Georges Panayotis

Infobox Person
name = Georges Panayotis

caption =
birth_date = birth date and age|1955|2|9
birth_place =
death_date =
death_place =
other_names =
known_for = Tourism, Hospitality & Hotel Industry
occupation = Founder, Chairman & CEO of MKG
nationality = French/Greek
children = Vanguelis, Alexis, Emno

Georges Panayotis is a French/Greek businessman and consultant for the tourism, hotel and hospitality industries. He has contributed to establishing more than 2,500 hotels (150,000 hotel rooms) in France and throughout Europe, representing a global investment of over 10.5 billion euros.

Early Life

Born into a family of hoteliers, Georges Panayotis left Greece at the age of 18 to study Political Science and earn a management degree at the University of Paris, Dauphine. Panayotis began his professional career at Novotel, now part of the Accor Group and rose through the ranks to become International Marketing Director. Having developed specialised marketing and management tools for the hotel industry, Panayotis left the group in 1986 to establish a company, now considered one of the world’s foremost tourism, hotel and hospitality consulting agency.

Business career

Over the past 20 years, Panayotis has led MKG Conseil, now known as the MKG Group. As of 2008, the company has over 90 employees across Europe and the Middle East, specialising in four core activities: market surveys, quality control, database management, and industry press. In 2006, the company’s turnover equalled 12 million euro and was ranked 1st in France, specialising in marketing and the tourism industry, and ranked 20th in the national classification of the top 100 market research institutes by Marketing Magazine.

Public career

Panayotis is constantly involved with a number of extracarricular and public activities. He has helped launch industry publications "HTR Magazine" and "Hôtel Restau", and has created two major annual events: Worldwide Hospitality Awards and the Global Lodging Forum. Meanwhile, his published work include "Constat et Plan Marketing" (Marketing Status and Planning), "Marketing Opérationnel des Services" (Operational Marketing of Services), and "L'hôtellerie française et son évolution" (The Hotel Industry in France and its evolution).

Other endorsements include:

* Professor at the ACCOR Academy in Evry, France and Lecturer at University of Marne la Vallée, social sciences, tourism and leisure.
* Consultant for several radio (France Inter, Radio Classique and BFM) and television stations focussing on the economy, travel and hospitality industry.
* Sitting on the advisory panel for the Minister of the Economy, Industry and Employment (France).
* Candidate in the 13ème circonscription for the 15e (Saint-Lambert, Javel) arrondissement elections in 1988.
* Official National Distinctions Medals: Chevalier dans l’Ordre de la Légion d’Honneur and Chevalier dans l’Ordre National du Mérite.

ee also

*Hospitality
*Tourism
*Hotels

External links

* [http://www.hospitalityawards.com Worlwide Hospitality Awards]
* [http://www.globallodgingforum.com Global Lodging Forum]
* [http://www.georges-panayotis.com Georges-Panayotis.com]