ILUNION Hotels: double recognition at the Forbes Awards and the Smart Travel News Awards 2025
Without being a tech company, ILUNION Hotels demonstrates that innovation can be human and measurable.
December 10, 2025
ILUNION Hotels reinforces its position as a benchmark in innovation and transformative culture by receiving two prestigious recognitions: the Forbes Award for Innovation by Kyndryl, in the Talent and Innovative Culture category, and the award for Best Hotel Management at the Smart Travel News Awards 2025.
Innovation with purpose and people at the center.
The Innovation area of ILUNION Hotels, led by Carlos Bello, has been recognized by Forbes Spain and Kyndryl for its #InnovACCIÓN with Purpose model, which promotes an open and participatory innovative culture where the company’s 1,800 professionals are protagonists of change.
This model turns curiosity and continuous training into engines of transformation, through programs such as I’m Curious and Be Curious, which foster creativity, collaboration, and learning at all levels.
The #InnovACCIÓN with Purpose culture has made it possible to consolidate a network of 39 inno-leaders, 14 innovation ambassadors, and 7 AI ambassadors, as well as mobilize more than 300 employees each year in innovation projects.
Integrated into the company’s global strategy alongside sustainability, this culture reinforces the three ESG pillars—environmental, social, and good governance—and places innovation at the service of ILUNION Hotels’ purpose: Building a better world with everyone included.
Room Lab, innovation management made into a model
This recognition is in addition to the one received by Room Lab, the strategic platform of ILUNION Hotels, which was awarded the Prize for Best Hotel Management at the Smart Travel News Awards 2025.
Room Lab acts as a bridge between strategy and operational reality, accelerating the transformation of ideas into tangible solutions. Through its management system certified under the ISO 56001 standard, it has piloted more than 20 innovative solutions, from the Artificial Intelligence Roadmap (Brill-IA-nt) and the Transforma intrapreneurship program, to the incorporation of autonomous robots (Gleambot) and in-room voice assistants to enhance the customer experience.
In its first full year of implementation, Room Lab has launched five pilot projects in the company’s hotels and has structured a unique model that converts innovation into a real and measurable organizational competence.
Recognition for transformative leadership
During the same Smart Travel News Awards ceremony, José Ángel Preciados, CEO of ILUNION Hotels, received the Award for Innovative Trajectory, for his pioneering vision in integrating diversity, accessibility, and sustainability at the core of hotel management.
The Forbes Awards by Kyndryl and the Smart Travel News Awards join the multiple international recognitions received by the Innovation area of ILUNION Hotels, which in recent years has achieved certifications such as ISO 56001, EFQM 700, and B Corp, and has been recognized for its capacity to turn innovation into an engine for economic, social, and environmental change in the tourism sector.
