Hamburg, 22.10.2024 – The hotel cooperation CPH Hotels has taken a further step towards digitalization: a chatbot has recently been launched on the CPH website to provide both guests and employees with important information about the hotel group. The bot was initially trained with basic questions about CPH Hotels and is being continuously improved through the active involvement of guests and employees.

“Our aim is to make it even easier for visitors to our website to find information,” explains Sabine Möller, Managing Partner of CPH Hotels. “In addition, the chatbot can also provide valuable support to colleagues in the individual CPH Hotels when there are questions about the hotel group or specific information about the individual hotels.”

Guests and employees help train the chatbot
In order to optimize the chatbot in a practical way, both guests and employees were actively involved in training the bot. As part of a mailing campaign to CPH cardholders and end customers, they were invited to test the chatbot and ask it questions. A surprise package was raffled off as a thank you. The aim of this campaign was to find out which questions are asked particularly frequently – and which queries are perhaps not yet sufficiently covered.

Hamburg, October 15, 2024 – CPH Hotels is delighted to announce that Michel Tueini, Managing Director of Hotel Park Soltau, has been named Top Conference Hotelier 2024. This prestigious award is presented annually by the cooperation “TOP 250 Germany – The Best Conference Hotels in Germany” and honors personalities who have made a special contribution to the German conference market.

A remarkable career

Born and raised in Lebanon, Michel Tueini began his career in Germany with training as a waiter and chef. After working in England and France, where he deepened his knowledge of wines and champagnes, he returned to Germany and worked at the “Reichshof” hotel in Hamburg. In 1995, he took on the task of transforming the former insurance training center in Soltau into a modern conference hotel.

Under his conceptual management, the Hotel Park Soltau developed into a model business with pioneering room concepts. Today, with 191 rooms and 27 conference rooms including an event hall, it is one of the largest and highest-profile conference hotels in the Hamburg-Hanover-Bremen city triangle.

Innovative strength and passion

“Over many years, Michel Tueini’s innovative strength has often produced room designs, zones and technical innovations that deviate from the mainstream, with very unique creative approaches,” says Reinhard Peter, project manager of TOP 250 Germany. “The consistent and forward-looking approach to new conference formats is also remarkable.”

Sabine Möller, Managing Director of CPH Hotels, is also enthusiastic: “We are proud to have Michel Tueini in our cooperation. His commitment and passion perfectly reflect our motto: ‘Simply good hosts’. This award is more than deserved.”

About the award

The Top Conference Hotelier award is presented by a jury consisting of the team of authors of the book “TOP 250 Germany”, project manager Reinhard Peter and the winners of the five previous years. It honors outstanding achievements and innovative concepts in the conference hotel industry.

Hamburg/Wolfsburg, September 16, 2024 – On September 15 and 16, 2024, CPH Hotelmarketing GmbH held its quarterly meeting at the CPH Parkhotel Wolfsburg. The entire team from the Hamburg headquarters traveled to Wolfsburg to reflect on the strategies of the past quarter and plan future measures.

“We can look back on two productive days in which each department presented valuable insights and results,” explains Sabine Möller, Managing Partner of CPH Hotelmarketing GmbH. “The information shared enabled us as a team to further sharpen our vision and make important decisions for the coming months.”

Special thanks go to the CPH Parkhotel Wolfsburg, which provided outstanding hospitality. “Thanks to the professional on-site support, we were able to concentrate fully on our meeting,” Möller adds.

During this quarterly meeting, we also set the course for our upcoming annual meeting. This will take place from November 16 to 18, 2024 at the CPH Hotel Neustädter Hof in Schwarzenberg and will bring together CPH hoteliers from all over Germany. The anticipation is great,
and we are convinced that we will provide new, forward-looking impetus at the joint meeting in Schwarzenberg with the topics developed here in Wolfsburg.

