Hotel Leaders Network 2026 brings hotel leaders together at Beurs van Berlage

Leading Through Change in practice

On Monday 2 February 2026, Dutch hotel leaders gathered for the 10th time at the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam for Hotel Leaders Network (HLN). Under the central theme Leading Through Change, the programme revolved around leadership in an industry under pressure from labour market tightness, technological acceleration and changing guest expectations. With keynotes, a panel discussion, start-up pitches and the presentation of the Future Hotel Leader Award, the 300-plus Hotel Leaders in attendance were given a substantive and sharply profiled programme, concluded with a networking dinner in the monumental exhibition halls.

“Hotel Leaders Network was started from the need to really bring leaders in the hotel industry together. Not about trends for trends” sake, but about what leadership requires when things get exciting. That this edition coincides with the theme Leading Through Change therefore feels very logical: the sector is under pressure, and it is precisely then that reflection, connection and exemplary behaviour are crucial", says organiser and founder Jacob de Graaff.

The content kick-off was provided by Marija Nemec, leadership educator associated with Les Roches. In her keynote, she emphasised that leadership does not start with strategy or systems, but with self-awareness. Nemec called on the audience to think more often about what choices leaders make under pressure, and how those choices affect teams and organisational culture.

“Leadership does not start with what you do, but with who you are and what you show when things get tense,” Nemec argued. According to her, culture does not emerge from policies or values on paper, but from everyday behaviour: how managers listen, react and prioritise, especially at busy times. In an industry where operations are always going on, she said, change requires consistent role model behaviour and clear communication.

Panel discussion: people-centred steering in a demanding sector

That message was further deepened in the panel discussion with Alessio Colavecchio, Fanny van den Dries, Marnix Mali, Mathilde van der Weerd and Stephan Stokkermans. From different perspectives from hospitality practice, they talked about leadership in times of scarcity and growth.

A recurring theme was the tension between organising efficiently and maintaining humanity in the workplace. Several panel members emphasised that standardisation and digitisation are necessary, but should never become an end in themselves. Leadership, it was said, is increasingly about making clear choices and including teams in them, while day-to-day operations continue to require full attention.

Character under pressure

The second keynote came from Ray Klaassens, former commando and best known for Camp van Koningsbrugge. Klaassens emphasised character and responsibility in leadership. “Character is what remains when no one is looking,” he argued, and that very moment, he said, determines whether teams continue to carry each other when the going gets tough.

Using personal experiences, Klaassens made it clear that leadership proves itself above all in adversity. He illustrated this with a seemingly small but significant example: a moment when he himself hardly had anything - during a bivouac in freezing cold southern Germany - but nevertheless decided to share his chocolate bar and chocolate milk with his mates. Not because he had to, but because that very gesture showed what leadership is all about. “At a moment like that, you don't build motivation with words or rewards, but with behaviour,” he explained.

According to Klaassens, the power of leadership is often not in big decisions, but in these kinds of choices under pressure. “Ninety per cent of the time you can just work together,” he said, “but in those ten per cent that things chafe, you show what you really stand for.” It is precisely then that connection and trust are created, and teams prove willing to carry each other. That ability to take responsibility and give something of yourself, Klaassens sees as a crucial condition for leading people through change.

The Beurs van Berlage as a meeting place

The venue also played a visible role in the programme. Marcel Schonenberg, director of the Beurs van Berlage, welcomed the participants and outlined the Beurs as a place where people have met to exchange ideas and look ahead together for almost a century and a half.

Schone underlined the importance of physical meetings at a time when many processes have been digitised. According to him, the hospitality sector in particular remains a place where people can develop themselves, often starting with a side job or internship. The Bourse, he indicated, wants to be a platform where those networks and careers emerge.

Start-up pitches: technology to support operations

A practical and future-oriented part of the programme was the HLN Start-up Pitch, powered by ABN AMRO. Three start-ups presented their solutions to a jury and the audience.

Bundle.it, represented by founder Margot van de Riet, was committed to structurally connecting hotels with their local environment. By bundling local experiences and entrepreneurs in one digital environment, she said, hotels can maintain a better grip on the guest experience outside the hotel while creating additional value for different generations of travellers.

Roamed, presented by Joost van Bommel, focused on a recognisable operational bottleneck: the continuous flow of calls with repetitive queries. Van Bommel outlined how hotels handle dozens of calls daily, while teams are already understaffed. Roamed's AI-driven voice agent can take these calls independently and implement immediate actions in systems such as PMS and housekeeping.

Break Away Software, presented by Danny Paerl, focused on creating calm and overview in boutique operations. His message was clear: anything that does not directly contribute to efficiency or guest experience should disappear from processes and systems. Smart software, according to Paerl, can instead make room for personal attention on the floor.

Although the expert jury awarded Break Away Software the most points, the public overwhelmingly turned out in favour of phone call relief: Joost van Bommel won the start-up pitch and gets to publish an extensive media package in the upcoming edition of media partner Hotelvak. Besides an advertisement, the prize consists of an extensive content interview about Roamed.

Future Hotel Leader Award 2026

A regular feature of Hotel Leaders Network is the Future Hotel Leader Award. In 2026, Joost Abbink, Kimberly Appels and Rémy Baben presented themselves as finalists. They were judged on vision, leadership style and their ability to make change concrete in daily practice.

The pitches included the importance of kindness and accessible leadership, not as an abstract ideal, but as a consciously chosen strategy. How do you organise this in teams, how do you secure it under pressure, and how do you remain credible as a leader in this? The award underlined HLN's aim to give a stage to not only established names, but also the next generation of leaders. Kimberly Appels got to take home this year's award. “Kindness is not a soft skill, but a conscious choice that you have to organise every day,” Appels said. “Especially under pressure, you show as a leader whether you really live up to that.”

Reflection with a wink

The programme concluded with The Hotel Speech by Jochen Otten. With humour, self-mockery and sharp observations, he held up a mirror to the sector. Using recognisable situations from hotel practice, Otten dissected the daily behaviour of guests, employees and managers. The result was not only laughter in the audience, but also uncomfortable recognition. Especially in times of change, he made clear, there is a risk that processes, targets and efficiency become more important than attention and genuine hospitality. His contribution thus worked not only as a light-hearted conclusion, but also as a substantive reflection on what the sector must guard against when everything is in flux.

“What we see every year is that hotel leaders are not looking for quick fixes, but for guidance and direction. HLN 2026 showed that change does not start with technology or structures, but with conscious leadership and culture. As an organisation, we want to continue to provide a stage where those conversations can be open, honest and hands-on,” says founder and organiser Melle Pegman.

Meeting as a common thread

A walking network dinner and drinks followed afterwards, during which the substantive discussions continued. Hotel Leaders Network 2026 thus lived up to its positioning: not a marketing event, but a substantive platform where leaders from the hospitality sector meet, share experiences and reflect together on how to lead their organisations through change.

The key message of the afternoon was clear: Leading Through Change requires less new models and more conscious leadership, strong culture and technology that supports people rather than replaces them.