For the sixth consecutive year, Les Roches Global Hospitality Education hosted the business leadership seminar organized by the Marbella Business and Professionals Association, CIT Marbella. The 2019 seminar focused on the power of developing and executing events for business and institutional sectors.
The seminar’s featured speakers included the directors and founders of some of the most important events in Spain from the Starlite festival, Madrid Fusión, La Vuelta Ciclista, and the Dani García Group, which have grown to be leading references to follow both nationally and internationally. The insights and anecdotal experiences offered during their individual presentations provided a truly inspiring day for all attendees.
The inauguration of the seminar was undertaken by the general director of Culture and Education of the City of Marbella, Carmen Díaz and followed by opening remarks of Les Roches Marbella’s Director, Carlos Díez de la Lastra, and the president of CIT Marbella, Juan José González.
Ignacio Maluquer, president and co-founder of Starlite Festival, detailed how this event of international importance emerged in 2011 and evolved to its current level of prominence today. According to Maluquer, Starlite is “a meeting point for top-level concerts that also offers a 360º experience to its guests of more than 60 nationalities and of all ages”. In addition, it has scheduled 43 concerts and expects more than 300,000 attendees in 2019. Starlite Festival is held every summer in the city of Marbella and has become one of the best boutique festivals in Europe where music, culture, and gastronomy converge in a single venue for those who want to enjoy close and intimate concerts in an incomparable space.
Also featured during the day-long seminar was Lourdes Plana, Director and founding partner of Madrid Fusión. She presented an overview of the renowned brand’s major events at the international level and stated that “the success of any conference is the result of enthusiasm, hard work, the timely reaction to unforeseen obstacles, and a lot of advance planning. Madrid Fusión is an event that has helped shaped Spanish cuisine since its inception in 2002.” It is one of the most important gastronomic events on the international stage and is a meeting point for the most important names in the world gastronomy every year.
Madrid Fusion’s presentation was followed up by Javier Guillén, General Director of Unipublic, the company behind Spain’s Vuelta Ciclista. Javier emphasized the importance of the cycling tour for the country in his recollection of the Vuelta’s epic stories that began for him in 1978. “The Vuelta is the most complex sporting event in Spain and its 84-year history has been based on the success of a clear brand identity that reinvents the route each year while adhering to three basic principles: credibility, consistency and quality”. Over more than 80 years, the Vuelta has run parallel to many of the greatest moments in the history of Spain. In 1935, a total of 50 cyclists started the first Vuelta de España in Madrid, racing with heavy iron bicycles and carrying their own patches and tools to undertake repairs on their own, a far cry from today’s advanced technologies and complex team structures.
Finally, Lourdes Muñoz, Director of Events and Sales of the Dani García Group and head of A 4 Manos, displayed several videos in which the group’s business and restauranteur concepts were reflected through their core values of friendship, commitment, and respect in an haute cuisine environment. She reflected on how the Michelin Star chef event, “A 4 Manos”, was conceived in 2014 and how its success is based on offering a unique gastronomical experience for people that aims to pursue new directions year after year.” For several years, A 4 Manos has been bringing together the worlds best Michelin star chefs and has established itself as a benchmark and essential date of Spain’s gastronomic calendar.
