2018 German Chapter Symposium and Regional Meeting in Hamburg

The feedback we received for our 2018 German Chapter Symposium and Regional Meeting was very positive and all who were involved in the planning are so thankful that the intense work payed off. The event was held October 26 through 28.

We started with our Educational Symposium on Friday like the years before. Thanks to our sponsors Suitepad, hotelkit, Protel and dailypoint who contributed a big stake which allowed us to offer such a nice program. Our appreciation also goes to Carl Artmann, the new GM of the Sofitel Hamburg, for being such a wonderful host.

The symposium was started with our traditional fireplace talk with a famous industry leader. This year we had RJ Friedlander on stage, the founder and CEO of ReviewPro, one of the leading review management systems. He explained his personal success story from his childhood in California to the selling of his company to Shiji. The talk was followed by presentations about hotel design trends, GDPR and its positive aspects on competitiveness and finally about knowledge management.

The day concluded with a get-together at the Tortue, one of the new hot-spots in Hamburg which was kindly recommended to us by Tobias Brown. About 40 Cornellians and external guests of the symposium networked hard und finalized the day at the bar – like in the good old days! ?

The next day was for chapter members and started with our chapter meeting at the Steigenberger. Thanks to all who attended for the constructive meeting, as well as for the feedback and ideas. Afterwards we had a very nice time with a very special sight-seeing tour to the Elbphilharmonie, the harbour, as well through St. Pauli.

We finalized the weekend with another highlight – the gala dinner at The Fontenay. Besides a wonderful dinner in an elegant and vibrating atmosphere, we repeated the auction we initiated last year to raise money for the Deiv Salutskij EMEA Scholarship Fund, which will additionally include a scholarship for one PDP course for a German candidate funded by our Chapter in Rudy Münster’s name. Prices were for instance a weekend at the Sofitel in Hamburg, a weekend at the Le Meridian Hamburg, stays at the 25 hours, etc. After dinner and closing the roof-top bar at The Fontenay, some still had enough power to move on to the next bar!

I believe, that we all had a great weekend and everyone who joined us will try to attend in the future.