Christian Lainer is a co-founder and managing director of Companion Hospitality, the Vienna group behind The Companion Vienna, Superbude Wien, Boca and NENI am Prater. With three partners he runs a business of 150 employees and around €20 million in revenue, and is currently preparing to cross the Atlantic by sailboat.

Keynote // The Hotel Company That Doesn't Make Sense

We met as interns at a hotel consulting firm. Years later we opened our first hotel in the middle of a pandemic, when nobody was travelling. Today we run two hotels with over 300 rooms, two full restaurants, a café and two bars in Vienna, built on choices most people advised against. This is the story of how a few former interns built a hotel company that doesn't make sense, and why that might be exactly why it works.