Laurent Delporte presents the EquipHotel Luxury Trail 2026 Trophy by DELPORTE HOSPITALITY to Birdies Villa, the hotel for birds

Each year, the Luxury Trail highlights, through one selected exhibitor, a value it stands for across the whole profession: in 2026, bringing guests closer to nature

Today, Tuesday 3 November 2026, on the main stage of Hall 7.3 at the EQUIPHOTEL show (Paris Expo Porte de Versailles), Laurent Delporte, creator of the EquipHotel Luxury Trail by DELPORTE HOSPITALITY and of its trophy, presented the prize to Birdies Villa, a maker of bird habitats designed for hotel gardens. Each year the Luxury Trail selects exhibitors from the show, and its trophy highlights, through one of them, a value Laurent Delporte wishes to carry to the profession.

"What I liked about Birdies Villa is the way this project brings nature back into the guest experience. A hotel can offer a refuge to birds and let its guests hear them sing or discover the life of a nest with their children. Birdsong in the morning can do you good. These simple moments bring guests closer to nature and contribute to their well-being."Laurent Delporte, creator of the Luxury Trail

"Our project is to make every Birdies Villa a meeting point between an establishment, its visitors and the living world. Beyond offering a habitat to birds, the aim is to make the public want to observe them, understand them better and take part in protecting them."Guillaume Courtois, creator of Birdies Villa

"The Luxury Trail is a trend accelerator: by highlighting a product or a way of doing things before it becomes obvious, it helps the hotel industry move forward and gives the exhibitor a head start."Laurent Delporte

At every edition, the trophy carries a message to the profession

In 2024, Laurent Delporte honoured the Académie scientifique de beauté for the generosity it has shown for several generations in its relationship with its clients: generosity is one of the strong values of its commercial policy and of the way it develops the business.

In 2026, for this 4th edition, he chose Birdies Villa to show how a hotel can act for the living world and turn that gesture into an experience for its guests.

A small camera, available as an option and placed inside the nest box, makes it possible to follow the life of the birds. The hotel can broadcast the images on a screen in the lobby or the breakfast room: children and their parents watch the birds coming and going, or feeding their young. It is a moment to share, a way of reconnecting with nature and of better understanding what lives around the hotel.

"To welcome is to give of oneself to others and to take care of the person welcomed. Let us never forget that the Earth is the first to welcome us. She gives us what we need to feed, house and clothe ourselves. It is our turn to protect the one who welcomes us and the living world she shelters: that is the very meaning of hospitality."Laurent Delporte

Generous hospitality®: what Birdies Villa brings to it

Generous hospitality® is Laurent Delporte's method for designing a hotel's guest experience: where service meets an expectation, it creates a lasting emotion. It rests on three keys: a sense of place, human connection and guest well-being. Birdies Villa answers each of them concretely:

• A sense of place. An architectural habitat, handmade in Haute-Savoie, which expresses the identity of the place from the moment of arrival, protects the environment and the living world, and turns the garden into an inhabited space.
• Human connection. Watching birds is something you share: parents and children, teams, around a common project.
• Well-being. Birdsong in the morning, the life of a nest to observe: simple, soothing moments that reconnect guests with nature.

"A gesture for the living world becomes an experience: guests talk about it, children remember it, teams are proud of it. A hotel's generosity towards nature comes back to it in the form of well-being and loyalty."Laurent Delporte

This attention to place and people echoes the theme of the show, plural hospitality. It also concerns suppliers. When reviewing applications, Laurent Delporte asked each company what it was doing in terms of sustainable development and social responsibility. Those that reported no action were not selected. Every company can act at its own scale, by committing to a local project or by designing products that give hotels the means to act in turn.

Birdies Villa, a bird habitat designed like a hotel

The Villa model has 17 "rooms" for small and medium-sized birds (robin, tits, nuthatch, black redstart, grey wagtail). Dedicated modules also house bats and insects. Installed since 2021 in France and across Europe, these habitats equip hotels such as Le Chamois d'Or in Cordon (Haute-Savoie) and the Hôtel Restaurant & Spa Julien in Fouday (Alsace).

