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De Marco Wins Special IHIF Leadership Award For Her Efforts To Sustainable Development

The International Hotel Investment Forum (IHIF) is delighted to announce that Lyndall De Marco has won a special Leadership Award for her efforts for championing sustainability issues within the hotel industry and will be recognized on 10 March at 10:00am at the conference.

"Lyndall has made a difference to the lives of many individuals by inspiring industry leaders to move social responsibility and sustainable hospitality up the corporate agenda and responding with practical action," said  Ed Fuller, President & Managing Director, Marriott International Lodging & Chairman of the ITP Governing Council & Trustee of IBLF. "Her leadership, enthusiasm and dynamic style has always been admired and appreciated by those of us who have worked closely with her over the years.”

Kurt Ritter, President & CEO of The Rezidor Hotel Group, will be presenting the award to De Marco. He said, “I have always admired Lyndall for her energy and ability to bring us hoteliers together – it is not easy to get a group of ever travelling managers around one table; even less so when they are competitors. She not only initiated discussion and exchange, but also provided us with practical tools, strategies and programs. Many of them have significantly advanced the industry awareness and treatment of sustainability issues.”

De Marco has been an industry leader with an absolute belief that profitability and sustainability can walk hand in hand.  She has provided leadership to hotel and tourism companies on environmental issues and, at the same time, provided a non-competitive platform for the sharing of ideas and the implementation of strategies that will benefit the industry.  She has also developed an array of practical tools and initiatives, including Sustainable Hotel Siting, Design and Construction guiding principles; a Sustainable performance operations tool, the Going Green initiative; as well as cutting edge community investment strategies and programs. Many programs, such as the environmental benchmarking tool and environment management for hotels, have significantly advanced the industry awareness and treatment of environmental issues.

Formerly a corporate director with Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts, De Marco was involved in the opening of 10 hotels and was herself for a time general manager of hotels in Bangladesh, Borneo and Malaysia. She founded the Youth Career Initiative in 1995. This unique program, taught in international standard hotels, has provided employability skills to disadvantaged youth in more than nine countries.

“It is a great honour for me to receive this  award especially at this important gathering of industry leaders . It has been both exciting and challenging pushing the sustainability agenda in the hotel industry but I am continuously inspired by the wonderful initiatives undertaken by General Managers and their staff," De Marco said. "I hope I can continue to work with an industry that has such huge potential to make a difference.”

“Lyndall has been a beacon of light and has made a huge impact on addressing the key issue facing our industry today – sustainability and environmental responsibility, " said Jonathan Worsley, co-founder of the IHIF. "Never shy to state her mind, Lyndall is often seen addressing the industry and promoting best practice.  This Leadership Award is recognition of her courageous drive to change the direction of the industry.”

IHIF is Europe’s largest gathering of hotel industry leaders, drawing a record crowd of nearly 1,800 in March 2008. For more information, visit www.berlinconference.com

Press contacts:
Michelle Mitchell +216. 706.3733 or mmitchell@questex.com
Christina Harrison+216.706.3770 or charrison@questex.com

About Questex Media Group, Inc.
Questex Media Group, Inc is a global, diversified business-to-business media organization serving multiple industries, including hotel and hospitality, travel, technology, beauty, spa and numerous other specialty industries, with its well-established, market-leading publications, events, interactive media, research, and other marketing and media-related services. The company's combined operations include more than 450 employees in offices throughout North America, South America, Asia and Europe. Strategically, Questex places a strong emphasis on serving the hotel and hospitality market and has created the Questex HotelWorld Network, which provides access and opportunity within all facets of the hotel and lodging industry across the globe. Questex's HotelWorld Network includes flagship publication Hotel & Motel Management, delivering hotel news, analysis and operational strategies; Hotel Design, celebrating the design excellence of hotels, resorts, lodges and destination spas; Luxury Hotelier, reaching the exclusive audience of four-and five-star hotel owners and operators; and The Hotel Times, focusing on international hotel investment and real estate. In addition to these leading publications, the Questex HotelWorld Network includes prominent events such as the International Hotel Investment Forum (IHIF) held in Berlin, which is the leading meeting place for the European hotel investment community; the Russia & CIS Hotel Investment Conference, which provides an invaluable opportunity to explore the region’s enormous potential and uncover new business opportunities; HotelWorld Expo & Conference, part of International Hospitality Week held in Las Vegas, which offers an international experience for hotel industry professionals and the industry's suppliers and manufacturers located throughout the world; the HOTEC series of three-day forums held across the globe which consist of pre-scheduled appointments with numerous networking opportunities to do business and exchange ideas with the leaders who influence the future of the global hospitality industry; and introducing IHIF Asia Pacific, a newly launched hotel investment conference in the Asia-Pacific region.

Bench Events - A Portal for the Hotel Industry

As organisers of top conferences for the hotel and investment industry, Bench Events is a growing entity that currently hosts hotel investment conferences in Berlin, Dubai and Moscow in partnership with other leading providers. Jonathan Worsley, chairman of Bench Events is one of the organisers and founders of the International Hotel Investment Forum held each year in Berlin. In 2005, he was responsible for launching the successful Arabian Hotel Investment Conference in Dubai, and in 2008, he co-hosted the Russia & CIS Hotel Investment Conference in Moscow. Worsley sits as an advisor to the World Travel & Tourism Council, which represents many of the leading companies operating worldwide in the travel and tourism industry. He is also a shareholder and board director of STR Global, which is the new entity for global benchmarking outside North America following the merger of The Bench, Smith Travel Research and Deloitte’s Hotel Benchmark.