Speakers

Petr Kulhánek

Governor of Karlovy Vary Region

Petr Kulhánek studied Business Economics and Management, then Psychology and Sociology in Business Management at the University of Economics in Prague. He also honed his study skills during his internships at Foothill College in San Francisco and Australian Pacific College in Sydney. From 1998 to 2000, he worked as Director of HOPI Logistic, then from 2000 to 2013, he acted as Director of the Promenáda v.o.s. publishing house. In 2005, he became Secretary General of F.I.J.E.T. (International Federation of Travel Journalists and Writers) and from 2018 to 2020 he worked as HR Manager at Hofírek Consulting. He was elected in the regional elections for the STAN coalition (STAN, KOA, VPM Cheb, TOP09) in 2020.

Welcome word

Petr Zahradník

Economist specializing in EU economic policy

Petr Zahradník an economist specialising in EU economic policy; member of the National Economic Council of the Czech Government (NERV) and the Strategic and Economic Analysis team at Česká spořitelna. He also acts as an advisor to the President of the Chamber of Commerce of the Czech Republic and to the Ministers for European Affairs and Industry and Trade. From 2015 to 2020, he was a member of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in Brussels, where he currently performs as an economic advisor. He graduated from the Prague University of Economics and Business, Columbia University and the Catholic University of Leuven. He works extensively with the media and academic spheres.

Czech Economy at a Structural Crossroads

Recent macroeconomic trends in the Czech Republic and in the EU and their foreseen development; nature of the shocks experienced in the past period; need for implementing structural changes and eradicating systemic failures; economic policy toolkit; impact of the recent extraordinary events on tourism and on the priorities in EU tourism policies.

Antonio Álvarez

CEO of Visionary Hospitality and an IT Developer

Antonio Álvarez, CEO of Visionary Hospitality and an IT Developer. Being 50 now, he has over 30 years of experience as an entrepreneur. He started learning to program in Assembler with Amstrad 464 at the age of 12 and has been self-taught ever since. In the Canary Islands, more than 2,000 professionals currently use some of the applications he has designed and programmed. He is passionate about what he does and, above all, is a living proof of that one can achieve a lot through one’s own efforts and diligence.

Artificial intelligence

Visions and artificial intelligence applied to hotel management, leading to optimization of resources and reduction of waste.

Vít Buchta

Managing Director of Green plus s.r.o., Owner of the Hotel Golf Garni

He got his engineering degree at the Brno University of Technology in the field of Corporate Finance and Commerce, and subsequently obtained a doctorate in Pedagogy at the Faculty of Education of Masaryk University Brno. He boasts years of experience in tourism and gastronomy in the Czech Republic and abroad – while managing the Melikana chain of rest houses. He also worked as Marketing Director for Čedok a.s., General Manager and Managing Director of Cedok Reisen GmbH Deutschland, Frankfurt am Main, Managing Director and General Manager of Destination GmbH WIEN. He is the owner and General Manager of the Hotel Golf Garni in Mikulov, owner and CEO of the consulting and interim management agency Green plus. He has wealth of experience in managing companies in the Czech Republic and abroad, across the industry - AZ Intec.

Crisis management

How to prevent crisis situations in companies and institutions within the tourism industry and how to reduce the risk of recession and crisis? How can we avoid deeper crises and their consequences? Establish a BCMS and BCMP in your company. These times and their anomalies are exerting enormous levels of pressure and stress on EU countries, as well as on institutions, companies in tourism and individuals in society. These are factors that are causing changes in company strategies, in the mental states and resilience of teams and individuals. Tourism chains, which were built for years, have been disrupted. Europe fails to counter the aggressive tourism trends present in Asia, Africa and America. It is vital that companies (managements) across the tourism market should tackle these external impacts on people - employees and clients – promptly, thoughtfully, effectively and from a long-term perspective. This obligation is also embedded in the visions and strategies of most modern tourism companies and is directly linked to our responsibility as owners and managers. These strategies influence the managing of and the very existence of tourism businesses. Most companies are quickly updating their BCM plans and crisis plans. BCMS (Business Continuity Management System) systems for individual areas in companies have abroad, and gradually also in the Czech Republic, become staple pillars in combating recession and crisis. These are sophisticated pre-crisis defence systems that can reduce the risk of a crisis and its consequences, which companies now hastily implement into their strategies and plans. In addition, to support the effectiveness of BCMS and anti-crisis measures, there are BCMS applications (Altworx) that make these measures far more effective. It is an inevitable, realistic view of the company’s actual status, a link between physical security and cybersecurity based upon the EU regulations.

