Horeca is a commercial term that refers to the sector of hotels and restaurants.
Specifically, it is an acronym of Hotellerie–Restaurant–Café (but the third word is sometimes identified with Catering, or other similar).

Some numbers

The hotel, restaurant and catering sector is one of the fastest growing in Europe. In 2004 this sector employed over 7.8 million people (Eurostat, 2005) and generated a turnover of over 338 billion euro (Eurofound, 2005).

Overall, the Italian market remains one of the most important in Europe: more than 15 million meals consumed daily outside home in 2012 in 307,587 realities, one every 192 inhabitants: of these, 146,000 bars and 161,000 restaurant businesses. The region with the most active companies is Lombardy (47,333), followed by Lazio (32,389) and Campania (28,060). Source: Host.

These companies are not only the traditional hotels, motels, bed & breakfast, but also camping, hostels, shelters, pensioners and residence.

Then there are restaurants, pubs, canteens, bars, cafés, catering companies.

In most cases, these are small businesses with fewer than 10 employees. Women make up just over half of the workforce.

Five key points

The key issues to ensure the sustainability and competitiveness of the Horeca sector can be identified as the follows:

1. information,
2. staff training,
3. quality,
4. sustainable development (discussion here),
5. new technologies.

The Consortium La Meridiana Group has therefore decided to put its expertise at the service of this area, becoming a strategic partner for companies able to focus on objectives, plan actions, provide personnel and optimize the organization with the aim of ensuring the best performance.