Presidents Christmas Letter 2020

Dear EUHOFA International members, dear friends,

None of us thought that this year would have changed our lives in such an important way: the hospitality industry is suffering worldwide, education moved online in record time, and many of us (or our loved ones) have gone through delicate health situations due to the Covid-19.

This crisis is shaking the world with unknown challenges, and we had to adapt to the new situation as soon as possible. Since the beginning of the first global lockdown, the board offered the EUHOFA member schools the possibility to share their best practices with the rest of the members, on how to deal with the Covid-19 challenges we face in education. We offered four online round table sessions, followed with the recent webinar in the Fall.

For the first time since 1962, our congress has been cancelled. Our Friends from Copenhagen had everything prepared for the congress in November and did their best to stay hopeful until the last minute. As you know, it was originally postponed, until we mutually agreed that its cancellation was the only option.

We had more challenges this year. Due to new world wide regulations, EUHOFA International needed to be registered as an association at the Chamber of commerce of The Hague, the location of our Secretariat. In order to register, new statutes had to be written, following the Dutch law. After months of work, they are finally ready and registered.

Just like the rest of the world, our association also needs to adapt to the new times and challenges. During the past month, the Board has been working on a new strategic plan. We will be offering new ways of communication between congresses, providing access to more members from our institutions in order to benefit each of our schools with the shared knowledge of our network. The results will be presented at the General Assembly, where we will discuss all the details of the new statutes and the outcome of the strategy with the members at the (online) General Assembly to be held at the beginning of April. You will receive a separate invitation for this.

With promising vaccines becoming available, we hope that the current crisis will be finished soon and we will be able to meet each other again at our next congress in beautiful Santiago de Compostela (Spain) in November 2021.

More than ever,for the new year the most important thing to wish for, is “HEALTH”

Wellbeing for each one of us, our families and friends and for our schools!

Please, take care and stay safe.

On behalf of the EUHOFA International Board,

Sincerely,