel websites rose 1,700% from Jul 2024 to Feb same survey shows that visitors arriving via generative AI tools show 8% higher engagement, view 12% more pages, and have a 23% lower bounce rate than non-AI traffic sources. Cloudflare found that monthly traffic to generative AI services grew by 251%between February 2024 and March 2025. So, what does this all mean for the hospitality industry? Most hospitality tech stacks weren't built for AI; they were designed for humans, not machines. Legacy systems are slow, fragmented, and incapable of speaking the language of autonomous AI. To stay visible and bookable in an AI-agent-first ecosystem, hotels must rethink their infrastructure from the data layer up, embracing real-time interoperability, AI-native protocols, and machine-readable data formats. Is your data AI-ready? The rise of AI agents demands a fundamental shift in how hotels manage and present their data. Traditional website designs optimised for visual appeal and manual navigation are insufficient for engaging with AI-driven tools. Hotels must evaluate their systems against the following criteria: Structured data formats: Implement markup to make room availability, pricing, and amenities accessible to AI crawlers. Implement markup to make room availability, pricing, and amenities accessible to AI crawlers. Real-time accessibility: Ensure APIs deliver fast, accurate responses to queries from AI agents, with latency ideally under 100ms and definitely under 200ms. The 95th percentile for API response times should always be under 3 seconds. Ensure APIs deliver fast, accurate responses to queries from AI agents, with latency ideally under 100ms and definitely under 200ms. The 95th percentile for API response times should always be under 3 seconds. Interoperability: Adopt protocols like Model Context Protocol (MCP) to enable seamless interaction between hotel systems and external AI platforms. Adopt protocols like Model Context Protocol (MCP) to enable seamless interaction between hotel systems and external AI platforms. Dynamic content updates: Automate inventory and pricing updates to reflect real-time changes, ensuring AI agents always access the latest information. Hotels that fail to meet these standards risk becoming invisible to AI agents, which prioritise systems capable of delivering clean, actionable data. By preparing their data for this new user class, hoteliers can ensure they remain competitive in an increasingly automated travel ecosystem. Building the foundation: A focused, AI-ready architecture Modern hospitality stacks begin with unified data ecosystems that aggregate guest profiles, operational metrics, and market signals into cloud-based repositories. This eliminates silos between PMS, CRM, and revenue management systems, creating a single source of truth. Unifying data overlaid with semantic meaning is the prerequisite for AI innovation, enabling real-time analysis of guest preferences, occupancy trends, and competitive pricing. With clean data pipelines, hotels can deploy AI co-pilots that: Adjust room rates dynamically using market demand signals Predict guest preferences (room, meal selection, room settings, etc) Handle customer inquiries through conversational AI Optimise housekeeping routes and inventory orders. These systems learn continuously, improving efficiency and personalisation over time. Agentic integration: MCP and the rise of the A2A Economy The emergence of AI agents opens a new paradigm for hotels: active participation in the agentic economy. Hotels can no longer passively rely on traditional distribution channels. To thrive, they must embrace strategies that enable seamless interaction with AI agents, creating new avenues for booking, personalisation, and revenue generation. This starts with understanding and implementing key protocols such as the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which paves the way for the Agent-to-Agent (A2A) economy. MCP is a new and evolving protocol that transforms hotels into active participants in the A2A economy. It standardises how AI agents interface with hotel systems, expanding the capabilities of individual agents by enabling them to connect and interact with other specialised agents, leading to richer and more versatile functionalities. This benefits hotels as it allows their systems to: Offer more comprehensive travel solutions : By connecting with external AI agents, hotels can offer bundled packages that include flights, transportation, and local experiences, all coordinated seamlessly. : By connecting with external AI agents, hotels can offer bundled packages that include flights, transportation, and local experiences, all coordinated seamlessly. Reach a wider audience : Integration with diverse AI travel platforms expands the hotel's reach beyond traditional channels, tapping into new customer segments. : Integration with diverse AI travel platforms expands the hotel's reach beyond traditional channels, tapping into new customer segments. Improve efficiency and reduce costs: Automating interactions with AI agents minimises the need for human intervention in routine tasks, freeing up staff to focus on higher-value activities. MCP is a rapidly evolving landscape that can potentially eliminate fragile API integrations, allowing properties to connect with numerous services through a single MCP gateway. Imagine a guest's travel agent AI seamlessly booking rooms, spa services, and dinner reservations by interfacing directly with your hotel's agent. Optimising the agent experience 8Traditionally, websites have focused on the user experience (UX). However, the rise of AI demands a focus on the agent experience (AX) that must consider a different set of technical priorities: AI-accessible