We were pleasantly surprised to have been spontaneously contacted by the fledgling Hospitality.brussels team, who welcomed us to their offices. We benefited from two pairs of ears attentive to our project. Following this meeting, we benefited from relevant contacts with other professionals in the sector. We now feel supported in the relationship and questions inherent to the development of our atypical project.

We would like to thank Véronique and Siham for helping us enormously, by analysing our business plan in great depth and providing us with numerous tips on how to improve it. It was real added value to receive advice from professionals in the tourism sector, who understand the workings of this business sector and know the issues involved. We can now approach our various partners with confidence.

The Hospitality Cluster is an excellent network for sharing knowledge and best practices. It allows me to exchange ideas with different sectors knowing that we all have the same aim: “to improve the customer’s experience during their stay in Brussels”. The Hospitality Cluster organises conferences and workshops that help us to perform better in our work.

The marketing approach I propose for the sector is, needless to say, based on an analysis of the habits and needs of its existing and targeted clientele. Any creativity in future actions (local partnerships, digital presence, etc.) will be meaningless and ineffective unless it is targeted and adapted.

The hotel sector in Brussels is a very large one. In addition to hotels, aparthotels and B&Bs, there are numerous other actors such as collaborative websites, estate agents, independent service providers, and start-ups like Guidewiser which are linked to this sector. The Hospitality Cluster will bring all of these actors together, promoting exchanges between us and boosting the appeal of Brussels as a destination.

In the months following the terrorist attacks of 22 March 2016, impulse.brussels provided valuable support for Explore.Brussels. (...) Thanks to this expert, which I highly recommend, we were able to work on ways of finding new funding sources. The result has been very positive, since a new source of funding has allowed us to increase the annual available budget by 3%. Pursuing this method in the coming months should help us find new sources of funding for the future. Thank you Impulse and bravo on your choice of experts!

How do you think the hospitality cluster can support your business? Support from the hospitality cluster has the potential to be a significant source of growth for a project like Pristin Sellier. SMEs need support in the form of advice and financial assistance to find partnerships. Pristin Sellier is a fantastic project which requires a thorough understanding of the Horeca market and numerous partnerships in order to be successful. The hospitality cluster will, in my opinion, be very helpful for improving companies’ market understanding and approach, enabling them to transform projects into ventures that can generate employment and growth.

Impulse has been a considerable help with a number of legal issues. We had to create the company very quickly so that we could respond to a call for proposals which fitted our business very well. Thanks to Impulse, we were able to gather all the information we needed to establish a private limited company quickly and properly. We were also able to find out about the different types of financial assistance available in the Brussels region. On top of that, we received support with day-to-day management issues, registering with the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises, looking for calls for proposals and responding to them in a timely and proper fashion.