The HAPA® Awards, a hospitality and tourism recognition programme that has been running in Malaysia for 32 years, has announced a significant restructuring of its annual awards format beginning in 2026, replacing its single gala with a three-part series of dedicated award nights spread across the calendar year.

The HAPA® Awards for Excellence 2026 Series will comprise three separate events, each focused on a distinct sector of the industry: the HAPA® Entrepreneur Awards Series, the HAPA® F&B & Culinary Awards Series, and the HAPA® Hospitality & Tourism Awards Series. Rather than consolidating all recognition under one roof in a single evening, each gala will be staged independently, with its own format, setting and atmosphere tailored to the character of the sector being honoured.

The decision to split the programme into three autonomous events represents the most significant structural change in the awards’ three-decade history. Over the years, the HAPA® Awards has built its reputation on a mystery-audit judging methodology — in which assessors evaluate establishments and individuals without prior announcement — overseen by an independent panel of judges. The organisation has said that the shift to a series format is intended to give nominees in each sector a more focused and unhurried moment of recognition, rather than competing for attention within a single, wide-ranging evening.

Since its founding, the programme has recognised a broad range of figures across the hospitality and tourism landscape, from hotel general managers and resort operators to independent restaurateurs, culinary professionals, spa directors and frontline service staff. In that time, the awards has positioned itself not merely as a recognition platform but as a sustained effort to shape standards — surfacing lesser-known establishments alongside established names, and drawing attention to the service professionals and operational staff who rarely appear in industry headlines. The 2026 restructuring reflects both the breadth of that scope and an apparent intention to deepen its engagement with each of those communities separately.

We attended the first event in the series, the HAPA® Entrepreneur Awards Series, on 8 February 2026 at Imperial Lexis Kuala Lumpur. It was presented in the format of a Chinese New Year Lou Sang Awards Night, timed to coincide with the celebration of the Year of the Horse. The evening centred on the Malaysia’s Top 20 HAPA® Entrepreneurs of the Year Award, recognising business founders and leaders operating within the hospitality space. The pairing of an awards presentation with a culturally significant occasion gives the evening a social dimension that sets it apart from the conventional gala format, and reflects the organisation’s apparent interest in grounding each event in a broader experiential context.

The second event, the HAPA® F&B & Culinary Awards Series, is set for 28 April 2026 and will depart further still from the traditional black-tie format. Rather than a seated awards dinner, it will be staged as a Food, Drinks, Music & Chefs (FDMC) Festival — a more informal and participatory setting designed to reflect the energy of the culinary industry it honours. The evening will recognise chefs, restaurateurs and culinary professionals across Asia’s dining industry, spanning both fine dining and broader food culture. For an industry whose practitioners are more accustomed to being behind the pass than behind a podium, the festival format may prove a more natural fit than a conventional ceremony.

The third and final event of the year, the HAPA® Hospitality & Tourism Awards Series, will be held on 26 June 2026 as a formal Hospitality Ball — the most traditional of the three formats and the one most closely aligned with the original awards programme’s aesthetic. The evening will cover a wide range of categories encompassing hotels, resorts, spas, golf courses and tourist attractions, alongside recognition for hospitality and tourism leaders across the region. It will also feature the HAPA® CEO & GM Awards for Excellence, a category specifically directed at senior executives operating at the highest levels of the hospitality sector.

The rationale behind the three-series structure, as articulated by the organisation, goes beyond event management. By dedicating an entire evening to each sector, the format allows for what the HAPA® Awards describes as sharper storytelling and deeper audience engagement — the idea being that a room full of culinary professionals celebrating their own industry creates a qualitatively different atmosphere from a mixed-sector gathering where F&B, hospitality and entrepreneurship awards are interspersed across a single programme. Whether or not one accepts that logic entirely, it reflects a considered rethinking of how recognition events function, and what they are for.

The HAPA® Awards also makes the claim that this structure makes it the first hospitality recognition programme in Asia to adopt a purpose-driven, multi-series gala format of this kind. That positioning speaks to a broader ambition — not simply to hand out awards, but to influence the culture and standards of the industry it covers. Over its 32-year history, the programme says its work has contributed to shaping service culture and leadership standards within Malaysia’s hospitality and tourism ecosystem, a claim that is difficult to quantify but reflects the kind of institutional influence that comes from sustained, consistent presence in an industry over several decades.

Together, the three events span six months of the year, from February to June 2026, giving the programme a sustained presence in the industry calendar rather than a concentrated single moment. Whether that cadence proves advantageous — in terms of sustained attention and industry engagement — or poses logistical challenges for nominees and guests attending across multiple events, remains to be seen as the series unfolds.

Nominations for the 2026 series have been announced, and the organisation has extended recognition to all nominees selected across the three galas, noting that each nomination reflects what it describes as a commitment to uncompromising standards within their respective fields.

What is clear is that the HAPA® Awards is making a concerted effort to evolve how recognition is delivered in Malaysia’s hospitality industry, drawing on more than three decades of institutional standing to do so. For an industry that has weathered considerable disruption in recent years, a more focused and sector-specific form of celebration may well be a timely one.

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Photo credits: HAPA and the author’s own