The third global Spark Innovation Sphere Summit, organised by Le Roches Global Hospitality Education in their Crans Montana campus in Switzerland, has called for fostering the culture of innovation among hospitality students so that they can select the right innovative technology that add value to their business as well as their customers.

Launched in 2020, Spark Is a hospitality innovation platform formed to instil the culture of innovation in the future industry leaders and empower them to develop innovative solutions through collaboration and co-creation.

In his opening remarks, Diez de la Lastra, CEO of Le Roches said that the global pandemic has made the business and industry realise that the future is not going to be “fixed” but changing all the time and therefore it is the duty and responsibility of the educational institutions to prepare future professionals who are ready to work in an ever-changing business environment.

“Global pandemic has made the industry realise that innovation is an important aspect of business,” he said.

While there are numerous companies with core expertise in developing new technologies, Lastra said that the stakeholders in the educational sector only need to train and prepare the future professionals to “select the best technology” that will add value for their personal and professional life.

He said that, at Le Roches, they expose students to real-life situations, encourage them to touch and participate in innovations with partner tech companies to become real protagonists of technology and equip them to select the best technology that will add value to their customers and at the same time to their businesses.

He said that the objective of the Spark platform is to lead the industry on the path of innovation and become the real partner of the industry in that direction.

Susana Garrido, director of Spark Marbella campus, said that while hospitality industry professionals are not real experts of technology, they should at least have a sense of what is happening around in relation to technology and what value those innovations deliver to their businesses. She said that while the new age traveller gives a lot of importance to in-room technology, free flow of information on mobile devices, mobile ordering, etc., they give equal importance to cleanliness, safety and security, quality service, personalised experiences, etc.

She recommended an “open innovation” approach which is more collaborative and co-creative to make it more inclusive. She said that the industry has to learn to “attract and retain” talent to make the open innovation approach to succeed. It is important for the industry to foster a culture of innovation, she stated.

Pablo Garcia, director of Spark at Le Roches Crans Montana campus, said that a new innovation need not be associated with adoption of a new technology in all cases. It can also be achieved through training, empowerment and knowledge sharing as well. He said that customer experiences are paramount in the hospitality business. Hotels can lose customers not for the price but for not meeting their expectations in terms of experiences, he said. He said that in a new normal where customers are looking for hyper personalisation, the solution is to use the right innovative technology rather than recruiting a large number of employees.

Garcia said that they have organised hundreds of activities, partnered with 80 different companies, participated in 100 different corporate projects, numerous testing and innovations as part of the Spark project in the last two years.

The day-long conference was attended by technology partners, industry experts and alumni of the Glion Institute of Higher education and Les Roches.