📅 Sunday, May 3rd – Thursday, May 7th 2026
 📍  Paris, France

The Commercial Summer Camp is back – reimagined, rebranded, and heading to Paris for the very first time! In May 2026, HSMAI Region Europe proudly presents the 5th edition of this flagship program, designed to accelerate the development of the next generation of commercial and general management leaders in hospitality.

Building on the strong legacy of the Commercial Summer Camp, the Leadership Development Camp continues the same proven format and target audience while placing an even stronger emphasis on leadership capability, influence, and cross-functional decision-making. Following four successful editions in Amsterdam, London, and Lisbon, this program has earned enthusiastic support from participants and industry leaders alike and 2026 promises to be the most exciting edition yet.

Target Group: General Managers and Rising General Manager, Heads of Department, Senior Supervisors, Sales/Marketing/Revenue Directors, Asset Managers, and Multi Unit Staff.

Hospitality professionals are increasingly asked to strengthen their business skills, think like owners, and have the mindset of a “Chief Business Manager”. This program sharpens the skills, knowledge, and mindset that form the business foundations of a successful leader/manager throughout their career. It provides the three essentials of business acumen needed for effective decisions, efficient execution, and positive business scorecard results:

Financial Competence
Strategic Thinking
Communications

We will kick off the first 2 days in a very dynamic way,using a blended learning approach including real-time hotel simulation competition in a real-to-life dynamic market using the world’s leading lodging business simulation. Now more than ever it is essential that you know what contributes to the bottom line of your business, not only from your perspective, but from all departments. You have to demonstrate business acumen.

The first 2 days are led by an experienced hospitality professional with multi-national experience in operations leadership and management training. She will focus on four modules form the learning core:

Targeting Business Priorities

Provides complete competence in using the Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statement to target the business priorities that will produce business results. Participants will become financially fearless in putting financial information to use.

Managing Business Priorities

Participants will have mastery of the STR metrics, terminology, and lodging calculations that assist in turning business priorities into measurable business results. Participants will be competent in measuring both internal business results and indexing those results against the field of competitors.

Leading with Communications

Turning business priorities into business results means working through and with other people. Here participants will learn their own communications characteristics and how to put them to best use in one-to-one and group communications that drive business results.

Partnering with Owners Priorities

While the goals of owners and managers are similar, their views, jargon, and calculations may be quite different. Here participants will learn the owner’s side, enabling them to partner effectively with owners in areas of asset management, capital investment, contracts, and return on equity.

Real World Learning

The learning modules are put to immediate use in a real-to-life business simulation where participants learn how their competitive strategies and decisions affect a hotel’s results and those of the competition.

Working individually or in teams, participants operate a hotel from the position of the General Manager. They compete with other individuals/teams in real time and within the realistic market dynamics of a competitive set of hotels. As in the real world, the competitive strategies and decisions made by the GM impact the hotel’s results and the results of the other competing hotels.Participants will work to construct, promote and deliver a competitive price/value proposition to the market. In this way their learning is stimulated using different approaches: 

Mindset 

Participants will act at a General Management level and take actions from this position based on the information input. This stimulates:

strategic thinking, planning, and competitive proactivity in a dynamic market place; the development of a cost effective, competitive product which offers both market value and sound levels of financial returns; awareness of the financial impact of daily decisions on monthly and annual business results; a total overview of the hotel and how departments interrelate to produce business results.

Knowledge & Skills

Participants learn to act quickly and decisively with the confidence of competence in:

forecasting and budgeting, targeting business priorities, competitive response, variance and financial analysis; financial statements, industry metrics and STR indexes, financial ratios, capital investment and cash flow.

Decision-Making Ability

During the simulation, participants will make decisions on all aspects of hotel management:

forecasting, room and F &B outlet pricing, refurbishment, capital improvements, staffing salaries,training & development, marketing & advertising, RFP’s and displacement analysis.

Reporting &  Analysis

To make the decisions, participants will need to be aware of and interpret reports at all levels,including:business summary, balanced scorecards, revenue variance, financial rations, room market segment share, F&B and other departments, rentals and other incomes, competition,reputation management, staffing levels, competence & turnover, guest feedback and general trends.

At the end of the two-day and the simulation, participants will have the opportunity to take an online exam to earn HSMAI’s globally recognised CHBA certification. The certification fee of USD 625 is included for all participants attending the HSMAI Europe Leadership Development Camp in Paris in May.

The final two days of the HSMAI Region Europe Leadership Development Camp are dedicated to commercial leadership excellence, bringing together Revenue Management, Sales and Marketing as equally critical drivers of sustainable growth in hospitality.

Participants explore how these disciplines must work in close alignment to shape demand, positioning, pricing, and distribution strategies that deliver long-term value. Through interactive sessions, case-based learning, and applied workshops, the program focuses on data-driven decision-making, effective use of commercial insights, and the ability to translate strategy into measurable performance outcomes.

The program also strengthens participants’ ability to lead, influence, and negotiate across complex commercial environments, including a dedicated focus on influence and negotiation skills.

HSMAI Europe Member Early Bird: EUR 2,900
(Save by registering early)

HSMAI Europe Member Standard: EUR 3,600
(Valid after 16 March)

Non-Member: Please contact us for rates

Team Discounts: Available for 3+ participants from the same organisation (please contact us for details)

The programme fee includes: welcome dinner, the full programme, lunches, coffee breaks, materials, the fee for the certification (USD 625) and access to all sessions.

See the complete programme by downloading the PDF.

Join us in Paris in May 2026 and be part of the 5th edition of one of HSMAI Europe’s most impactful leadership programs. This is your opportunity to learn, connect, and grow with the industry’s future leaders.

Target group: General Managers and Rising General Manager, Heads of Department, Senior Supervisors, Sales/Marketing/Revenue Directors, Asset Managers, and Multi Unit Staff.

Please contact postbox@hsmai.eu for more information.