inventory: Expose rooms, amenities, and add-ons through GraphQL APIs and enable multi-property package bookings in a single transaction. Expose rooms, amenities, and add-ons through GraphQL APIs and enable multi-property package bookings in a single transaction. Machine-readable content: Replace visual call to actions (CTAs) with annotations, reconsider SEO in the context of how LLMs view your brand visibility, and implement tags for preferential crawling. Replace visual call to actions (CTAs) with annotations, reconsider SEO in the context of how LLMs view your brand visibility, and implement tags for preferential crawling. Agent Experience (AX) design: Develop parallel website versions optimized for API interactions. Semantic consistency and support for multiple data sources, including social and query graphs, are all key. Develop parallel website versions optimized for API interactions. Semantic consistency and support for multiple data sources, including social and query graphs, are all key. Dynamic commission structures: Create lower AI-specific affiliate tiers and offer bulk booking discounts for high-intent agent queries. Transitioning from legacy systems to seize the AI opportunity The transition to an agent-mediated hospitality landscape is not a distant possibility but an accelerating reality. Hotels that delay implementing MCP capabilities and an agent-friendly infrastructure risk significant market share erosion within 12-18 months as AI travel planning becomes mainstream. Forward-thinking properties are already capturing early-adopter advantages through strategic partnerships with emerging AI travel platforms. The challenge now is how quickly hoteliers can transform their digital infrastructure to become preferred partners in the A2A economy, where AI agents will increasingly mediate guest relationships. The journey to an AI-first architecture means hotels must adopt a modern technology stack by: Phasing out on-premise systems with cloud-native platforms offering open API access. Adopting composable data and platform architecture using microservices for easy MCP integration. Considering website SEO and agentic presentation pathways. Retraining staff on AI-assisted workflows, reducing manual data entry. Revamped stacks for the Agentic AI era will drive operational efficiency and real-time channel optimisation by automatically redistributing inventory across the most profitable channels and guest profiles. First-mover hoteliers will help shape the new distribution paradigm and have greater control over their digital destiny in the age of AI.
Hospitality Net
7 hours ago
- Hospitality Net
Airbnb calls on EU cities to tackle the ‘overwhelming impact' of hotels on overtourism
Key Takeaways New report shows hotels account for almost 80% of guest nights in the EU Fewer homes, more hotels, some city districts now have three hotel rooms for every five residents, housing construction nears a decade low Hotel guests flock to the same hotspots, majority of Airbnb guest nights are outside of cities More guests and soaring hotel prices, overtourism is getting worse where Airbnb is restricted Airbnb has today called on city leaders to tackle the overwhelming impact of hotels on driving overtourism in the ten most visited cities in the European Union (EU). The call comes as a new Airbnb report released today highlights how overtourism in the EU is driven by hotels, which accounted for almost 80 percent of guest nights across the bloc in 2023 and 2024. It also shows that between 2021 and 2023, guest nights in the EU's ten most visited cities increased by over 200 million – or 2.5x – with hotels accounting for 75 percent of this growth. If cities are serious about easing overtourism, they must address the overwhelming impact of hotels. Europe needs more homes – not hotels – yet cities are building more hotels as the construction of housing in the region nears a decade low. Theo Yedinsky, Airbnb's Vice President of Public Policy The new report 'Overtourism in the EU' is based on official data from Eurostat and the World Tourism Organisation, as well as industry and Airbnb data. It shows that: Overtourism is overwhelmingly driven by hotels. In 2024, a record-breaking 3 billion tourist nights were spent in hotels and other similar accommodations in EU destinations. Hotels and other similar accommodations accounted for almost 80% of guest nights in the EU. As EU tourism recovered from Covid, total guest nights in the EU's 10 most popular cities grew by over 200 million – or 2.5x – between 2021 and 2023 alone. Hotels and other similar accommodations accounted for more than 75% of the increase. Across these EU cities in 2023, hotels accounted for five times more guest nights than Airbnb. Cities need more homes – not hotels. Hotel accommodation is overwhelmingly located in city centers. Central Amsterdam has 15x more hotel rooms or similar accommodations than Airbnb listings. There are approximately seven hotel beds for each short-term rental bed in Barcelona's Old Town. Close to 40,000 hotel rooms were opened in Europe in 2024 alone. At the end of 2024, nearly 250,000 hotel rooms were either under construction or in the planning phases across Europe. In some EU city districts – like Praha 1 in Prague and Santo Antonio in Lisbon – there are now approximately three hotel rooms per five local residents. In Spain alone, authorities have approved 800+ new hotel projects, adding 75,000 new hotel rooms across the country by 2026. Airbnb offers a different way to travel that spreads guests and benefits to more communities. Guests use Airbnb to escape tourist traps and discover new destinations, visiting a record-breaking 110,000 destinations worldwide in 2024. While hotel guests