Focus on numbers, digitalization and security: CPH hoteliers take a deep dive into modern hotel technology

Hamburg, October 10, 2023 – The CPH Annual Meeting took place at the Conference Partner Hotel am Schloss in Apolda from September 23-25, 2023. With a focus on digitalization and sustainability, the CPH hoteliers discussed innovative approaches and tools that simplify everyday life in the hotel sector.

One highlight was the insight into the functions of Chat GPT by Tobias Koehler from Hotel Tech Solutions. He highlighted the many possible applications of Chat GPT in everyday hotel life and gave very specific recommendations for its use. The technical possibilities promise to improve guest service and make operational processes more efficient.

The presentation by Daniel Frisch/ Country Partner Hotel Neustädter Hof and Oliver Anschütz/ SoftTec highlighted the two sides of digitalization and the great importance of cyber security. They had the full attention of all those present with their very emotional and instructive description of the software hacks that have recently targeted their two companies.

Oliver Anschütz said about the meeting after his presentation: “CPH is a great community with honest cooperation. The hoteliers help each other and the partners are involved in the topics.”

Further software solutions were presented in several workshop rounds. TourOnline, for example, presented new innovative functions in DIRS21, which enable the first steps towards revenue management through rule management. For CPH hoteliers who want to delve deeper into the topic, happyhotel offers a suitable solution. With its Hotelboard offering, Gastfreund provides a comprehensive communication platform for expanding guest contact and strengthening internal information processes. While iiQ-Check provides the perfect basis for effectively monitoring guest satisfaction and quality. In close cooperation with HGK, eagleControl has developed a program that enables precise data analysis even before the BWA is created. In line with this, Jochen Henkel from Henkel & Henkel presented a way in which employees can be integrated into the data-driven daily routine in the truest sense of the word.

Sustainable (further) development was also the focus of the discussions. Various certification options and their feasibility were discussed and a representative of GreenSign presented the various levels of the seal.

The conference program was flanked by an exhibition of all the above-mentioned industry partners, with the offer from Voglauer Hotel Concept attracting particular interest.

attracted particular interest. They offer everything from a single source, from planning to the final execution.

The event was moderated by Sabine Möller, Managing Director of CPH Hotels, who also provided insights into current industry trends and the work of CPH. Markus Luthe, Managing Director of the IHA, was a welcome guest and was available to answer questions about the IHA’s activities, while the two joint evenings and break-time discussions were characterized by an intensive exchange between the participants and the industry partners. A particular highlight was the very humorous tour with a long-established Apolda resident who, dressed as a night watchman, gave all participants a good overview of the region and its development. This was organized by Mark A. Kühnelt, host at the Conference Partner Hotel am Schloss and President of DEHOGA Thuringia. He commented on the event as follows: “Very interesting and stimulating presentations and a great exchange with colleagues, which once again confirms our decision to become a member of CPH Hotels.”

About CPH Hotels:

CPH Hotels is a hotel cooperation based in Germany and has almost 40 member hotels throughout Europe. The predominantly privately run three- to four-star hotels are characterized by their individual design and personal service. The target group is private and business travelers.

The company offers three cooperation lines under the common CPH umbrella: City Partner Hotels, which are primarily tailored to the needs of city hotels, Conference Partner Hotels, which specialize in the conference market, and Country Partner Hotels, which are characterized by a rural environment as the ideal setting for relaxing days. Independence, success, dynamism and quality – this is what the hotel cooperation, founded in 1997, stands for.

The managing partner is hotelier Sabine Möller. She is also an honorary member of the advisory board of the German Hotel Association (IHA). 

