Barbara Hammerschmid-Kovar

Short Bio

Ms. Hammerschmid-Kovar was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1962, and completed her secondary school education with a Matura degree, after which she enrolled in the Tourism College in Krems, Austria, and she received a diploma in 1984. Ms. Hammerschmid-Kovar pursued further study and received a Diploma of Hotel Management from the Florida State University (Miami, Florida) in 1986. She received an MBA degree, as well as a Degree of Business Economist in 2006 from the Sales Manager Academy in Vienna, Austria. The title of her Masters thesis was: “Possible Causes of Human Resource Problems in the Hotel Business and Methods of Resolution for  Efficient Human Resource Management”.

Ms. Hammerschmid-Kovar began her professional career at the Hilton Orly Hotel in Paris, France. She was then transferred to the Hilton Regents Park Hotel in London at Regents Park. Assuming a variety of responsibilities at the Hilton Hotels, she was recruited by the Mercure Vienna City Hotel (Accor Group) in 1995, where she was acknowledged as being the youngest general manager of a major hotel in Vienna. Her experience as a general manager took her to a variety of hotels in the city of Vienna. These include: InterCityHotel Vienna (Steigenberger Group), Steigenberger Hotel Herrenhof Vienna , Fleming’s Hotel Wien Westbahnhof & LiV’iN Residence and the Fleming’s Deluxe Hotel Wien City. At each of these hotels, Ms. Hammerschmid-Kovar had the enriching experience of coordinating the development of a new hotel, which included the planning of the hotel, on the responsibilities involved in the pre-opening (physical plant, employee hiring, advertising, etc.) and then the actual opening phase of the hotel.

Ms. Hammerschmid-Kovar has been fortunate to receive a number of prestigious awards during her professional career in hotel management. These include: the Austrian Entrepreneur,2007; Öko Business Plan 2007; Certification ISO 9001 & Environment ISO 4001 in 2007, which was the first such awarded in Austria; the Environmental award from the City of Vienna (InterCityHotel Vienna), 2003.

In 2013 Ms. Hammerschmid-Kovar established her own company “FiVE STORiES – Project Development and Consulting”, a high-end consultancy firm with a focus on strategic planning, providing experience and knowledge for professional execution.

In order to further share her expertise with the next generation of Hotel administrators, Ms. Hammerschmid-Kovar is currently also a lecturer in the Bachelor of Business Administration/Bachelor of Science program at the MODUL University Vienna.