flock to the same cities year after year, the majority of guest nights stayed on Airbnb in the EU – almost 60% – were outside of cities. Annual Airbnb guest nights in the EU in 2024 grew faster in locations outside of cities compared to inside cities. In total across the top 10 most visited EU cities in 2024, over 260,000 Airbnb guests stayed in a neighbourhood without a hotel. Airbnb stays in neighbourhoods without hotels grew by roughly 60% between 2022 and 2024, signalling increasing interest from Airbnb guests in locations outside of overcrowded city centres. Half of Airbnb guests in the EU say they would not have visited the neighbourhood in which they stayed had it not been for a listing on Airbnb being located there. Overtourism is getting worse where Airbnb is restricted. Following the introduction of restrictions on short-term rentals in Amsterdam and Barcelona in 2018, guest nights continue to rise. By 2024 they had increased by 2.4 million in Amsterdam and 4.8 million in Barcelona. In the post-covid recovery period from 2021-2024, hotels accounted for 93% of the increase in guest nights in Amsterdam and 76% in Barcelona. With fewer accommodation options, hotel occupancy and prices have soared, with prices rising by 50% in Amsterdam and 35% in Barcelona between 2019 and spring 2025. Because hotels are concentrated in city centers, they exacerbate tourism overcrowding and deliver fewer tourism proceeds to families in the communities where locals actually live. In addition to providing an alternative to hotel-driven mass tourism, Airbnb helps families afford their homes and supports local communities. When guests stay in hotels, they spend money in hotels. For every dollar guests spend on Airbnb in the EU, they spend an average of $2.50 in the local community. Across France, Germany, Italy and Spain, travel on Airbnb contributed a total of $44.6 billion to GDP and supported a total of 627,000 jobs in 2024 alone. Almost half of hosts globally say the income they earn from hosting helps them afford their homes1. When guests stay in Airbnbs they discover new communities, help families afford their homes and support local businesses , said Theo Yedinsky. Where Airbnb is restricted, visitor numbers continue to rise, more guests stay in city centre hotels, and travel becomes more expensive – with fewer proceeds going to local families. We encourage leaders to look beyond hotels and embrace tourism that supports families and communities. The learn more, you can read the full report. 1. Based on Airbnb internal data. About Airbnb Airbnb was born in 2007 when two hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home, and has since grown to over 5 million hosts who have welcomed over 2 billion guest arrivals in almost every country across the globe. Every day, hosts offer unique stays and experiences that make it possible for guests to connect with communities in a more authentic way. About is a nonprofit organization dedicated to facilitating temporary stays for people in times of crisis around the world. operates independently and leverages Airbnb, Inc.'s technology, services, and other resources at no charge to carry out charitable purpose. The inspiration for began in 2012 with a single host named Shell who opened up her home to people impacted by Hurricane Sandy. This sparked a movement and marked the beginning of a program that allows hosts on Airbnb to provide stays for people in times of need. Since then, the program has evolved to focus on emergency response and to help provide stays to evacuees, relief workers, refugees, asylum seekers, and frontline workers fighting the spread of COVID-19. Since then, hosts have offered to open up their homes and helped provide accommodations to 100,000 people in times of need. is a separate and independent entity from Airbnb, Inc. Airbnb, Inc. does not charge service fees for supported stays on its platform. View source
Hospitality Net
7 hours ago
- Hospitality Net
Edouard Lapasset has been appointed General Manager at Mandarin Oriental, Paris
Mandarin Oriental is pleased to announce the appointment of Edouard Lapasset as General Manager of Mandarin Oriental, Paris, effective June 1, 2025. He continues his career at the prestigious rue Saint-Honoré property, where he has served as Hotel Manager since 2022. With nearly 20 years of experience in luxury hospitality, including 11 years within Mandarin Oriental, Edouard brings extensive expertise in hotel management and a deep understanding of the luxury hospitality sector. Driven by curiosity for all aspects of the hotel industry, Edouard gained experience in various departments (Purchasing, Food & Beverage, Guest Services, Housekeeping, Project Management) before joining Mandarin Oriental as Assistant Front Office Manager at Mandarin Oriental, Geneva. He then rose through the ranks to become Director of Rooms, before taking on the same role at Mandarin Oriental, Doha in 2020. In 2022, he joined Mandarin Oriental, Paris as Hotel Manager, where he has since contributed to strengthening the hotel's position as a benchmark for French luxury hospitality. Born in Paris and a proud ambassador of French savoir-faire both in France and abroad, Edouard discovered his passion for hospitality early on through extensive travel, which sparked his love for service and, above all, for human connection. He places great importance on both guest and employee experience and is committed to embodying excellence in every role he undertakes. A competitive athlete, particularly in fencing, he draws on values such as performance, self-improvement, leadership, and the importance of family, discipline, teamwork, and perseverance. Principles that he applies in both his personal and professional life.