CPH Hotels was founded at the end of 1997 and took off in 1998. At the beginning as pure selling organization with the emphasis in the range
business, CPH Hotels developed over the years into an established marketing cooperation for private hotels. Sabine Möller has created an opportunity for individual hotels to appear on the market as part of a strong community on the market and thus become more visible.
“It was important to us from the beginning that our members retain their independence
and still benefit from the numerous advantages of a hotel cooperation. Today we see our task above all in the assistance to current topics or challenges for the individual hotel industry. Thereby
we always keep an eye on our core topic of sales! Here, however, the last three years have been a challenge for all of us. But we have seen the Corona pandemic as an opportunity for change. In addition to the development of new, supportive measures for hoteliers, such as a for example, an offer in the area of revenue management, a photo tour through all partner hotels and, as a result, a completely new website. This site we have given to our hoteliers and to ourselves for the 25th anniversary!” so to speak Sabine Möller, managing partner of CPH Hotels.

The site went live at the end of 2022. Clearly structured, responsive and optimized for fast page set-up, the focus is on the sales of the hotel services. Be it via the everywhere prominently integrated booking engine or the new Shopping engine. After previous on-line payment the potential customer can directly buy a coupon to send and print it out for himself or give it as a gift to someone . Special attention was also paid to the conference pages. All event rooms are illustrated in detail and are accompanied by a floor plan showing the various seating options.
In addition, there is a fact sheet for each hotel location and the option of submitting an enquiry from all (sub-)pages – be it for a request – be it for an overnight stay, a conference or a celebration – with the respective hotel.

The 25th anniversary is also thematized: Guests can purchase various anniversary vouchers and a wide range of business partners and companions of CPH Hotels are involved with their congratulations. “The page is finished in principle, but now the work really starts”, Sabine Möller adds. “We will be investing quite a bit more to further expand the content of the page and to optimize it for the search engines and sales.”

“CPH Hotels – simply good hosts”, is the slogan of the hotel network. This reflects authentically, where the benefit for the individual hotel partner
in the cooperation: You can be a host, while the team in Hamburg is out and about on the market, observing the latest trends, evaluates and implements them for the hotels.

Together with its member hotels, the hotel cooperation has set itself the goal of making the training of future specialists and managers more diverse as well as more practice-oriented.

In addition to the headquarters of CPH Hotels in Hamburg, several members of the hotel cooperation in Germany are already working together with local universities that offer corresponding dual study programmes. Sabine Möller, managing partner and founder of CPH Hotels, sees dual study programmes for the hotel and tourism industry as an ideal complement to the classic vocational training programmes for the sector: „The demands on our junior staff are increasing regularly. Especially in the areas of sales, marketing or finance. These contents can hardly be covered with the previous vocational trainings in the hotel industry. On the other hand, conventional studies are often too far removed from the actual daily hotel routine. The regular presence of the students of the dual study programmes creates more understanding for the sometimes complex interrelationships of the different departments within a hospitality business.“.

Within the framework of the dual study programmes, the universities work closely together with the cooperating companies. These courses of study differ from a classical course of study because, in addition to teaching theoretical content, the focus of this academic training is primarily on practice. Compared to regular training, however, the demands on students are significantly higher. Thus, such courses of study offer a sensible extension to the other forms of training, especially in the hotel industry.

„“Up to now, we had not considered that a dual student would come into question for us as a junior specialist and for training. Due to the newly located university in Ulm, we even had two candidates, one of whom has now been on our team since October 2021. Of course, we still have to get used to the routine – one week at university – one week in the company. However, we believe that we can benefit in both directions after a certain familiarisation period. This is already quite noticeable,“adds Karin Krings, General Manager of the City Partner Hotel Goldenes Rad.

Andrea Kumpfe, Director of City Partner Weber’s – the Hotel im Ruhrturm has been working together with a university for quite some time: “I am totally enthusiastic about the concept of dual studies in the hotel industry, because the departments in the hotel can be selected well according to the students’ study plan, such as accounting, sales, reception or human resources. The very personal support between the study advisors on the part of the university of applied sciences is also wonderfully covered. In addition, there is always an open exchange with the students and the UAS, because I as a hotelier always have a contact person. In the past, we even carried out large projects with a whole level of the university of applied sciences. This involved location evaluations, target group definitions or market analyses. Here, the students are a real enrichment for us.“ Sabine Möller was also able to recruit another student for the CPH Hotels head office for the coming semester. According to her experience, the hotel expert and her company also benefit from new impulses from the students themselves through the cooperation with the universities. In addition, the hotel cooperation with its member hotels ensures a supply of urgently needed specialists for the hotel industry.

