Hope for Lebanon’s hospitality sector

Shortly after the 21st edition of HORECA, Lebanon’s largest food and beverage conference, Executive sat down with Joummana Dammous Salame, Managing Director at Hospitality Services sarl to discuss HORECA, the hospitality sector over the past three years and upcoming trends.    Could you briefly describe the highlights and major events of HORECA 2014? It was a beautiful show! We had a bit fewer exhibitors than we did last year — around 335 in total — but in the same size space so it was more spread out and comfortable. We had more events and competitions this year though, with 19 competition categories at the Hospitality Salon Culinaire including the Live Lebanese Sweets, Live Pastry and the Junior Chef competitions for the students of the culinary and hospitality universities in Lebanon. There were some new additions to the competitions this year such as the Lebanese Barista Competition, the Best Burger Competition (which is