Biography of Laurent Delporte

The B2B magazine of generous hospitality® · 180+ articles published since 2011 · 10k newsletter subscribers

Twenty-five years in the field, visiting the finest houses in the world and advising the executive committees that run them, I have been building one vision: generous hospitality as a strategic lever for performance.

Laurent Delporte

LAURENT DELPORTE, MORE THAN 25 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE

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About Laurent Delporte

Before hospitality, there was the passion for welcoming. From his school years and right through university, Laurent Delporte co-founded the French section of the European Youth Parliament and organised gatherings bringing together delegations from across Europe: making sure every one of them felt expected, understood, and left with something. The art of welcoming, practised out of passion long before it became a profession.

His training, next, is that of a strategist. At HEC Paris, where he earned the HEC Entrepreneurs master, he learned strategy and to put the client at the centre of every question. It is also where he began his career: the student experience journey, communications, and building the alumni community. Caring for a journey and bringing a community together, his profession was already there. He would later return to teach the fundamentals of luxury hospitality at the Summer Camp and to the students of the LVMH chair, and taught at Sup de Luxe, at Skema and at École Ferrières, where he created the master in Hospitality, Luxury and Innovation.

Then came the field. Accor approached him for his fresh perspective, then trained him by throwing him straight in: a fast tour of every operational role in a hotel, one after another, and every challenge that comes with it. Strategic positions followed, up to International Brand Manager for Sofitel: brand repositioning, service standards, dialogue with architects and leaders.

Those years eventually come together into one conviction. Laurent Delporte gives it a name: generous hospitality®. A sense of place, human connection, guest well-being. Three levers born on the ground rather than in a theory, that hold wherever a human relationship is at stake, from hotels to healthcare, from banking to retail.

Because hospitality is not only for those who make a living from it. Everyone is welcomed somewhere, and everyone welcomes someone: a client, a patient, a colleague joining the team, a neighbour, a friend. Which is why this vision speaks, in truth, to everyone.

Since 2004, he has supported leaders, executive teams and staff on every continent: field audits, strategic consulting, training and keynotes.

In 2011, he created the DELPORTE HOSPITALITY Magazine, the leading B2B editorial reference in hospitality in France, now read by more than 10,000 professionals.

Ranked Top 10 hospitality influencers worldwide (International Hospitality Institute) and Top Luxury Speaker of the World (World Luxury Chamber of Commerce, 2025).

"What makes hospitality powerful is the generosity and warmth of those who practise it."

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About the magazine

The essentials in five lines

Founded in 2011 by Laurent Delporte, expert in luxury hospitality.
The magazine of generous hospitality®, published in French and in English.
A pioneer among hotel editorialists: more than 600 articles written since 2011, a new one every 5 days.
Read in more than 30 countries and across every sector, 10,000 newsletter subscribers.
Only hotels actually visited, only leaders actually met.

Laurent Delporte founded DELPORTE HOSPITALITY Magazine in 2011, at a time when almost no one in luxury hospitality wrote publicly about the profession. More than 600 articles have been written since.

Writing for those who are preparing for tomorrow

Laurent Delporte does not write to describe hotels. He writes to share a strategist’s perspective with the leaders who must prepare their business for the world to come: what guests will expect, what teams will demand, what will make the difference five years from now. The magazine speaks to decision makers.

Hospitality, wider than the hotel industry

One subject has guided it from day one: hospitality. The word reaches beyond hotels. It covers the art of welcoming, the art of receiving, the attention paid to another person, and everything at play between the one who welcomes and the one who is welcomed.

The French art of welcoming, named before the others

Very early on, Laurent Delporte put the emphasis on the French art of welcoming: elegance, an eye for detail, the relationship with the other person, welcoming someone as a guest rather than as a customer. In 2011, almost no one in the industry was putting words on that savoir-faire.

And the arts of welcoming around the world

France holds no monopoly on welcoming, however, and Laurent Delporte went to see for himself, on the ground. Japanese omotenashi, Senegalese teranga, Italian warmth, American exactingness, Brazilian generosity, Azerbaijani hospitality: every culture has its own art of welcoming. Comparing them teaches far more than setting them against each other, and other countries will follow.

A selection, not a catalogue

The magazine does not display all 600 articles. Laurent kept a selection, year after year, so that readers follow the evolution of a vision. The interviews, for their part, do not age: when a general manager describes their way of welcoming guests, that thinking still holds years later, even if they now run a different house.

Only hotels actually visited

One rule has never changed: Laurent Delporte only writes about hotels he has visited and knows. No press release rewritten, no property described from a desk. What he recounts, he has seen, experienced, and most often discussed with the teams on site.

What readers find inside

My encounters with hospitality leaders, conversations with those who shape exceptional hospitality. My visits to the finest hotels in the world, palace after palace, with an insider breakdown. My strategic analyses, from luxury hospitality to every sector that welcomes clients. And The Selection, a curated set of partners for exceptional hospitality.

Six sections, a new article every 5 days

The art of welcoming, the guest experience, the hospitality of tomorrow, hotel expertise with its field audits and mystery guest reports, architecture, and the employee experience. A new article is published every 5 days, in French and in English.

Decision makers in every sector

The magazine has evolved over the years. It is now read in more than 30 countries by the general managers of hotels, resorts and palaces, by investors and architects, but just as much by leaders in healthcare, service companies, banking, retail, real estate and corporate headquarters. Wherever one human being welcomes another, hospitality becomes a leadership matter.

And the guests of those luxury hotels

They regularly contact Laurent Delporte to ask where they should stay, and describe, in return, the stays they have just experienced, hotel after hotel, journey after journey. Rare material for decoding the guest experience as it is actually lived, rather than as a brochure describes it.

Thank you to those who keep it alive

The general managers, owners, chefs, architects and executives who have agreed to answer since 2011, opening their houses and giving their time. The readers who share their own stays. And the hoteliers, whose loyal support has accompanied the magazine from the start. It would not exist without them.

600+

Articles written since 2011

Hundreds

Of interviews with leaders

5 days

Between two publications

10,000+

Newsletter subscribers

25,000+

Professionals reached

30+

Countries reached

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