About CPH Hotels:

CPH Hotels is a hotel cooperation based in Germany and has around 40 member hotels across Europe. The mainly privately run three- to four-star hotels are characterised by their individual design and personal service. The target group is private and business travellers.

The company offers three cooperation lines under the common CPH umbrella: City Partner Hotels, which are primarily tailored to the needs of city hotels, Conference Partner Hotels, which specialise in the conference market, and the Country Partner Hotels, which are characterised by a rural setting as the ideal prerequisite for relaxing days. Independence, success, dynamism and quality – this is what the hotel cooperation, founded in 1997, stands for.

The managing partner is the hotelier Sabine Möller. Sabine Möller is also a member of the board of the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association Deutschland e.V.. (HSMA) and a member of the advisory board of the Hotelverband Deutschland (IHA) e.V. on an honorary basis.

The hotel cooperation relies on new impulses for the marketing of its members. Already during the lockdowns, CPH Hotels successfully prepared for the restart with innovative concepts.

In the course of optimising online marketing and redesigning the CPH Hotels website, the hotel cooperation has launched an extensive photo initiative. Founder Sabine Möller is touring all hotel locations with a photographer in order to generate up-to-date and appealing photo material for future marketing: “The existing photo material of the hotels is qualitatively quite different and often no longer completely up-to-date. We also need unique material that can only be seen on the CPH website. Especially during the Corona crisis, some of our hoteliers have carried out extensive renovation or conversion work so that they are best prepared for the restart. So we decided to tackle the photo tour project of all CPH hotels. Due to the still moderate occupancy rate in some cases, the timing is perfect, as this way we won’t mean any hindrance to the ongoing business when we set up with our photo equipment. Many CPH hotels use the time for renovation work, around which we sometimes have to ‘plan’, which is not always easy,” says Sabine Möller, Managing Partner CPH Hotels. “The claim is to present the respective hotel with all its possibilities in its entire range. In the future, we will photograph the hotels regularly,” Sabine Möller continues.

CPH Hotels was once established by the founder to support private hoteliers with the help of a strong network and professional marketing. For this purpose, the trained hotel manager and her team in Hamburg developed new concepts again and again – from the interactive hoteliers’ congress to their own sustainability guidebook “CPH goes green” for the hotel industry in cooperation with blueContec and a graduate of the Hamburg Hotel Management School.

The hotel expert is convinced that innovative and professional online marketing is more important than ever right now – also due to the Corona pandemic: “Our website is in urgent need of a relaunch. Among other things, we need really good and authentic photos. But we also need a strong marketing platform that is always technologically up to date. In this way, we can continue to successfully assert ourselves on the market as a hotel cooperation for privately managed hotels,” Sabine Möller adds.

About CPH Hotels:

CPH Hotels is a hotel cooperation based in Germany and has around 40 member hotels across Europe. The mainly privately run three- to four-star hotels are characterised by their individual design and personal service. The target group is private and business travellers.

The company offers three cooperation lines under the common CPH umbrella: City Partner Hotels, which are primarily tailored to the needs of city hotels, Conference Partner Hotels, which specialise in the conference market, and the Country Partner Hotels, which are characterised by a rural setting as the ideal prerequisite for relaxing days. Independence, success, dynamism and quality – this is what the hotel cooperation, founded in 1997, stands for.

The managing partner is the hotelier Sabine Möller. Sabine Möller is also a member of the board of the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association Deutschland e.V. (HSMA) and a member of the advisory board of the Hotelverband Deutschland (IHA) e.V. on an honorary basis.

