Hospitality Culture Institute is a European research and leadership platform for food culture, hospitality and the experience economy.
Hospitality is where the economy meets the human being.
Hospitality Culture Institute produces original research, convenes senior decision-makers, develops entrepreneurs and builds trusted standards for an industry that shapes how people live, work, connect and create value.
- Founded in 2017
- Annual research since 2017
- 6 integrated platforms
- Romania · Central and Eastern Europe · Europe
Institutional markers
Flagship publication
Food & Hospitality Culture Outlook 2027
Executive edition · October 2026
HCI research and perspectives from industry leaders, brought together to inform decisions on consumption, service and hospitality business models in 2027.
- Date
- Presentation: 6 October 2026
- Publisher
- Published by Hospitality Culture Institute
01 · On this site
Seven routes through the Institute.
Each route leads to a full section with its own evidence, methodology and entry points.
Innovation & Growth
Business development, validation and sector-smart capital.
02 · Why HCI exists
Hospitality carries the weight of everyday economic life.
Restaurants, hotels, cafés, food brands and service platforms form social and economic infrastructure. They shape cities, lifestyles, health, employment, leadership and trust.
HCI strengthens this field through evidence, strategic dialogue, entrepreneurial development and professional standards.
We study structural change, convene leadership and build knowledge designed for long-term decisions.
- Evidence
- Annual studies track market value, consumer behaviour, pricing and experience across the major urban markets.
- Strategic dialogue
- Senior operators interpret the evidence and add the operational context that turns data into judgement.
- Entrepreneurial development
- Founders and teams convert market needs into companies with clear routes to market.
- Professional standards
- A credible peer process records excellence and keeps it available as a public reference.
03 · Mission, vision and values
One institutional purpose, expressed in three commitments.
Mission
To advance food culture and hospitality as strategic forces for sustainable economic growth, professional excellence and human-centered value creation.
Vision
To become Europe's leading research and thought leadership platform for hospitality, food culture and the experience economy.
Values
- Authenticity
- Meaningful progress begins with intellectual honesty and direct contact with reality.
- Relevance
- HCI develops knowledge for decisions, grounded in research, professional practice and long-term observation.
- Integrity
- HCI aligns its actions with its beliefs, public positions and responsibilities.
Geographic framing
- 01RomaniaOrigin market
- 02Central and Eastern EuropeDevelopment area
- 03EuropeInstitutional ambition
04 · Institutional operating system
Six functions, one continuous loop.
Knowledge → dialogue → solutions → validation → capital → standards → knowledge
Research identifies structural changes and market needs. Leadership conversations add operational context. The Accelerator develops companies and solutions. F&B Business Camp validates ideas with the market. FoodAngels connects qualified opportunities with sector-smart investors. Romanian Hospitality Awards turns demonstrated excellence into a public professional reference. Every lesson strengthens the next research cycle.
Every cycle returns to research.
Every cycle returns to research.
Function 01 · 06
Measure
Hospitality Culture Research Center
- Institutional role
- The evidence function of the Institute, running annual studies that stay comparable across years.
- Method
- Quantitative studies repeated annually across the major urban markets, with declared sampling, collection and indicator construction.
- Outputs
- Usage & Attitudes
- Consumer Behaviour
- Coffee Research
- Custom Research
- HoReCa Census
- Audience
- Corporate teams, foodservice operators, investors, institutions and public decision-makers.
- Proof
- RON 24.5 billion Food & Drinks market analysed across Bucharest, Timișoara, Cluj-Napoca, Iași, Brașov.
05 · Research evidence
Annual research since 2017, built for comparability.
The Hospitality Culture Research Center measures the market with the same instruments year after year, so operators and investors read change with confidence.
- Food & Drinks market analysed
- RON 24.5 billion
- Restaurant users reporting less-frequent visits
- 50%
- Perceived optimum restaurant meal price
- RON 99
- Consumers who prefer upfront communication about service delays
- 68%
Bucharest, Timișoara, Cluj-Napoca, Iași and Brașov
N=707 · Consumer Behavior, December 2025
Source: HCI Research 2026
Public portfolio
- 01Usage & Attitudes
- 02Consumer Behaviour
- 03Coffee Research
- 04Custom Research
- 05HoReCa Census
Commercial pathways
- Public executive summaries
- Paid research reports
- Corporate access
- Custom research
Trusted by leading corporate and foodservice companies active across a significant share of the Romanian market.
From research to decisions
How companies use HCI research.
Three confirmed applications reported to HCI in 2026.
Profi
Business question: How large is the foodservice opportunity around the Gastro offer?
- Research use: Market data on restaurants, fast food and delivery informed a strategy review.
- Organisational change: The Gastro strategy frame widened to the full foodservice universe: restaurants, fast food and delivery.
City Grill
Business question: Which service moments shape the guest experience most?
