Track: The Shift

The hospitality sector is experiencing a hybridization shift, where traditional restaurants, retail, automation, and vending coexist. This session focuses on understanding this new landscape and its real implications for business.

WHEN HORECA, RETAIL AND AUTOMATION COME TOGETHER

The borders have fallen.

In this Focus Session, you will discover how restaurants, retail, and new hybrid formats are creating real growth opportunities.

Cases, partnerships, and models that work.

A session to open your mind, identify new channels, and understand how to play on multiple boards without losing identity.

INDUSTRY LEADER: Pablo de la Rica

How retail and hospitality are redefining the stomach share to capture new consumption occasions, breaking the traditional boundaries between purchase and experience. We will analyze how new habits, format hybridization, and technology integration are creating unprecedented moments of consumption.

The boundaries between HORECA and Retail are blurring, giving way to new strategic alliances that open opportunities for growth, visibility, and diversification. In this roundtable, we explore how restaurateurs and retail operators are learning to work together: how these collaborations are built, how they are negotiated, which models work best, and the challenges they pose in terms of brand, operations, and control. A key conversation to understand how these alliances are redefining customer access and expanding the playing field for both sectors.

THE FACTORS REDRAWING GLOBAL HORECA

In this Focus Session, The Shift opens the discussion to understand which economic, political, and social forces are reshaping tourism, hospitality, and consumption.

You will gain the insight to anticipate trends, read the context, and make smarter decisions in an uncertain environment.

A session designed to move from reacting to playing with an advantage.

INDUSTRY LEADER: Inma de Benito

In this talk, we explore how an iconic product can become the foundation of a solid and scalable multichannel business model. From retail to foodservice and major transit hubs such as airports, the conversation reveals how opportunities are identified, formats are adapted, and multiple channels are managed without losing brand coherence. A talk to understand how to think about distribution, business models, and expansion when the product is the starting point, but vision is what makes the difference.

Inflation, product costs, and labor costs now form the Holy Trinity that determines the survival of restaurants and hotels. In this roundtable, we approach, from an economic and strategic perspective, how these three factors are reshaping margins, forcing changes in operating models, and requiring uncomfortable but necessary decisions. A conversation to understand what is really happening, which impacts are coming from outside the sector, and which levers remain in the hands of business owners to protect their company, their team, and their medium-term viability.

We are experiencing an economic and global shift that directly impacts margins, costs, and daily business decisions in the HORECA sector. This session provides context, criteria, and clarity to understand what is changing and why.

As a synthesis, the key elements of the new hybrid environment are outlined, identifying risks and opportunities, and drawing practical conclusions to adapt business models, diversify revenue streams, and compete more effectively in a transforming market.

The shift in the relationship with suppliers is key: purchasing priorities, customer demands, and decision-making processes are changing. This session provides context for this new logic in supply.

THE NEW STRATEGIC POWER OF SMART PURCHASING

Purchasing is no longer operational, it is pure strategy.

You will learn how to optimize costs without sacrificing quality, negotiate better, standardize processes, and build resilience.

A Focus Session to understand how supply decisions directly impact margin, brand, and competitiveness, especially in independent restaurants.

INDUSTRY LEADER: TBC

Procurement is no longer just an operational function, but a strategic decision. This roundtable analyzes how restaurateurs build an intelligent purchasing mix by combining purchasing groups, distributors, strategic suppliers, and local products. A hybrid model that makes it possible to maximize competitiveness in price and terms, gain efficiency, and at the same time preserve value-driven relationships with key suppliers while generating differentiation through local sourcing aligned with brand identity, storytelling, and positioning.

The role of the Purchasing Director has evolved from a tactical position to a key strategic role within the HORECA ecosystem. Driven by technology, this profile now leads decisions that directly impact competitiveness, brand positioning, and business profitability. In this talk, we explore how their priorities have changed, their relationship with suppliers, and their ability to generate smart savings, strategic vision, and sustainable advantages in a context of high cost pressure, supply challenges, and market demands.

