IH&RA MILLENNIAL CONGRESS PROGRAMME GEARS UP FOR THE 'AGE OF EXCELLENCE'

This year's International Hotel & Restaurant Association (IH&RA) congress convenes from 16 - 20 November at London's Hilton Metropole with the theme 'The Age of Excellence Dawns'. It offers three days of executive education, designed to help international hoteliers and restaurateurs rise to the multiple challenges of the new millennium and excel in every aspect of leadership, be it managing natural or human resources, service delivery, information technology or marketing strategy.

Programme highlights include:

A keynote presentation from Peter Yesawich of consultants Yesawich, Pepperdine and Brown on The Electronic Bazaar : How customer trends and the internet are going to drive change in your business that explores the Internet's changing role in travel planning and purchasing by consumers and the implications for hospitality providers.

Confronted by the phenomenal proliferation of online distributors, a major congress session, Who's afraid of the World Wide Web? will show how hotels can reassert control of inventory distribution, how to make the most of e-commerce and handle the growing power of the consumer.

An interactive session will allow delegates to determine Is the Net working for your business? by reviewing proven internet strategies that improve performance, quality and speed of service delivery, and facilitate recruitment and training.

Representatives of the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association (HSMAI) will spotlight web-based applications that boost customer loyalty and a panel chaired by Alyson Dombey of Partners in Marketing will discuss the merits of online purchasing. Solicitors Paisner & Co. will give advice on How to avoid getting caught in a legal web.

Industry watchers will be able to join a debate on whether the success of boutique hotels and designer restaurants is a short-lived phenomenon or a lasting trend. Concept pioneer Andy Thrasyvoulou, managing director of Myhotels, who believes that this segment is championing the cause of customers who have lost faith in "old brands lacking in integrity", will share his views on Boutique Hotels: Fad, Fashion or the Future?

Day two focuses on investment and finance starting with a Global economic overview and its implications for hospitality by consultant Bjorn Hansen of PricewaterhouseCoopers. Three strands of discussion will explore how the old economy is being challenged by the new dot.com competitors, how to communicate value to the financial markets and ways to maximise returns on capital investment.

The first of these, The Economic Life Of Investments focuses on the criteria needed to establish the life of cash flows associated with valuation, and looks at the growing importance of the 'intangibles' of the hospitality offering as a source of added value for customers and how they can be measured.

Representatives of consulting firms and academia will address the emerging role of 'Value at Risk' and say how hospitality businesses can assess the variables that create risk and the way they impact their future cash flows.

The session will also explore the importance of a low cost of capital in attracting investment and this will feed into a discussion on who has the capital to invest and who is most likely to receive it.

A final session Dot.competition in the investment arena: A survival guide for hospitality, addresses the impact of the market's frenzy over internet and technology companies on the valuation of hospitality firms, and strategies for competing for investment in this new environment. Speakers will debate how hospitality enterprises can maximise returns on capital by determining the value of investments in intangibles to boost return on investment.

Guest speaker Onno Poortier, president of the Peninsula Group, whose properties worldwide have redefined the meaning of luxury, will describe the unique 'visioning' capacity of his organisation which is one of the few to engage in truly long-range forecasting and scenario planning during a session on Visioning the future of the future.

Final highlights include a thought-provoking presentation from consultant Graham Senior, asking Is travel killing tourism? Has the explosive growth of international travel in fact created a growing number of disillusioned voyagers for whom the experience is increasingly an undesirable inconvenience?

The congress is open to IH&RA members, non members and their spouses.