- Research use: Findings on experience and waiting times informed service and training priorities.
- Organisational change: Service, training and customer-experience priorities were revised, including proactive communication of waiting times.
Jerry’s Pizza
Business question: How should communication differ by city and ordering channel?
- Research use: City and channel data shaped the communication priorities.
- Organisational change: Communication priorities and briefs became differentiated by city and ordering channel.
Applications reported and confirmed to HCI in 2026; changes in decision criteria and working processes. Financial effects were not measured in these cases.
See all six applications06 · Six institutional platforms
Each platform performs one function and feeds the next.
The six platforms share one research base and one professional community, and each keeps its own governance.
Hospitality Culture Research Center
Comparable evidence for decisions that span years.
The Research Center runs annual quantitative studies on market value, consumption, pricing, experience and loyalty, and delivers custom intelligence for corporate teams.
- Annual research since 2017
- RON 24.5 billion market analysed
- Five public research products
Intimate Roundtable Conversations
Market evidence gains depth through direct leadership experience.
Eight curated editions each year seat 50 senior participants for a two-hour discussion under the Chatham House Rule, followed by networking.
- 8 editions annually
- 50 participants per edition
- Anonymised Roundtable Brief
F&B Business Accelerator
From January 2027: six months of structured support with continuous enrolment.
The 2027 programme will combine Business Diagnostic, Founder Coaching, Specialist Mentoring and Expert Sprints for up to three founders per startup.
- Continuous enrolment from January 2027
- Nine Expert Sprints and a European Cohort in 2027
- Cohorts 15–17: 33 startup teams (September 2025–May 2026)
F&B Business Camp
Insight, experience and solutions meet the market in a three-day field lab.
The annual field lab and industry convergence platform of HCI, where ideas meet operators, investors and guests in real conditions.
- 24–26 May 2027
- Alma Health Center, Lacul Sărat
- 160+ participants at the previous edition
FoodAngels Hub
Sector-smart capital for operational food businesses in South-Eastern Europe.
An investment community associated with the HCI ecosystem. Investors evaluate opportunities and each investor decides individually.
- HCI acts as scouting partner
- Investment decisions taken by investors
- South-Eastern Europe
Romanian Hospitality Awards 2026
A credible peer process turns excellence into a public professional reference.
Twenty-four categories, a jury of 164 professionals and a public winners archive that records the standards the industry recognises.
- 24 categories
- 164 jury members
- 20 October 2026 · Bucharest National Opera
- Under the High Patronage of Her Majesty Margareta, Custodian of the Romanian Crown.
- Auditor of the jury process: Țuca Zbârcea & Asociații.
07 · Outputs and insights
Everything the Institute learns becomes a published reference.
Six collections carry the institutional record, each with source labels, publication dates and citation guidance.
Research Reports
Full annual studies with methodology, sample structure and longitudinal comparison.
HCI Market Signals
Short, citable indicators released between annual studies, each with its source label.
Roundtable Briefs
Anonymised syntheses of each Intimate Roundtable Conversation, with emerging signals and industry implications.
Innovation Cases
Documented company journeys from diagnostic through validation, pilots and market entry.
Excellence Archive
The public record of Romanian Hospitality Awards winners, categories and jury processes.
Food & Hospitality Culture Outlook 2027
Executive edition · October 2026. Presentation: 6 October 2026. Published by Hospitality Culture Institute.
Each collection arrives with source labels, publication dates and citation guidance.
Open the Insights section08 · Governance and independence
Independence stays structural.
HCI works with operators, suppliers, investors and institutions through a governance model that protects intellectual independence. Research priorities, conclusions, awards processes and institutional positions follow dedicated methodologies and decision frameworks. Commercial partnerships support access, programmes and implementation while each institutional function retains its own governance.
- 01Independent institutional governance
- 02Transparent methodology
- 03Dedicated decision frameworks for research, partnerships, awards and investment activity
Institutional trust
Trust grows through relationships, clear roles and independent processes.
Since 2017 HCI has built trusted relationships with public institutions, the Romanian Royal Family, professional organisations and governance partners. These relationships keep the independence of the Institute verifiable.
Institutional recognition
The first Elisabeta Palace Evening dedicated to HCI and Romanian hospitality.
On 30 March 2026, His Royal Highness Prince Radu, on behalf of Her Majesty Margareta, Custodian of the Romanian Crown, hosted in the Hall of Kings the Elisabeta Palace Evening dedicated to Hospitality Culture Institute. Elisabeta Palace hosted an afternoon dedicated to hospitality for the first time, a moment HCI records as Romanian Hospitality Day at Elisabeta Palace.
A new page is being written in the centuries-old history shared by Romanian hospitality and the Romanian Crown.
Royal patronage
Romanian Hospitality Awards runs under the High Patronage of Her Majesty Margareta, Custodian of the Romanian Crown.