Stanislav Hájek

Forensic Psychologist

Stanislav Hájek graduated in Psychology in 1978 at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague, where he also later completed his postgraduate studies in Penitentiary Psychology in 1983-1984. From 1995 to 1999, he attended a number of training courses in Switzerland and in the Czech Republic. The courses focused on Management, Conflict Resolution through transaction analysis, Assessor Training and long-term, self-experiential training in Community and Group Psychotherapy. He worked as Psychologist with the Czech Prison Service from 1980 to 1994. Having left the service, he became Psychologist and later Head Psychologist at the Department of Psychology and Sociology of the Ministry of Interior (1994-1999) and Psychologist of the Ministry of Finance, General Directorate of Customs (2000-2013). Before that, he worked briefly as Corporate Psychologist. He became widely known to the public thanks to his appearances as an expert psychologist in the Nova TV programme TABU, which was broadcast in 1994-2001 and addressed sensitive social issues, including criminal delinquency. Aside from that, he has also served as a member of the Presidium of the Association of Forensic Psychologists of the CSM (1994-2013) and is an external Psychological Crisis Interventionist and Lecturer.

The psychopaths among us

As a whole, our society is more psychopathic today than ever before. Psychopaths tend to be fearless, confident, charming, ruthless, and focused on a goal (especially their own one), which are qualities that seem tailor-made for success in the 21st century (Kevin Dutton). Why are psychopaths being talked about so much lately? How do we recognize them and in what ways can they be dangerous to us? Psychopathy is a multidimensional clinical construct. It is best described using personality traits and behavioural characteristics. Psychopathy contributes most significantly to all forms of antisocial and criminal behaviour, with even the highest layers of society in the business, politics and global event areas being no exception. The most critical question in searching for the causes of psychopathy goes as - is nature or nurture responsible for psychopathic personality traits? The answer is lapidary – BOTH are! How do you defend yourself, your family, your professional team, your company, your society then? We will give you specific recommendations on these issues.

Jan Knedla

Chef of the Restaurant Papilio

Jan Knedla opened Restaurant Papilio in 2021 and has achieved remarkable success in the experiential gastronomy field since. The restaurant has rapidly become one of the most renowned fine dining spots in the Czech Republic. The sensitive marriage of Czech cuisine with Asian elements is truly unique. His undeniable talent is backed by enormous diligence, effort and perseverance. The journey towards Restaurant Papilio was facilitated by decades of experience gained in the best gourmet restaurants around Europe and Asia, awarded with Michelin stars. Jan Knedla has quickly managed to capture guests who now regularly return to his restaurant to explore new menus. He swiftly earned the respect of both his colleagues and the professional community; Forbes Life magazine named him one of the “Top 10 Chefs in the Czech Republic”, and Gastro & Hotel profi revue recognised him as being “a revelation of the year 2022”. Jan Knedla is an ardent and persuasive promoter of the industry in public and in the media, consistently applying a sustainable approach to ingredients and resources. He sees his work as being a mission.

Contemporary gastronomy and its future

Jan Knedla will briefly outline his story and journey to launching the Papilio Restaurant. What trends and challenges does he see on the current gastronomy scene? How does he perceive the future of our gastronomy, what will be the main pillars of a restaurant’s success, what has worked for him and what has not? Are people willing to travel to obtain quality and experience interesting gastronomy? Is it possible, at least in part, to compensate for the lack of qualified chefs by, for example, incorporating new technologies or streamlining operations more intensively? These are the questions we will reflect on together.

Zuzana Kostiviarová

Deloitte Advisory

Zuzana leads the Human Capital Consulting team in the Czech and Slovak Republics. She deals mainly with the topics of HR transformations, employee remuneration, as well as with preparing companies and employees for the future of work.

HR trends that rock the world

What are the most influential trends driving the world of manpower? How successful are Czech and Slovak companies in responding to them? How to use the full potential of the labour force ecosystem, or how to treat different generations in the workplace? We will address these very topics from the perspective of the Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends survey.

Andrea Černá

Deloitte Advisory

Andrea is a Manager on the Czech Human Capital Consulting team at Deloitte. In her business practice, she deals primarily with the setting up of HR processes, systematic implementation of change and its communication, as well as with the topics of diversity and inclusion in the workplace or trends in Human Resources. She is a co-creator of the HR Espresso podcast.

HR trends that rock the world

Duncan Skehens

Tripadvisor Communications Director

Duncan leads Tripadvisor’s global communications organisation, which is responsible for maintaining and promoting the platform's reputation around the world. He has worked with Tripadvisor for two years and partners closely with functions including brand, platform integrity and commercial partnerships. Prior to joining Tripadvisor, Duncan spent half a decade at Expedia Group, where lead communications for its marketing business across EMEA and APAC. Before this he served as Associate Vice President of Communications with Global Blue, a global leader in travel retail and cross-border payment services. Duncan holds a postgraduate degree in Applied Ethics from Cardiff University. He is based in London and his favourite travel destination is Hossegor in southwest France.

In the customer's mind

Tripadvisor is going to share the key insights from the company’s latest consumer survey to give you an overview of how travellers from around the world behave. We are also going to focus on travellers’ reviews and how you should approach them and leverage the important elements they contain, and on the importance of star ratings for travellers and how they work together with their reviews. Finally, we’re going to give you a quick overview on how the teams at Tripadvisor moderate the content of the reviews to make sure only real and valuable reviews make it to the platform, sharing insights from our 2023 Review Transparency Report.