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On June 7th, 2007, Epoque Hotels officially launched its European promotion at the Hotel Enterprise in Milan, setting up a press conference opened to tourism professionals and followed by a public cocktail reception. Contributing to the conference, before an audience of 150 among travel agents and journalists, were also representatives of the K-West Hotel & Spa - London, Hotel Le Tourville - Paris, Mirò Hotel - Bilbao, Hotel Grand Central - Barcelona and the 3.14 Hotel - Cannes, some of the finest properties of the collection. Since its foundation, the company had already participated to all the major Europeans trade shows. Yet, Milan has been chosen to put in place an event that was exclusively tailored for Epoque Hotels.
Establishing itself in the last five years, starting in 2002 with 30 hotels and now reaching almost 300 boutique hotels globally, Epoque Hotels has embarked on a development program that includes organizing press conferences in major destinations worldwide. The first was held in Milan, where about 150 tourism professionals flocked to the halls of the Enterprise Hotel to attend Epoque Hotels' gathering in early June. "We were very excited to introduce ourselves to the Italian tourism professionals," says Gianluca Gorini, Epoque Hotels' Director of Development in southern Europe. "We elected Milan as the ideal location to launch our European campaign because the city is an important business hub as well as Italy's capital of fashion and the headquarters of the country's principal travel agencies and publishing companies.”
The meeting thus consisted of numerous travel journalists as well as the local TV network Telenova, which filmed part of the conference and interviewed Gorini and Francesca Suereth, Epoque Hotels' Director of Operations: "I was so pleased to see that the media was interested in our company and in the properties of our collection," explains Suereth. "At this event we were able to explain what we do and what we offer not only to the trade professionals, but also to the general public”.
Among other issues, Epoque Hotels explained to the audience what boutique hotels are and why it is important to support this niche of the market. According to Epoque Hotels' co-founders David Maranzana and Juan Palmada, the goal of the company is to become a reference point in the industry while providing independent boutique hotels the means to compete with the larger hotel chains. "In a world where everything tends to be ever more standardized and identical," claims Maranzana, "our mission is to keep advancing the success of independent boutique hotels, wherever they may be. If everything looks the same, if the traveler finds the same products everywhere, the magic of traveling is gone," continues Maranzana: "Our wish is to prevent this from happening".
Back in Miami, the team is making preparations for the next big European event. In November 2007 Epoque Hotels will be in London for another conference and reception, this time at the K-West Hotel and Spa.
About Epoque Hotels
Epoque Hotels is a collection of worldwide avant-garde, trendy-chic, and luxury-classic boutique hotels based in over 100 destinations.
With almost 300 hotels in its portfolio, divided into two lines: Avantgarde Line and Epoque Classic, it is rapidly establishing itself as the leading reference in the segment of boutique hotels.
Headquartered in Miami, the Company has also sales offices in Italy, UK and France.
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stefano[.]epoquehotels.com 