The procurement function now operates in a radically different environment, marked by geopolitical instability, persistent inflation, and constant cost pressure. This new landscape redefines the rules of negotiation, strategic priorities, and risk management within the supply chain. In this roundtable, we analyze how decision-making criteria are evolving, how supplier relationship models are changing, and which purchasing strategies are required to ensure competitiveness, resilience, and adaptability in HORECA businesses.

A conversation about the new tourism landscape, addressing the evolution of destinations, connectivity, emerging consumption habits, and the role of the different actors in the value chain within a context of global transformation. In a country approaching 100 million visitors, understanding who comes and how they consume is key to designing more profitable, coherent, and sustainable HORECA models in each destination.

The supplier relationship is undergoing a profound shift. In this session, expert voices analyse how purchasing priorities are changing, what today’s end customer demands, and how to align product, service, and costs. A conversation to understand how to make better supply decisions in a more complex and demanding environment.

In conclusion, key insights on procurement, suppliers, and strategic priorities are synthesised, providing clear criteria to make better decisions, optimise costs, and align offering, customer, and profitability.

As an executive summary of this session, we bring together the key economic factors, cost pressures, immediate trends, and the impact of source markets, drawing practical conclusions to adjust business models and make better decisions today.

We are facing an operational and environmental shift that forces us to rethink how products are delivered, how we manage waste, and how we operate efficiently in an increasingly regulated and demanding urban environment.

We are experiencing a competitive shift: the rules of the game have changed. This session provides context on how business models are evolving and what new factors determine success in the hospitality sector today.

WHEN THE BEST RESTAURANT NO LONGER WINS, THE BEST MODEL DOES

Discover why some businesses grow, scale, and attract investment while others, despite being brilliant, fall behind.

In this Focus Session, we will analyze models, efficiency, structure, and business mindset.

You will take away practical insights to rethink your business, make it more profitable, and design it with a future vision without losing its soul.

INDUSTRY LEADER: Joan Jover

A strategic and inspirational session on how Food & Beverage is evolving to respond to new consumer demands and an increasingly complex business environment. From independent concepts to hospitality, cruises, retail, and corporate spaces, we will explore how F&B is used as a key activation point to create experiences, differentiation, and brand value, and how it is becoming a decisive lever in strategic decision-making.

Hospitality no longer competes solely on cuisine, service, or location. It competes on model, structure, and adaptability. In this roundtable, key perspectives from the sector —independent restaurateurs, restaurant groups, and branded dining— come together to examine how the way of competing has radically changed. Costs, talent, scale, brand, experience, efficiency, and resilience all come into play from very different realities. An honest conversation to understand which factors are redefining competitiveness today, which models withstand current pressures best, and which strategic decisions will determine the survival and growth of the hospitality business in the coming years.

Restaurant management does not end in the kitchen or the dining room. Procurement, food distribution, urban logistics, and waste management are all part of an external ecosystem that is becoming increasingly regulated, demanding, and complex, both in urban and tourist environments. This roundtable explores the major challenges that take place beyond the restaurant walls and how they directly impact costs, operations, sustainability, and overall business viability. A key conversation to understand why managing the invisible has become a true competitive advantage.

In this interview, Jennifer Pettinger, founder of the Global Restaurant Investment Forum, invites us to step beyond the local framework to understand how a HORECA business is evaluated today in the most competitive international markets. From Dubai, one of the world’s leading laboratories for restaurants and hospitality, we explore what investors look for, which models inspire confidence, which mistakes capital penalizes, and which attributes make a concept scalable, or not. A key conversation for operators who want to attract investment, expand internationally, or approach their business with a global mindset.

