From 8 to 12 March, the Elbe metropolis was once again the hotspot for smart solutions for the hotel and catering industry! From newcomers to AI solutions and sustainability - everyone from the industry met once again at Hamburg Messe und Congress GmbH exhibition centre to chart the future together. After bidding farewell to 2023 with "Moin Moin Elbmetropole" - we were thrilled to announce: "Hello again" - as we were present again in 2024 with our own stand! And snice our concept of planning the trade fair appearance together with our other partner companies proved so successful last year, we started strong with concentrated power and diverse solutions: Martin Becker GmbH (IT service provider for the hotel and catering industry and Oracle partner), Jamezz (self-ordering), Gastrodigital (reservation solutions), viva.com (payment provider), Signum (merchandise management solutions) and Piggy (loyalty solutions) all of which were also there with us.

Under the motto "All together", the leading international trade fair brought decision-makers from the catering and hotel industry to the Hanseatic city. But that wasn't so easy, nobody could have guessed in advance that the first and last days of the trade fair would be slowed down by travel strike. In fact, Friday, the first day of the fair, got off to a slow start and we unfortunately had to accept a few cancellations. Over the course of the day, however, we noticed an increasing growth of foot traffic keeping our MS POS trade fair team and colleagues from partner companies busy with engaged conversations and visitor interaction. On day 2, traffic was back to normal, and the fair halls (and our stand) filled up as the morning progressed. The new design of unTill Prime was very well received and we were thrilled to hold many interesting technical discussions and answer questions specifically on the topics of self-ordering, handheld terminals, payment solutions with all-in-one devices and interfaces to hotel systems. While Sunday was more of a family outing and few caterers were out and about - Monday was a well-attended day at the trade fair with lots of trade visitors and specific project enquiries. The general mood was positive and cautiously optimistic.

Connectivity was a predominant theme at INTERNORGA. Only systems that are open and versatile enough to easily communicate with other systems will prevail. Customers increasingly understand the advantages and disadvantages of cloud solutions and what they need to be consider for their environments. The offline capability of the systems is increasingly coming to the fore and must be planned intensively with precision. On the other hand, independence from specialised hardware is becoming increasingly important. This enables cost reduction and still guarantees security and scalability with the right architecture. Today's customers are thinking more long-term and are interested in achieving a reasonable ROI (return on investment). SaaS systems are not always the first choice. With our unTill platform, we are on the right track here, with combining both worlds and we are flexible enough to cater to the individual needs of our customers. In addition, our partner landscape offers innovative solutions that are all brought together in the unTill platform so that the customer can flexibly select the required modules as needed.

The tense staffing situation continues to preoccupy many businesses, meaning that topics such as digital system optimisation and intuitive solutions were particularly important. That is because staff shortages make it difficult for establishments maintaining their own expectations and those of their guests in terms of service and efficiency. A constant desire to optimise processes and use resources more efficiently was also noted. Ideally with tried-and-tested systems and reliable support. At the same time, there is uncertainty and a healthy respect for the use of AI, which every industry is talking about. Precisely because nobody yet knows exactly where sensible application can be. This subject here need a more open-mindedness approach, guided with structured information and education.

In any case, we at MS POS are and will remain curious about how the future will develop and look forward to the trade fair events in 2025. We have summarised some impressions of 2024 for you here in a short video - let´s go.

INTERNORGA 2025 will take place from 14 to 18 March.