London, England — February 11, 2002 — In a year marked by declining travel and attendance at industry tradeshows and conferences, Accuvia Events (“Accuvia”), the International Hotel & Restaurant Association (“IH&RA”), and FreshRM, today announced that the HOSTEC-EURHOTEC Exhibition & Conference (“HOSTEC-EURHOTEC”) exceeded all attendance expectations and hit a new record for a global Hospitality and Foodservice Industry technology event.
Co-located with Hotelympia, the leading general hospitality exhibition at Earl’s Court from February 4th to 8th, there were over 80 technology exhibitors and more than 7,000 operator attendees that specifically came to visit HOSTEC-EURHOTEC 2002. Combined with the general attendees from Hotelympia, the estimated total visitors to the HOSTEC-EURHOTEC exhibition area exceeded 10,000.
HOSTEC-EURHOTEC, a joint-venture between Accuvia, the IH&RA and FreshRM, had four main components to the event which included an exhibition, conference, networking opportunities and the IH&RA Hospitality and Foodservice Technology Summit. The Educational Conference featured 26 sessions and over 40 speakers made up of industry leaders, consultants and educators from around the world.
HOSTEC-EURHOTEC in its first year as a combined event, is the result of the merger, announced last October, of HOSTEC owned by Accuvia, and EURHOTEC owned by the IH&RA. Hostec was in its third year and EURHOTEC in its seventh. Hotelympia 2002, owned by FreshRM in its 67th year hosted over 45,000 visitors.
Alain-Philippe Feutre, the Chief Executive Officer of the IH&RA said “I am very pleased with the way HOSTEC-EURHOTEC was able to bring together the international hospitality and foodservice community interested in technology, to understand and explore this important, essential and critical component to operating, working within, and supporting the industry. It is our mission to further expand our industry leadership in the technology area and others, by providing these types of educational opportunities for our members around the world.”
Robert Grimes the Chairman of Accuvia remarked that “the attendance at this year’s event, proves that the merger between the two shows was the way to go. It also shows that the international hospitality and foodservice technology community, acknowledges the need for events of this type in their own regions of the world. No other event aimed at technology for our industries, can meet the specialized interests and needs of the Pan-European marketplace better than HOSTEC-EURHOTEC.”
“By co-locating HOSTEC-EURHOTEC with Hotelympia, we were able to create an added dimension and opportunity for the visitors to our show” stated Christopher Newton, the Joint Chairman of FreshRM. He further added, “the HOSTEC-EURHOTEC combination with Hotelympia, not only contributed to the attendance to that part of the show, but also brought new attendees to Hotelympia itself.”
The International Hotel & Restaurant Association is headquartered in Paris, France. The IH&RA represents over 750,000 establishments in more than 150 countries and provides a voice at international level for an industry which comprises more than 300,000 hotels and 8 million restaurants world-wide, employs 60 million people and contributes US$950 billion to the global economy. The IH&RA is a global network of independent and chain operators, national associations, hospitality suppliers and educational centres in the hotel and restaurant industry. The IH&RA has regional offices in Hong Kong (for Asia Pacific) and in Mexico (for Latin America). IH&RA events are held all over the world.
Accuvia Events UK, with its world headquarters in Gaithersburg, Maryland in the U.S. is a leading global technology force in event development, consulting and publishing for the hospitality, foodservice and retail industries, and also produces and manages the educational conference of FS/TEC, the U.S.-based international technology conference and exhibition for the foodservice industry, which Rob Grimes co-founded with Nation’s Restaurant News and launched in 1996. Accuvia has offices and affiliates located throughout the Americas, Europe and the Pan-Pacific regions.
FreshRM is a joint venture company formed by Reed Exhibitions UK and Montgomery Exhibitions Ltd to bring together under one management the running of all food, foodservice and hospitality events in their respective portfolios. With a 67 year history and over 1000 exhibitors, Hotelympia is the undisputed leading hospitality and foodservice event attracting 45,000 visitors from all sectors of the market. As well as technology, the event showcases suppliers from facilities management, furniture, food & drink, tableware, furnishings, premises and catering equipment industries.
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