• Handcrafted in Haute-Savoie. Guillaume Courtois and his team make the habitats by hand. Part of the production is carried out with an ESAT (a work-based support establishment) that supports people with disabilities.
• Certified wood and workshop maintenance. The habitats are made of PEFC-certified Douglas fir. The mast rests on a steel base, with no concrete foundation. Workshop maintenance is provided from the fifth anniversary.
• Support for the LPO. Visitor interactions can trigger micro-donations to the Ligue pour la protection des oiseaux (the French bird protection league), fully funded by Birdies Villa.

"The establishment thus offers its guests more than a beautiful object in its gardens: a meaningful experience, turned towards others and the living world, where the visitor's curiosity becomes genuinely useful to its protection."Guillaume Courtois, creator of Birdies Villa

The EquipHotel Luxury Trail by DELPORTE HOSPITALITY

Conceived in 2018 by Laurent Delporte, founder of DELPORTE HOSPITALITY (a hospitality consulting and expertise firm), together with the EQUIPHOTEL show, the EquipHotel Luxury Trail by DELPORTE HOSPITALITY is a personal selection, a visitor's guide to exhibitors and a trend notebook for the luxury and prestige hotel industry. For this 4th edition, after 2018, 2022 and 2024, Laurent Delporte personally reviewed more than 170 applications and selected 130. At about 15 minutes per application, that represents more than 42 hours of analysis, or more than five eight-hour days. Applying is free and reserved for exhibitors. Three criteria, the same for everyone:

• The real benefit of the offer for guests and teams, in the high-end and luxury sector.
• A genuine approach to excellence, with product quality, tailor-made work and attention to detail, backed by references in hotels, spas, residences and venues that welcome the public.
• Concrete actions in sustainable development, social responsibility and environmental protection.

For exhibitors, it is a way to showcase their products and the trends they carry to the hoteliers visiting the show. Winners receive the official signage for their stand, a reusable logo for their communications, and a feature in DELPORTE HOSPITALITY Magazine, on Laurent Delporte's social networks, in his newsletter sent to more than 10,000 professionals, and during his talks at the show.

"For an exhibitor, being selected means being recommended by someone who knows the field. Hoteliers save time, meetings are better qualified, and conversations turn into concrete projects faster."Laurent Delporte

Since 2018, more than 400 exhibitors have been labelled. Discover the 2026 winners: delporte-hospitality.com/en/parcours-luxe

"My 25 years in the hotel industry feed my intuition and allow me to spot, in a product or a service, a hotel use that its supplier had sometimes not envisaged. I like to reveal that potential, to show how an offer can take on another meaning in a hotel and open new perspectives for its creators, drawing on my concrete knowledge of the sector's needs."Laurent Delporte

"I also take great pleasure in finding again, from one edition of the Luxury Trail to the next, EquipHotel exhibitors who have developed their product, their packaging or the way they present their offer to hoteliers."Laurent Delporte

Laurent Delporte's quotes published in this release may be freely reused in any communication.

Practical information

EQUIPHOTEL Paris, 2 to 5 November 2026, Paris Expo Porte de Versailles. Birdies Villa: stand P7.1-P030, birdiesvilla.com. DELPORTE HOSPITALITY: Hall 7.3, stand B029.

About Laurent Delporte

A Corporate Hospitality Expert, Laurent Delporte has 25 years of experience in luxury hotels, notably within the Accor group. Founder of DELPORTE HOSPITALITY and a graduate of HEC Paris, he advises, trains and speaks at conferences in French and English, and runs DELPORTE HOSPITALITY Magazine, which celebrates its 15th anniversary in 2026: an article every five days, in French and English, read in more than 30 countries.

A partner of EQUIPHOTEL for more than ten years, he conceived the Chambre ORIGINE in 2016, before creating the Luxury Trail. He is recognised as an international speaker:

• Top Luxury Speakers of the World, an award from the World Luxury Chamber of Commerce (the luxury chamber of commerce in the United States, New York), for the second consecutive year in 2025;
• Top 100 Digital Leaders in Hospitality, a ranking by the International Hospitality Institute and Global Hospitality Magazine.

Laurent Delporte is also invited by schools such as HEC and Sup de Luxe to speak.

About DELPORTE HOSPITALITY

DELPORTE HOSPITALITY supports hotels, luxury brands and service companies in creating unique experiences for their guests, employees and partners: hospitality consulting and diagnostics, hospitality strategy and charters, training and coaching, keynotes and leadership seminars.