The chosen venue for this edition was MEEU (Madrid Exhibitions and Urban Events), a unique space with a high, vaulted ceiling located on the first floor of Chamartín train station. Upon entering the space, visitors could find stands where participating brands and new products were displayed in the showroom, such as cladding, lighting, textile goods, outdoor products, bathrooms, flooring and automation, everything that you could possibly need for a contract-hospitality project.
50 exhibiting brands specialised in products for hotel interior design participated at InteriHotel Madrid, as well as 25 speakers who delivered talks across 8 conference sessions on topics currently affecting the sector, arousing lots of public interest: on Wednesday morning, a discussion panel featuring Iñigo Cumella, senior hotel broker at Christie&Co, Fernando Martínez from the Petit Palace hotel chain and Victor Medina from Lemobba Architects&Designers presented their 360-degree vision on hotel repositioning in Spain by renovating unique buildings and transforming them into luxury hotels.
Following this, the influential international designer and CEO of Gronda Studio, Diego Gronda, spoke on the importance of interior design projects as a strategic tool for connecting with the target group, illustrating his talk with case studies such as the VP Plaza España Design hotel and the restaurant Tatel Miami. Next, Lara Elbaz, Lighting Designer for the professional association of lighting designers, and Loli Moroño, CEO of Proxectos PF1, participated in a discussion panel.
At lunchtime on both Wednesday and Thursday, InteriHotel provided attendees with food in an atmosphere that encouraged networking and creating contacts with other participants.
On Wednesday afternoon, Beatriz Rubio, the director of accessibility and coordination of equality for Ilunion Hotels, gave a talk on good accessibility practices in hotels. Later, Enrique Rovira-Beleta, the director of the architect’s studio and consulting firm Rovira-Beleta Accesibilidad, took the floor to speak about architecture for the senses and the big challenge that hotels are faced with in improving their accessibility. The session came to an end with a debate panel featuring María García del Real, interior designer for IHP International Hotel Projects.
The first day of conferences concluded with a talk by Francesc Rifé, interior designer, designer and founder of Francesc Rifé Studio, who spoke on how to convert a hotel into a Deluxe 4-or-5-star hotel through an interior design project. The session ended with a debate panel with Gelo Álvarez, designer and co-founder of the oopen studio, and Miguel Ramírez, director of operations for Barceló Hotel Group.
On Thursday, the conference session was led by Christina Rebolo, architect and founder of the studio Veintiochoymedio, who addressed microsegmentation for hotels and how to design interiors using customer positioning and orientation strategies through marketing and interior design. Next was a debate panel joining the CEO of Sleep’n Atocha, Gonzalo de la Mata, and the director of Madrid in Love, Juan Luis Medina.
Following this, Miguel Salom, the manager of The Hotel Factory, spoke on repositioning as a strategy for generating return on equity for investors and hotel companies, providing us with a global vision of an environment as complex as the one in which the tourist industry is currently operating. After his talk a debate panel took place in which Mar Vera, interior designer and CEO of Enves Diseño and Welcome Design, and Mariano Martín, architect at Estudio Martín participated.
In the afternoon, José Manuel Fernández, architect and partner of the interior design studio Cuarto Interior presented a case study on the integral design of Hotel Room Mate Gorka in San Sebastián. The session came to a conclusion with a debate panel made up of Cutu Mazuelos, co-founder of Stone Designs and Ramón Fernández, director of the technical department of Room Mate Hotels.
The final talk of the event was given by Eva Longoria, Studio Leader and Interior Designer of the Rockwell Group office in Madrid, who presented another case study, this time on the Gran Hotel Inglés in Madrid, focusing on how to include the location in design narratives. Closing this edition’s conference programme was a debate panel featuring Ignacio Jiménez, the CEO and founder of Hidden Away Hotels and Pedro Bernal, founding partner of DBD consultancy.
With the event in full swing and with industry brands and advisors in attendance, CENFIM took advantage of the opportunity to present the SENTINEL project, co-financed by the European Commission, which will be a platform to analyse emerging contract-hospitality markets and help companies within the sector to internationalise and expand into these markets.
The opening ceremony took place on Wednesday when the conferences had finished, and was attended by official authorities and professional representatives such as Mrs. Marta Blanco, director general of Tourism for the Community of Madrid, Mr. Carlos Lahoz, vice-dean of the Official College of Architects of Madrid (COAM), Mr. Gregorio Pozo, secretary general of the Official College of Decorators and Interior Designers of Madrid (CODDIM) and Mrs. Soledad Hernández, president of the Association of Designers of Madrid (DIMAD). These professionals introduced themselves to the convention and made some very positive remarks about the event and about the contribution that hotel interior design professionals make in Spain.
Various renowned institutions also collaborated on this first edition in Madrid, such as the Official College of Decorators and Interior Designers of Madrid (CODDIM), the Association of Designers of Madrid (DIMAD) and the Official College of Architects of Madrid (COAM).
InteriHotel is an event organised by Cenfim and Amic and is supported by the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, ACCIO (the department for industry and competitiveness of the Catalan government) and Bond. It serves as a space for generating real contacts and business opportunities for hotel refurbishment and reconstruction projects, through networking with other brands, studios and hotel companies - the different activities form high-value content for the professionals and a key element for the event.
The next edition of InteriHotel will take place from the 24th to the 26th of October 2018 at the Centro de Convenciones Internacional de Barcelona (CCIB). It is one of the leading events in southern Europe for hotel interior design and it is the most important in Spain in this sector. In the Barcelona 2018 edition, 180 brands specialising in contract-hospitality will participate and it is predicted that 5,000 professionals, from hospitality companies, architects, interior designers, decorators and project management companies, will attend in search of suppliers for hotel refurbishment and/or construction projects (some 1,200 projects were picked up at last year’s edition). At InteriHotel Barcelona 2018, as well as presenting all of the latest trends in hotel interior design, an important summit will also take place, with 45 speakers from across the world participating in 14 conference sessions on important topics within the sector.
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InteriHotel Madrid
