In the Fall 2018 semester, a group of Certificate students lead by Rastislav Pavlišin created a winning Sörenberg Concepts project. It all started with Rastislav’s father’s hobby, beekeeping, which he had been doing recreationally for the past three years. This influenced Rastislav to become more interested and aware of how bees are important for the world. That is when the idea sprung up and he wanted to bring this to peoples’ attention.
The group created a concept called “Beehive Garden & Café” and won first place in the Certificate Sörenberg Concepts competition. It was centred on bringing the importance of bees to the forefront. Having a honeycomb shaped building with its own garden and beehives on the rooftop where guests could take tours. Creating also a bee museum with plenty of different facts like ‘’Honeybee can flap its wings 230 times a second’’ and many more. Also having a souvenir shop where after a purchase guests would get a bee themed postcard they could directly send home through our bee post office. Let’s not forget the use of our own honey to create different F&B products for our customers.
During this time Rastislav’s father attended one of the largest Honey competitions in Moscow, Russia with almost 1,000 contestants where he won a gold medal for the best honey in the category of Light Coloured Honey in 2018. When Rastislav told his father that his team had won the Sörenberg Concepts competition he was really excited and after learning more about it he actually turned this concept into a reality. Putting eight beehives on a top of the NH Hotel Gate One Bratislava, Slovakia in his hometown. With the same purpose of bringing the attention and knowledge of how to ecologically care for the bees. Let’s not forget the marketing part where being named the first bee hotel in Bratislava created a big media coverage for the hotel. The hotel invites beekeepers from around Europe to see how they take care of their bees in Slovakia. Hotel guests can buy the honey, and it is also used in kitchen to make desserts and sauces, together with workshops, tours and of course their own honey products.
We at HTMi wish Mr. Rastislav Pavlišin the best of success with his business venture and also congratulate our students on developing concepts and thinking outside the box, and to quote Mr. Pavlišin “I am to see students thinking of the environment and the bees, and were happy to see this concept turned into reality”.
Ian Larmour, CEO HTMi