Royal patronage belongs to the institutional identity and legitimacy of the Awards, and stays separate from commercial partnership benefits.
Institutional sector building
Founder of the HORA and FPIOR employers' organisations
Hospitality Culture Institute founded HORA and FPIOR, two employers' organisations created to represent the hospitality sector. Today HCI holds no executive role and keeps no formal representation in the governing structures of the two organisations. This separation preserves the current independence of the Institute from employer governance.
Institutional history · ecosystem building capacity
Public dialogue
Standing relationship with the Presidential Administration
HCI maintains a standing institutional dialogue with the Presidential Administration on the development of Romanian hospitality programmes.
Institutional dialogue · hospitality programmes · long-term perspective
Three categories of trust, kept separate
Each category carries its own role. Keeping them apart preserves an accurate reading of every relationship.
- Institutional recognition and relationships
- The Royal Family, the Presidential Administration and public institutions recognise the work of the Institute and sustain dialogue on sector topics.
- Historic contribution to sector building
- HCI founded HORA and FPIOR and today keeps a complete separation from the leadership of those organisations.
- Commercial partnerships
- Commercial partners support specific programmes and appear separately, on programme pages and in transparency reporting.
Testimonials
Voices of the ecosystem
A selection from testimonials published across the HCI platforms.
An institute like this is welcome in Romania. A growing industry endures through continuous education.
Translated from Romanian
Read the original
Un astfel de institut este binevenit în România. O industrie în creștere rezistă în timp prin educație continuă.
Mihai Bârsan
Storymaker, Brandelier.biz
Hospitality Culture Institute
SourceOpens the platform in a new tabF&B Business Accelerator gave us the most valuable networking resource we have had so far.
Translated from Romanian
Read the original
F&B Business Accelerator ne-a oferit cea mai valoroasă resursă de networking de până acum.
Mentoring, brainstorming and constant feedback shed light on the real problems of a team.
Translated from Romanian
Read the original
Mentoratul, brainstormingul și feedbackul constant pun lumină pe problemele reale ale unei echipe.
The Accelerator exceeded my expectations and I recommend it with confidence.
Translated from Romanian
Read the original
Acceleratorul mi-a depășit așteptările și îl recomand cu încredere.
09 · Impact
A measurable institutional footprint.
Programme activity and community figures are self-reported by HCI. Media figures come from independent monitoring in 2025.
- Founded in
- 2017
- Annual research since
- 2017
- Integrated platforms
- 6
- Events annually · self-reported
- 20+
- Direct professional contacts annually · self-reported
- 2,000+
- Community members across online platforms and databases · self-reported
- 50,000+
- Peak monthly reach
- 500,000+
- Professional database contacts
- 5,000
Audience composition
- C-level executives48.8%
- Entrepreneurs24.4%
- Chefs12.2%
- Investors7.3%
- Media7.3%
National reach centred on Romania's major urban markets.
10 · Media impact
Public visibility that carries the evidence further.
Independent monitoring records how widely the Institute's research and positions travel through Romanian media.
- Media appearances in 2025
- 920
- Appearances per month
- ≈77
- Radio and online editorial
- 73%
- Estimated cumulative reach
- 220–250 million
- Estimated media value
- EUR 600,000+
- Share of annual visibility produced in Q4
- ≈45%
Source: HCI Media Impact Report 2025 · Monitoring provider: Klarmedia
October represented the annual peak.
Open the Media section11 · User pathways
Enter through the need you carry today.
Seven pathways route your request to the person who owns it, with a clear response window.
Request a research brief
Corporate teams and institutions describe a decision and receive the available evidence plus a scope for custom work.
Apply for a business diagnostic
Founders share their venture and receive a structured diagnostic with a development route.
Apply for a roundtable seat
Senior operators join an edition of the Intimate Roundtable Conversations under the Chatham House Rule.
Join FoodAngels as an investor
Private investors access qualified dealflow and collective evaluation sessions.
Submit a company to FoodAngels
Operational food businesses with filed financial statements enter the dealflow review.
Open an institutional partnership
Associations, universities, public institutions and corporate partners build programmes with HCI.
Send a media inquiry
Journalists receive data with source labels, institutional positions and interview access.
12 · Agenda
The institutional calendar ahead.
Public milestones across research, leadership, validation and recognition.
6 October 2026
HCI Private Evening · presentation of the Outlook 2027 and the 2027 programme
Commons Româna · by invitation · Institutional
20 October 2026
Romanian Hospitality Awards 2026 Gala
Bucharest National Opera · Excellence
27 October 2026
The new hotel business model
Intimate Roundtable Conversations — Think Tank · Leadership
23–27 May 2027
European Cohort · five-day Accelerator programme
Around F&B Business Camp · Programme