The collection of ideas is part of the “CPH goes Green” initiative accompanied by blueContec and follows the idea of supporting CPH Hotels conceptually on the topic of sustainability, but also providing inspiration for the future. With this collection of ideas, both partners want to give impulses to the industry beyond this project in a difficult time for all. Because sustainability, both partners are convinced, will gain in importance through this crisis.

Under the motto “Shaping the future together with suppliers and partners and offering guests something authentic”, the co-founder and managing director of blueContec Andreas Koch and the hotel management student Harald Gratenau developed numerous suggestions for CPH hotels to be able to offer hotel guests special experiences in the future. In the process, the editors researched numerous best practice examples from different areas. It was important to Sabine Möller that the suppliers are also integrated within the framework of this project: “Without them, it does not work in the hotel industry. We should change the perspective of our appreciation here in some places. To do this, it can sometimes be quite helpful to first get to know one’s surroundings better. Today, there are numerous enterprises that offer more sustainable alternatives in the region, which in turn can be used to offer the guest something attractive. This can be an entertaining on-site tasting or a shared event.”

“True sustainability is in the supply chain. The more local, the more sustainable, the better for this world and the more appealing to guests who, through the pandemic, are into healthier, more local products and authentic experiences. We would like to inspire this with this booklet and show by way of example how diverse experiences with suppliers can be,” adds Andreas Koch, Managing Director and co-founder of blueContec GmbH.

The initiators are primarily interested in using the Corona pandemic as an opportunity to pick up on emerging trends on the part of consumers and thus jointly create new offers for guests. Tourism does not necessarily have to be reinvented. Numerous companies, together with their partners, were already able to achieve noticeable successes in the industry during the pandemic.

Since more sustainable and mindful action in the economic context primarily affects future generations, the next generation of skilled workers was also integrated into this project. Harald Gratenau, a student at the hotel management school, was happy to actively participate in the project: “I live for experience. Especially when it comes to culinary things, I am the first to want to see and try everything. Sustainability doesn’t always have to be something complicated. Sometimes it’s just the search for good products from good local producers. Networking and supporting each other in the process seems only logical. If this booklet can give impulses to create such synergies, I feel I have made a difference.”

In terms of content, the collection of ideas is divided into different idea areas. The central themes include food, avoiding plastic, from and for nature, mobility, employees, craftsmen, social issues, art and other wild ideas. The initiators researched and integrated numerous case studies from tourism.

At gemeinsam.cph-hotels.com/cph_goes_green the collection of ideas
is available free of charge in the form of a brochure. in the form of a brochure that can be downloaded free of charge.

About CPH Hotels:

CPH Hotels is a hotel cooperation based in Germany and has around 40 member hotels across Europe. The mainly privately run three- to four-star hotels are characterised by their individual design and personal service. The target group is private and business travellers.

The company offers three cooperation lines under the common CPH umbrella: City Partner Hotels, which are primarily tailored to the needs of city hotels, Conference Partner Hotels, which specialise in the conference market, and the Country Partner Hotels, which are characterised by a rural setting as the ideal prerequisite for relaxing days. Independence, success, dynamism and quality – this is what the hotel cooperation, founded in 1997, stands for.

The managing partner is the hotelier Sabine Möller. Sabine Möller is also a member of the board of the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association Deutschland e.V. (HSMA) and a member of the advisory board of the Hotelverband Deutschland (IHA) e.V. on an honorary basis.

Über die blueContec GmbH:

The blueContec team is convinced that sustainability is a success factor and business model in tourism. Since it was founded in 2012, they have been working with over 300 hotels and hotel chains, numerous tour operators and together with partners for regions such as Schleswig-Holstein, Crete, Lanzarote and Mauritius. In 2021, the new blueContec initiative “tourythm” will start as an invitation to all tourism stakeholders to consciously shape the restart after the crisis. www.bluecontec.com