HOTREC, the umbrella association representing European hotels, restaurants, bars and cafés, has held its 92nd General Assembly under the banner of strengthening the competitiveness and resilience of the European hospitality sector.

The assembly brings together HOTREC's member associations from across Europe, including national hospitality bodies such as the Irish hospitality federations that relay the group's positions to their domestic markets. HOTREC's national associations collectively represent hundreds of thousands of hospitality businesses across the continent, from independent restaurateurs to major hotel operators.

The meeting's stated theme — competitiveness and resilience — reflects the two pressures European operators face most directly. Competitiveness covers the cost base: energy prices, labour costs, VAT treatment and the regulatory burden flowing from Brussels. Resilience covers the sector's capacity to absorb shocks, a concern that has shaped HOTREC advocacy since the pandemic and the subsequent energy crisis.

What does the assembly mean for operators?

General assemblies at HOTREC set the association's working agenda. Positions adopted or debated at the 92nd session feed directly into the organisation's lobbying toward the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the EU.

For hoteliers and caterers, that translates into advocacy on the files that decide their margins:

• VAT rates applied to accommodation and food service, where HOTREC has long pushed for member-state flexibility to apply reduced rates
• labour and skills shortages, which the association identifies among the sector's top constraints on growth
• the EU regulatory pipeline, where hospitality-specific impact assessments remain a standing HOTREC demand
• digital regulation affecting distribution channels and online booking practices

Why the Irish angle matters

Irish Hotel News carried the assembly's outcome because HOTREC positions flow through to national policy debates. Irish operators face the same cost structures — energy, labour, insurance and taxation — that the European body raises in Brussels, and coordinated European positions give smaller national associations more leverage than unilateral lobbying.

HOTREC has repeatedly argued that hospitality, as one of Europe's largest employers and a pillar of tourism economies, needs explicit recognition in EU competitiveness policy rather than treatment as a marginal services sector.

What happens next?

The 92nd General Assembly's themes will guide HOTREC's submissions to EU institutions in the coming legislative cycle, with member associations now carrying the agreed positions into national-level engagement on VAT, staffing and regulatory cost. The next assembly will test whether the sector's resilience agenda has translated into measurable relief for operators.