Accor is launching the fifteenth edition of its TakeOff! Challenge, the international student competition inviting the next generation to rethink a decisive moment of any stay: the first impression. For 2026, the theme focuses on two inseparable pillars of a memorable hospitality experience, welcome and cleanliness.
A student competition that has become an institution
Edition after edition, the TakeOff! Challenge has established itself as a must-attend event for students worldwide. More than a competition, it is a co-creation platform: Accor confronts fresh ideas with the realities of the field, while spotting tomorrow’s talent for the hospitality professions.
As Europe’s leading hotel group, present in more than a hundred countries with some forty brands from economy to luxury, Accor faces, like the whole sector, a challenge of recruiting and retaining talent. By speaking directly to students, the group builds a pool of ideas and profiles, while showcasing the diversity of its careers.
The 2026 theme: nailing the first impression
This year, participants must imagine a guest experience that creates a strong first impression built on impeccable welcome and cleanliness. The stakes are anything but trivial: 78% of travellers cite cleanliness as the number one criterion when choosing a hotel. Two fundamentals that thus become the playground for innovation.
Long confined to the backstage, cleanliness has become a front-line reassurance argument since the health crisis. Treating it as a genuine experience lever, rather than a mere operational constraint, is arguably the most stimulating angle offered to the candidates.
A global rollout with regional editions
The challenge unfolds market by market, with staggered launches: China from 3 April, Brazil on 30 April, Mexico in April, then Europe and North Africa (in French, English and Spanish) in mid-September. One global ambition, adapted to the specifics of each region.
“A challenge with yourself”
“The TakeOff! Challenge is first and foremost a challenge with yourself, an immersion in an intense, human and demanding world,” sums up Laurent Choain, General Director People & Culture at Accor. A way, too, of drawing young talent towards professions where attention to the guest makes all the difference.
What it says about the hospitality of tomorrow
The initiative confirms a deeper trend: even the giants of hospitality keep reinventing the guest experience, putting fundamentals such as cleanliness back at the heart of luxury. Read also: the new addresses reshaping French hospitality in 2026.
Apply: registrations are made on the official TakeOff! Challenge platform.
