Alumni & Student Success in 2022!
"What a year full of winners and recognition of success. We are proud of our HMSM community and can’t wait to see what 2023 will hold."
January is the time to look forward to the New Year, to look for new challenges, opportunities, and possibilities. Nevertheless, let’s look back to 2022 one more time. Let’s reflect on some of the great things our students and alumni achieved last year!
NXT GM & Hotello of the Year
In March the NXT GM competition came to an end with the announcement of the winner. A very special moment, because the top three were all HMSM candidates! Floris Stüssgen, Karlijn van de Wetering and Fleur Hüsken made it to the top three, and one of them would become the NXT GM of Postillion Hotels. The lucky winner was Fleur, who started her new role as GM in September 2022!
In 2022, we had two of our alumni in the running to become Hotello of the Year. Camille Oostwegel and Barbara Kerstens both made it to the top four and made it to the finales. (Keep on reading until the end for some exciting news about the winner of 2023!)
IHAB Winners
Like every year during the Funda Ceremony, a student receives the IHAB Award. The IHAB award is a prize for the one graduate that impressed the most during the final assessment. In this oral exam, students reflect on the development that they have gone through during their years at the hotel school. They present themselves as ‘young professionals’ and show that they are ready for their ‘next step in hospitality’. Every year we have two winners, for each Funda Ceremony. In March, Reginyo Veldwijk received the award, and in September it was Marijn Götzenberger!
FD Talent of the Year
Donja van Laarhoven was listed as FD Talent of the Year in February 2022.
Talent is indispensable to shape the future. That is why the FD (Het Financieele Dagblad) presents an overview of young, enterprising talents every year. With their innovative and distinctive ideas, they help the world move forward. Donja is the Co-founder of Fantistics/Fanployer and listed as one of 50 new promising talents of 2022.
Best Sommelier of the Netherlands
Adriaan Visser won the prestigious award and title of Best Sommelier of the Netherlands in May 2022. The prize is awarded every two years and is the most prestigious award in the field of wine expertise in the Netherlands!
FMN Student Award
In November our alumna Selena Hulsbosch from the Master in Facility & Real Estate Management won the FMN Student Award 2022. The FMN Awards is a recurring event to highlight the work of up-and-coming talent and to bring nominees into contact with the network of the FMN. She won the award with her Master thesis, “Workplace nudging in an activity-based working office”
Badge of Merit
We were delighted to hand out the Badge of Merit four times in 2022. The Badge of Merit is awarded as a tribute to a relation, employee or student who has made exceptional efforts on behalf of the Hotel Management School Maastricht and its community.
Two of our alumni received the badge, and both Rita Kusters as Ad Smits received it when they left the HMSM to enjoy their retirement!
• Nicoline Wisse Smit [F 1994] - for 20 years of editorial work for Fundament and involvement with alumni policies.
• Joelle Verschoor [F 2022] - for initiating, developing and implementing the master class programme (now Excellence Programme)
• Rita Kusters - Manager Specialisations, Minors and Research
• Ad Smits - Dean
Student Competitions
Last but certainly not least, our students competed in different competitions last year. As part of the Excellence Programme, students are able to join several hospitality related competitions during the year.
In March, our students Rebecca Zimmer, Linh Thuy Ho, Maria Andres Senante, Jennifer Engering and Femke Meeuwisse were the delegates of HMSM at the Young Hoteliers Summit (YHS) 2022; The YHS is an annual three-day hospitality summit hosted by EHL Lausanne and is the most influential student-organized hospitality summit on a global scale. Our two teams became 1st and 3rd in the final competition!
In April, we hosted the EM Cup in Maastricht, of which one day took place at the HMSM. Team Pentapreneurs, representing the HMSM, won the Best Pitch Award! 22 schools participated in the 14th edition of the EM Cup. The overall winner of the EM Cup was the Hotel School Leeuwarden. The European Mise en Place Cup is an initiative of HotelloTop and co-created by Mise En Place and HRC International.
And finally in September, Rebecca Zimmer, Maria Andres Senante and Sven Bakker travelled all the way to Dubai to compete in the Finale of the Sustainable Hospitality Challenge
2022. They did not win, but it was an amazing event full of networking opportunities and inspiration nonetheless!
What a year full of winners and recognition of success. We are proud of our HMSM community and can’t wait to see what 2023 will hold. And while this was an overview of last year, we couldn’t end without announcing the first win of 2023; Martin Hendricks became Hotello of the Year 2023 last week during the HotelloTop!