High competitiveness is not improvised: it is designed. In this talk, two major high-volume operators —one from organized dining and the other from on-the-go/rest stop dining— share the lessons that can only be learned when managing thousands of services a day. Suppliers, people, processes, technology, and customer relationships are viewed through the lens of total effectiveness. The goal is not to copy industrial models, but to translate their learnings into the context of independent restaurants. A session to understand which decisions make a difference today, how to gain efficiency without losing identity, and which practices have become essential to compete successfully in an environment radically different from just a few years ago.

Cities are redefining how the urban food system is organised to address challenges related to mobility, sustainability, coexistence and efficiency. In this roundtable, different municipalities share how they are designing new models for sourcing, distribution and waste management that create a real balance between restaurateurs, distributors, customers and residents. A win-win approach that demonstrates how public-private collaboration is key to building smarter, more viable foodservice ecosystems aligned with new regulatory and social demands.

In a highly competitive environment, the difference between surviving or growing lies in the design of the business model. This talk explores the role of the consultant as a strategic figure to create, evolve, or scale HORECA concepts more quickly and with greater guarantees of success. Methodology, structure, tools, and experience help shorten the entrepreneur’s learning curve, identify critical competitiveness factors, and make better decisions. A key reflection on how external vision and professional methods strengthen the Business Power of businesses.

The hotel sector is experiencing a technological and operational shift driven by AI, automation, and sustainability. This session provides context on these changes and their direct impact on costs and competitiveness.

WHEN DATA, EXPERIENCE, AND PROFITABILITY MEET

The hotel experience is no longer improvised: it is designed using data, sound judgment, and strategic vision.

This Focus Session reveals how intelligence, distribution, automation, and customer experience come together to drive efficiency and profitability without losing soul.

You will leave with practical insights to make better decisions, optimise operations, and build coherent experiences in an increasingly demanding market.

INDUSTRY LEADER: Álvaro Carrillo de Albornoz

Artificial intelligence has emerged as a new key player in hotel distribution, transforming the way customers search, compare, gather information, and book. Conversational chatbots, new recommendation dynamics, and shifts in the decision-making process are redefining the balance between the customer, OTAs, and hotels. This roundtable examines how this landscape is changing, the implications for each stakeholder, and how to adapt sales and distribution strategies so that technology becomes a win-win opportunity rather than a threat to profitability and customer relationships.

Hospitality is, by definition, a deeply human industry. Yet in a context of cost pressure, talent shortages, and rising guest expectations, automation and robotics are emerging as key levers of the new operating model. This roundtable explores how technology can free up time, reduce friction, and improve economic efficiency without dehumanizing the guest experience. On the contrary, when applied effectively, it allows teams to focus on what truly adds value, enhance service quality, improve working conditions, and build hotels that are more profitable, sustainable, and ready for the immediate future.

Sustainability has ceased to be just a narrative and has become an operational imperative in the hotel industry. Energy, water, waste, products, talent, and the guest experience converge in high-impact, highly complex establishments. This roundtable addresses sustainability from a comprehensive and realistic perspective: how to design sustainable models from the outset, how to transform existing operations, and how to balance efficiency, profitability, and responsibility. A key conversation to understand which decisions truly matter, how to avoid greenwashing, and how to turn sustainability into a solid, measurable competitive advantage for the hotel business.

Digitalisation is no longer an operational tool: it is the nervous system of the F&B department. From procurement to recipe costing, from waste management to profitability by point of sale, this session explores how technology enables data-driven decision-making, reduces operational friction, and transforms control into a competitive advantage.

The closing section summarizes the main conclusions on distribution, operational efficiency, and sustainability, integrating key lessons to help hotels make smarter decisions in a highly competitive environment.

The experience is undergoing a central shift: it is no longer a complement, but the differentiating value. This session focuses on experience as a strategic business tool.

EXPERIENCE IS NO LONGER EATEN, IT IS FELT

Customers no longer remember what they ate, they remember how they felt.

In this Focus Session, you will discover how the space becomes a strategic tool: lighting, sound, tableware, rhythm, and atmosphere working together to influence perception, dwell time, and repeat visits.

Designing experience is no longer just aesthetics, it is a business decision.

