Marius Zürcher Gives Talk at Hospitality Industry Summit

Marius Zürcher, Wittenborg’s Marketing & Communications Project Manager and regular news article contributor, gave a talk about trends in the hospitality industry at the Digital Autumn Summit organised by Foodservice Consultants Society International's (FCSI) EAME division.
 
Zürcher grew up in multilingual Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany and Liechtenstein surrounded by the hustle and bustle of hotels and restaurants. To this day, he has strong ties with the hospitality industry. "My heart still beats for the hospitality industry,” he says, “so I was happy and proud to be able to share some of my thoughts - as well as things I learned while studying Hospitality and Services Management (MBA) at Wittenborg - with so many professionals. I hope my insights will help some of them find a way through what has been and continues to be a disruptive time for the hospitality and foodservice industry."
 
The topic of the talk - trends in the hospitality industry - was chosen in part because Zürcher had written an article about the same topic for Foodservice Consultant, FCIS's trade magazine, for which he writes a monthly column, and based on that, had given a talk in February, 2021. A recording of the latter can be found here. The point this time, therefore, was to both look back at the trends he predicted in the original article and the previous talk, to see how things turned out and to look ahead. The talk was accompanied by another article by Zürcher for Foodservice Consultant, which can be found here.
 
In his talk, Zürcher, who is also a Wittenborg alumni, covered a wide range of topics, ranging from automation and robotisation, the hospitality industry's role in climate change and the pandemic-driven explosion of food delivery models, to the advantages held by family-owned restaurants and the creative energy that could potentially follow this disruptive time. The talk was attended by over 60 industry professionals from a variety of countries representing companies such as Meiko and Liebherr.  

After the talk, Zürcher went in conversation with a couple of the attendees, to go into detail and exchange viewpoints. "One topic that caused a lot of discussion was the future of meat," says Zürcher. "Although all agreed that the amount of meat humanity consumes (and the hospitality industry prepares) needs to be reduced in order to combat climate change, opinions differed regarding the role meat replacement products and cultured meat will play. Whereas some think that such products are a crutch and that people should transition towards eating vegetables, others, including me, believe that these products are a crucial step in what will be a long process."

WUP 12/12/2021
by James Wittenborg
©WUAS Press