European Innovation Award 2017: Hobby celebrates double victory

Stuttgart, January 2017 – The tension is palpable every time when the prizes for the European Innovation Award are given at the CMT in Stuttgart, the first large caravanning and holiday trade fair of the year. Under the auspices of DoldeMedien Verlag, an international jury, consisting of editors of important European trade magazines, chooses the best innovations in the caravanning sector. This time the selection was made from 100 proposals from 14 different categories, which were presented for the first time in 2016.

In the category interior design and technology, Hobby set the pace with a real world first, the SlimLine refrigerator. It is used in the form of a compressor refrigerator installed in wall unit in the Vantana van. The 1.40-metre wide cooling unit provides a capacity of 90 litres and slots virtually seamlessly into the furniture front. A successful combination of modern design and technology, which had not existed before in the caravanning sector.

Hobby also emerged victorious in the category marketing and PR at the European Innovation Award 2017. And did so with a project that was unusual in every respect: in the in-house training workshop for wood technicians the apprentices rebuilt and converted a van from the Vantana series into a showcar in a Wacken look. As early as at the Wacken Open Air, the world’s largest heavy metal festival, in summer 2016 the compact Hobby proved to be an eyecatcher and magnet for the public. The prospective wood technicians will go on tour with it in future to enthuse young people for their profession. The project was supported from the beginning by an extensive PR and social media campaign, for which Hobby has now been rewarded with the European Innovation Award 2017 by the international jury of experts.