INDUSTRY LEADER: Paqui Cánovas

An immersive workshop for restaurant professionals that explores how to design gastronomic experiences that connect with diners on a sensory, emotional, and cultural level.

Experience doesn’t start on the plate nor end in the glass. Temperature, sound, tableware, lighting, textures, and rhythm create invisible decisions that impact perceived value, comfort, and memory. A talk to understand how to design atmospheres that work for your business, foster loyalty without words, and turn spaces into memorable experiences.

We analyze a key and often undervalued element: the support. Tableware doesn’t just present food; it defines the concept, expresses identity, interacts with the gastronomic proposal, and shapes the perception of price and value. A conversation about how plates, textures, and materials build a story, differentiate the restaurant, and elevate the customer experience from the very first visual impact.

The executive summary integrates lessons from various operational models, identifying which factors drive competitiveness today and which strategic decisions a business should prioritize to remain profitable and relevant.

In summary, key learnings on experience design, comfort, and emotion are integrated, drawing clear conclusions on how atmosphere impacts perceived value, customer loyalty, and profitability.

Digitalization is undergoing a decisive shift: data is moving from being optional to strategic. This session provides context on how technology is changing the way hospitality is managed and decisions are made.

FROM CHAOTIC TECHNOLOGY TO THE DECISION-MAKING ECOSYSTEM

This Focus Session isn’t about technology, it’s about taking control of your business.

It brings digitalization down to earth and shows how to connect data, operations, and customers to gain control, margin, and focus. Less hype, more judgment.

You will leave with clarity on which technology you need, which you don’t, and how to turn data into actionable decisions.

INDUSTRY LEADER: Emilio Gallego

This roundtable brings together companies that develop and distribute these technologies to compare vision, reality and practical application. The discussion will address which solutions are truly mature, where they deliver value today, what the barriers to adoption are, and how to scale their implementation according to business size. A conversation aimed at distinguishing trend from real impact and understanding how to turn technological innovation into tangible competitive advantage.

In major international chains, F&B is no longer managed by intuition: it is driven by data. This session brings together three corporate directors to analyse how technological intelligence, smart standardisation, and sustainability are redefining guest experience, operational efficiency, and global positioning.

Digitalization is entering a new phase: the shift toward data-driven decision making. In this roundtable, industry experts explore how technological tools, their integration, and the intelligent use of information are transforming the daily and strategic management of restaurants.

For years, technology in the restaurant industry has been perceived as a necessary cost. This talk proposes a radical shift in perspective: understanding it as a strategic investment with economic, operational and competitive returns. We will analyse the mechanisms that make it possible to move from expense to investment, how to assess the real ROI of technological solutions, and what financial, fiscal and management advantages a restaurant can unlock. A key session for making technology decisions with a business mindset and for stopping seeing innovation as a burden and starting to see it as a growth lever.

This roundtable brings together companies that develop and distribute these technologies to contrast vision, reality, and practical application. It will address which solutions are truly mature, where they are delivering value today, what the barriers to adoption are, and how to scale implementation according to business size. A conversation aimed at separating trends from real impact and understanding how to turn technological innovation into a tangible competitive advantage.

The executive summary brings together the key insights on digital tools, interconnectivity, and data usage, drawing practical conclusions to improve control, efficiency, and tactical and strategic decision-making.

The kitchen is undergoing a structural shift: from an operational space to a production hub. This session provides context on how workflows, equipment, and the relationship with the business are changing.

FROM KITCHEN TO EFFICIENT PRODUCTION CENTER

Kitchens are changing radically. This Focus Session analyzes how they are evolving into more standardized, flexible, and profitable production centers.

Processes, technology, and design serving the business. A key session to gain efficiency while preserving identity and gastronomic quality.

INDUSTRY LEADER: Juan Umbert

Workshop presenting the new work systems the hospitality sector needs today, including a live demonstration of the speed and efficiency that can be achieved.

