Bio

Maria Puetz-Willems is the founder and editor-in-chief of hospitalityInside.com, a bilingual (German-English) online trade magazine for the international hotel industry. The editorial topics also shape offline events such as networking events, conferences and workshops. www.hospitalityInside.com was launched in March 2005 and publishes weekly. Readers are the top managers of international hotel operations (chains and upscale private hotels), executives from real estate, investment and project development in more than 20 countries. hospitalityInside.com is published free of advertisements, news, extensive features and background stories are based on own research. Maria is a classically trained editor (daily paper and trade magazine). Prior to starting hospitalityInside, she has worked as a freelancer for 16 years contributing to leading hotel trade publications, financial and lifestyle media in Germany, Switzerland and the UK; she travelled to more than 40 countries in these years. In October 2002, she published her first book as co-author about spa concepts and the profitability of spas (''Wellness + Wirtschaft - professionell und profitabel''). Aside from her journalistic work, Maria has been initiating international conferences and networking events. In 2004, she started the first ''Forum Wellness'' at the world's biggest tourism show ITB Berlin, to be followed by the hotel conference ''ITB Hospitality Day'' for 12 years (from 2006 to 2017), both on behalf of ITB Berlin. Since 2008, she has been organising the panels at the hotel conference ''Hospitality Industry Dialogue'' at Europe's leading trade show for property and investment, Expo Real. She is also a frequent moderator at events in Germany and abroad.