The 2023 edition is scheduled from 13 to 17 October

 

In its 43rd edition, HostMilano is the global platform for technologies, products, formats and services for professional Hospitality and Out-Of-Home Hospitality. It is held every two years (odd years) in the Fieramilano district of Rho. It presents a complete overview of innovation in the sector, combined with vertical lunges in the individual sectors, divided into three macro-areas organized by supply chain affinity: Professional Ristorazione Professionale e Bakery – Pasta- Pizza; Caffè -Tea, Bar – Macchine Caffè – Vending – Gelato – Pastry; Tavola – Tecnologia – Arredamento.

In addition to the exhibition itinerary, Host 2023 innovation will also be the leitmotiv of the rich schedule of events. In the foreground Smart Label – Host Innovation Award, promoted by HostMilano and Fiera Milano in partnership with POLI.design and sponsored by ADI – Association for Industrial Design. The recognition aims at products and solutions that are distinctive in terms of functionality, technology, environmental sustainability, ethics or social implications in three categories: Smart Label for the specific innovative content, Innovation Smart Label for an innovation that goes beyond established trends and Green Smart Label for eco-sustainability features. The contest is for exhibiting companies. In the five previous editions, there were over 790, resulting in 256 awarded products.

 

Partnerships and events

Host 2023 will host dozens of international events and competitions, many with some of the most influential Italian and foreign trade associations. Among the main ones related to the furniture and contract sector:

• Design Talks in partnership with design, refresher seminars dedicated to architects and experts in the hospitality sector who will explore the issues of sustainable innovation declined in design, concepts and formats;
• Seminars organized by FCSI – Foodservice Consultants Society International, where we can outline the future of hospitality together through presentations, workshops and round tables;

The schedule is constantly updated, and in the months to come it will be enriched with new appointments.

Thanks to its privileged point of view and constant dialogue with industry professionals and qualified “contributors”, HostMilano can outline the evolution and trends of the hospitality sector at 360°.

Some of them include:

A new way of designing between the fluidity of spaces and Food Hospitality

The Horeca design area currently has relevant opportunities to reconfigure the reception places so that they are flexible enough to propose a dynamic offer and to sound like business logic. A trend that welcomes the birth of “leisure lounges”, usable spaces no longer closely linked to a specific task, but functional to respond to different needs, usable by both hotel and external guests. Environments become fluid, flexible, and able to offer qualified services, transforming and reconfiguring themselves throughout the day, as happens, for example, in coworking areas and in particular for the buffet service, which must always be available, according to commitments of a diverse clientele.

 

Sustainability: the future of hospitality

The relationship between design, regeneration, technology, and sustainability must consider the contexts in which the structures are or will be. The designer, therefore, pays close attention both in the renovations and the new construction interventions that must relate to the territory inspired by history, with a view to extreme protection of the peculiarities of the environment, geomorphological or pre-existing.

“Sustainability – explains Francesco Scullica, Professiore Ordinario at the Design Department of the Milan Politecnico – is a huge challenge and a great opportunity. We need to aim for this goal and privilege some aspects that contribute to the least impact according to the realization and the constraints”. It will then be possible to use eco-sustainable materials, energy supply alternative sources, and zero km on specific supplies or resorts, for example for studying an interior layout to favour the reduction of air conditioning or heating systems usage. Hence, the structure must be related to the environment, communicate well-being and harmony, and be increasingly eco-sustainable, even in the choice of furnishings.

 

“Digital” and “landscape” tourism: more value to the territory to offer the experience of a country in recovery

The enrichment of the experience also passes from the territory and the related activities, elements that become the points on which the hotelier can build storytelling to convey to his guest. A digital transition on the hospitality model helps to reorganize spaces and flows and propose on-demand services configurable as “zero km” hospitality systems, where the structure proposals are also shared locally.

There is, therefore, great attention to tourism increasingly linked to the context: integration with digital allows the user to undertake a hospitality experience that passes through that channel and leads to a deep knowledge of the surrounding area. A way of using hospitality as “landscape tourism“. The concept of “welcoming design” fits into this sense, the reading of hospitality experiences not only through the infrastructural and interior system but also through the aspects that touch the spheres of sociology, psychology, to neuroscience.

 

From technology to well-being

Technology has always been the basis of typological, spatial and service transformations in hospitality and accommodation facilities. The main innovations involve people’s experiences starting from entering a hotel and increasingly finding themselves checking in without the presence of staff. That translates into 24-hour accessibility of the facility. One of the trends, as underlined by Alberto Zanetta, manager and coordinator of five advanced training courses at POLI.design, is in fact that of proposing ever smaller and more circular reception areas for a more direct approach to the customer and giving a greater sense of welcome.

“Technology helps to personalize everything inside a hotel, from the personnel flows management to all job activities. But it is also useful for the customer who can thus take advantage of customization services: the most important thing is to plan the experience, going beyond the project itself and creating a plus for the guest to convey a general sense of well-being, or anyway how the set of various technological, architectural and furnishing elements combine to create an atmosphere of comfort”.

The goal is to convey well-being through a space designed and furnished in this way. A sensation that is no longer only linked to a concept of health, care and the world of SPAs, but involves all the senses to improve the experience lived in that specific context from an environmental and social point of view. Today technology offers the possibility of developing innovative systems and materials at affordable costs: from acoustics to perfect insulation, from excellent lighting to solar shading, which in turn also has energy implications on the economy of the accommodation facility, up to home automation.

 

HostMilano will be held at Fieramilano from 13 to 17 October 2023

Updated information here