Equipment is not an expense: it is critical infrastructure. Energy, climate control, maintenance, laundry, tableware, and furniture not only support daily operations, but also directly influence profitability, customer experience, and business continuity.
This round table is built around the strategic value of knowing, choosing, and managing distributors and technical service providers effectively, opening a high-level conversation on how to build supplier–operator relationships that deliver reliability, efficiency, anticipation, and competitive advantage. A key discussion for operating better, making informed decisions, and reducing risk.

As a closing, the session summarizes learnings on productive efficiency, kitchen organization, and adaptation to multiple channels, drawing key conclusions to improve timing, costs, and profitability.

Talent is experiencing a deep cultural shift. This session provides context on the new labor landscape in hospitality, the generational change, and the real challenges of attracting, training, and retaining people.

The HORECA sector is facing a critical mismatch between what employers offer and what new generations of professionals are seeking. Working hours, career development, flexibility, purpose, and benefits are now interpreted through different lenses. This presentation addresses the real gap between employees and employers, analyzing why traditional models no longer work and what urgent changes are needed to become attractive again. Understanding this generational mismatch is not an option; it is an essential condition to ensure talent, continuity, and future competitiveness.

THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE EVERYTHING WORK

Without talent, there is no business but the current model no longer works. 

This Focus Session addresses the gap between the traditional employer and a new generation with different priorities, and analyzes the strategies that, as a sector and as a country, we must activate to attract and retain talent.

The session concludes with The Shift highlighting the value of the entire value chain of an activity as extensive and deeply complex as HORECA.

Based on the 2030 Strategy document promoted by the Spanish Ministry of Tourism together with the National Tourism Council, this roundtable analyzes the main proposals to attract, engage, retain, and train talent in HORECA. Beyond the institutional framework, the discussion will focus on the real feasibility of these action lines and the active role that the sector must take to stimulate their implementation, turn them into effective practices, and strengthen the long-term competitiveness of tourism and hospitality.

Talent is the true invisible infrastructure of the HORECA industry. People, trades, and roles make possible the experience, efficiency, competitiveness, sustainability, and social impact of a sector that represents a country’s identity, drives its economy, and generates employment. This closing is a collective recognition of those who, from very different positions, support and evolve hospitality and tourism. It is an organized celebration of the human, professional, and strategic value that defines the industry today and projects it into the future.

The dining room is the space where the experience is interpreted, humanized, and differentiated. In this recognition, we celebrate the professionals who make the dining room a real lever of competitiveness, storytelling, and value. Reading an excerpt from the Dining Room Manifesto gives voice to an essential craft, often silent, yet absolutely decisive in the customer’s perception and in the identity of Spanish gastronomy. We recognize: Leading dining room professionals in Spain. In collaboration with PROSA.

In a context of high complexity, the role of the consultant becomes a strategic actor in designing, evolving, and making HORECA business models viable. For the first time, the value of specialized consulting is explicitly recognized as an essential ally for building solid, coherent, and competitive businesses from the start or during deep transformation processes. We recognize professional consultants and specialized HORECA consulting firms, together with Food Service Consulting International (FSCI).

Sustainability is no longer a discourse, but an integral practice that spans people, product, planet, and community. This recognition focuses on professionals who lead businesses with a 360° sustainable vision, demonstrating that it is possible to be profitable, responsible, and consistent at the same time, and that well-understood sustainability is a real competitive advantage. We recognize professionals who are leaders in 360° sustainability. In collaboration with Fundación Restaurantes Sostenibles.

Spain is a leading country in tourism thanks to people who influence, decide, and set the course from multiple disciplines. This segment recognizes professionals in the hotel sector included in the list of the 150 most influential in tourism in Spain 2026, as a symbolic representation of a group that drives innovation, reputation, and international leadership. We recognize hotel professionals from the list of the 150 most influential in tourism 2026. In collaboration with the List of the 150 Most Influential in Tourism in Spain by Segestur.