Press release – source: Delporte Hospitality
Paris, 27 October 2026 – From 2 to 5 November 2026, at Porte de Versailles, the EquipHotel trade show hosts the 4th edition of the Parcours Luxe (after 2018, 2022 and 2024). Laurent Delporte, founder of Delporte Hospitality, personally reviewed every application and selected nearly 130 products and services from among the show’s exhibitors. The Parcours Luxe Trophy will be presented on Tuesday 3 November.
Titled “Imagining the hospitality of tomorrow”, this personal and independent selection aims to serve a more responsible, more human and more demanding hotel industry. The full selection can be viewed and downloaded at delporte-hospitality.com/fr/parcours-luxe.
A personal selection, to stand up for values
The Parcours Luxe is not a product ranking. It is a personal selection, signed by Laurent Delporte, which also serves to defend strong values in the face of the challenges facing the hotel industry:
- Sustainable development and protecting the planet, at the heart of the entry criteria;
- Consistency between intentions and actions, particularly in actions benefiting staff: their health, well-being and working conditions;
- The pursuit of excellence: product quality, personalisation and attention to detail;
- Generous hospitality: a way of welcoming guests that matters, because the welcome makes the difference between an adequate stay and a memorable one.
The Parcours Luxe Trophy extends this ambition. Presented publicly on Tuesday 3 November from 5:15 pm during the show, it embodies generosity, generous hospitality and attention to others. Each year it highlights one of the selection criteria through a theme, to show the hotel sector how important the subject is. In 2024, it went to the Académie scientifique de beauté.
What is at stake: getting to the essentials, looking further
Across 90,000 m² and 1,200 exhibitors, a hotelier, architect or investor has only a few hours to find what will make a difference in their property. The Parcours Luxe is a visitor guide: it points to the solutions that genuinely serve high-end hospitality, and it opens doors for companies that would otherwise remain invisible.
- Reinventing hospitality: showcasing the products and services that move the welcome from standard to tailor-made attention;
- Putting people at the centre: a product is only worth something if it improves the guest experience and the daily life of the teams who use it;
- Making responsibility an entry criterion: no one can serve luxury any longer without thinking about their teams and their environmental footprint;
- Bringing worlds together: large groups, family-run houses, young start-ups, and companies from other fields that bring new ideas to hospitality.
The approach: a selection that cannot be bought
Applying is free and reserved for EquipHotel exhibitors. No place can be bought: only the quality of the application counts, and Laurent Delporte reads it himself, product by product. Three criteria, the same for everyone:
- the real benefit of the product, for the guest and for the teams who use it;
- references that reveal the company’s true positioning (hotels, spas, residences, venues open to the public);
- concrete actions in terms of social responsibility and environmental protection.
Each laureate receives the official Parcours Luxe signage for its stand, a reusable “Parcours Luxe by Delporte Hospitality” logo for all its communications, and promotion in Delporte Hospitality Magazine, on Laurent Delporte’s social networks, in the newsletter sent to more than 10,000 professionals, and during his talks at the show.
What makes Laurent Delporte qualified to choose?
Laurent Delporte travels the world and analyses magnificent hotels to share those experiences in Delporte Hospitality Magazine, a perspective that lets him spot trends and anticipate the hotel industry’s needs before they are voiced. His background is atypical: twenty-five years in luxury hospitality, notably at Accor and Sofitel, followed by expertise in hospitality strategy. He designs hospitality charters for companies and supports them in putting them into practice. He is also an international trainer and speaker, named “Top Luxury Speaker of the World”, and ranked among the 100 most influential people in hospitality worldwide by Global Hospitality Magazine and the International Hospitality Institute.
This year he celebrates the 15th anniversary of Delporte Hospitality Magazine: one article every five days in French and English, with interviews of some of the sector’s most respected leaders and chefs. A partner of the EquipHotel show for more than ten years, he devised the ORIGINE Room in 2016, which brought together some twenty suppliers around a vision of the room of tomorrow, and then, with the show, this Parcours Luxe, launched in 2018.
The calling: sharing what I see, what I feel
For Laurent Delporte, each edition means several weeks immersed in hundreds of applications, followed by three days at the show meeting those who wrote them. He speaks about it in the first person:
“Luxury is not a product category. It is a level of demand around a pursuit of excellence.”
“What moves me is never the product alone. It is the person behind it: a craftsman whose family has carried on for several generations, a young founder who has bet everything on an idea, a team that rethought its working tool because a chambermaid was suffering from back pain. That is what hospitality is: care for others, down to the details nobody sees.”
“What makes hospitality strong is the generosity and conviviality of those who practise it. The Parcours Luxe works the same way: we form a community of companies that share the same values of excellence.”
“The Parcours Luxe is not just a tribute to luxury. It is a commitment to a hospitality that inspires and elevates.”
Beyond luxury: the hospitality of tomorrow
The Parcours Luxe does not bring together only luxury players. It also welcomes companies whose products can serve this market and transform it: bio-based materials, new ways of managing energy, tools to steer food service performance with artificial intelligence, habitats for biodiversity, soft mobility, modular accommodation in the heart of nature. Tomorrow’s luxury will be played out as much on rarity as on sobriety, on beauty as on responsibility.
Among the companies selected in 2026: ABSOLIN (bio-based decorative plaster made from French flax), Birdies Villa (architectural habitat for birds, in partnership with the Ligue pour la protection des oiseaux), Okoto (AI-assisted performance management for food service), Le Bon Tuyau (cooling, heating and hot water for hotels), VACAY (exceptional electric bikes and related experiences), LUMIPOD (modular outdoor accommodation), as well as houses already well known to palace hotels such as Duravit, Vista Alegre, Brintons, Dumas Paris, Yves Delorme Hôtellerie, Winterhalter or Samsung, and signatures from workshops and designers.
Practical information
EquipHotel Paris, 2–5 November 2026, Paris Expo Porte de Versailles. Parcours Luxe Trophy ceremony: Tuesday 3 November. Laurent Delporte can be found on the Delporte Hospitality stand no. B029, hall 7.3. Full selection and download: delporte-hospitality.com/fr/parcours-luxe.
Press contact: Laurent Delporte – [email protected] – www.delporte-hospitality.com
About Delporte Hospitality
Delporte Hospitality supports hotels, luxury brands and service companies in creating unique experiences for their guests, employees and partners: hospitality consulting and diagnostics, hospitality strategy and charters, training and coaching, keynotes and executive seminars. Its founder, Laurent Delporte, speaks at leading schools and trade shows (HEC, EquipHotel…) and is committed to a hospitality with a positive impact on people and the planet.
