Hip – Horeca Professional Expo, which will be held at BolognaFiere from October 19 to 21, 2026, marking its first edition in Italy, has officially opened registration.

The event aims to become the new reference point for the hospitality industry in Italy and is expected to attract over 10,000 Horeca professionals, who will be able to discover the most advanced solutions that are driving the sector’s transformation.

The exhibition area will host more than 300 companies and offer a comprehensive overview of the industry’s leading innovations, designed to meet the new demands of a constantly evolving market and to provide concrete tools for improving businesses’ competitiveness, efficiency, and profitability.

A central part of the event will be the Hospitality 4.0 Congress, the largest international forum dedicated to trends and innovation in the Horeca sector, which will bring together over 400 speakers and feature more than 20 vertical summits. The congress program will address the key challenges that are redefining the sector, starting with management and business profitability, with in-depth discussions on revenue management, food costs, and scalable organizational models. Ample attention will also be given to the topics of human capital, leadership, and corporate culture, with a focus on talent development and companies’ ability to attract and retain professionals in a market characterized by a growing shortage of qualified personnel.

Other key themes of the Italian edition include artificial intelligence and digitalization, innovation and new business models, customer experience and design as distinctive factors, social and corporate sustainability, and strategies for growth, brand development, and the scalability of business models.

Manuel Bueno, director of Hip Italia, explains that “The opening of registration marks an important milestone for Hip’s debut in Italy. We want to offer the industry a place for meeting and exchange where entrepreneurs and professionals can find inspiration, knowledge, and practical tools to tackle the major transformations currently underway. Hip was founded with the ambition of supporting the evolution of the hospitality industry toward increasingly innovative, sustainable, and competitive models, placing people, ideas, and the value of networking at the center.”