Accor, a leading hotel operator and market leader in Europe, has named the winners of the “Take Off !” contest it launched in March at 32 schools in nine countries.

A total of 250 students from universities, business schools and international hotel management schools entered the contest.

“This competition aims to strengthen bonds between Accor and these establishments, to open our group’s frontiers and stimulate in these young people the aspiration and motivation to join us after completing their courses,” said Antoine Recher, Accor’s global chief human resources officer.

“Given the success of this first edition, with a total of 83 projects submitted and over 70.000 online votes, we are keen to repeat the experience next year!”

In the first edition, candidates were invited to revolutionize the hotel experience by imagining all the stages of a totally sustainable stay, from the booking stage through to departure, for a customer in a capital city hotel.

At each of the three stages of this digital and multimedia contest, candidates had to demonstrate inventiveness, photo and video editing skills, and the ability to convince both in writing and orally in order to obtain the highest opinion scores on the online voting site accortakeoff.com and from a jury.

The first prize was awarded to the group « Sustainably Yours » at IMIH, by a jury consisting of about a dozen hotel professionals as well as Augustin Paluel-Marmont, co-founder of food products brand Michel & Augustin and a committed campaigner for more responsible consumption.

Online check-in, greener itinerary suggestion, removal of magnetic card and access to the room thanks to a mobile application, these are a few examples of the digital devices that the winners have imagined for a paperless hotel.

Beside the implementation of rain water collectors, the team has designed a room equipped with solar chargers to power all multimedia equipment as well as a recyclable bed made from recycled plastic bottles.

In this project, dining options include both fair trade products and organic food that consumes little water and customers can also enjoy a fitness room with exercise machines that turn sweat into electricity energy. Finally, guests will be able to contribute to the conception of a green wall in the lobby for better thermal control.

“This competition revealed a wide diversity of talents and great competitive and entrepreneurship spirit!  It’s a wonderful opportunity for students to learn how to transform an idea into a long-term, operational and innovative project,” said Augustin Paluel-Marmont, co-founder of Michel & Augustin.

“It allowed them to tackle the issues of sustainable development, a vital challenge for Accor, which places sustainable hospitality at the heart of its strategy and expansion.”

The prize-giving ceremony was held last night (June 11) at the Pullman Paris Tour Eiffel. The winners took home a four-day stay at an Accor hotel in one of the following cities: Saint-Petersburg, Berlin, Athens, Marrakech or Lisbon.

The nine participating countries included France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, India, Spain, Denmark, Germany, Russia and Belgium. – TradeArabia News Service