Category: Amsterdam

Amsterdam CitizenM Opening (1) (Dutch Dutch Design 26)

an Chadha

He looks a bit tired, but here is Rattan Chadha, the founder of CitizenM and former owner of the Mexx fashion company who opened the press conference.

Some quotes as a starter:

  • They started 4 years ago.
  • Rattan traveled more in his prior life than many in the audience of the well attended press conference will ever do in their and their children’s lifetime.
  • It is very important that the whole operation is set up by a team.
  • One of the first team members is his cricket mate for over 20 years, Jan Wulf van Alkemade, who makes his living in hotel amenities.
  • A good hotel room is about a good bed, a good shower and a good TV.
  • TV films and Wifi are free.
  • Savvy travelers want short check in and short check out times. Rattan claims being a tech nitwit and managed a check in time of 40 seconds. My own not so nitwit experience is rather 5 minutes, but even that is fine.
  • In 2020 market expectations are 1,5 billion people traveling abroad, India alone 50 mio (India in 2002 had only 5 mio people traveling from India abroad)
  • If I have worked hard and late, I want to be able to get sushi at 3.00 AM rather than frozen spaghetti warmed up by the night manager or some soggy hamburger. On the other hand we don’t want the staff around until somebody orders food at 3.00 Am. Therefore we have developed our own food concept.
  • If you arrive at a hotel, you want to be welcomed by a real person. Therefor Citizen M has ambassadors who are not trained in the hospitality industry.

Michael Eman, the F and B manager who developed the F and B concept from the beginning adds: “We have two very important moments here: The coffee moment and the cocktail moment: All our ambassadors are first class barristas and cocktail makers”

Update
As usual I have been wrestling with both my old heavy laptop and the Wifi system in the Citizen M hotel room. The Blue Tooth connection of the

Citizen M Remote do it all control, developed by Philips
Citizen M Remote “do it all” Control, developed by Philips,

interfered with the remote control’s other functions and was not stable at all. After wrestling for an hour and a half I gave it up.

Rattan Chadha: Citizen M Says I'm Cold

Rattan Chadha may not like this photo, but I caught him with one of the Citizen M signs above the cold section of the self service food and beverage wall: “Citizen M Says: I’m Cold”. Well I felt left a bit in the cold with the non functioning of the remote control/Wifi combination. BTW here at home I rechecked and the old and heavy laptop does function perfectly with my own Wifi.
As a final observation I wonder why they didn’t let it read “Citizen M Says: I’m Cool“

Dutch Design #22 FG Stijl and The College Hotel

Amsterdam College Hotel Front
The Amsterdam College Hotel Front

Some of my prior posts in the Dutch Design category I forgot to number. I found the correct number:-)

Dutch designers Colin Finnegan and Gerard Glintmeijer of FG Stijl have had a important influence in the design of the Amsterdam College Hotel. I now have access to press material from their site and also, after setting up my new computer, I am able to resize their high resolution photos without getting the famous blue screen. Therefor I now can offer my dear readers some additional photos.

Amsterdam College Hotel Front Desk
Amsterdam College Hotel Front Desk
Amsterdam College Hotel Room
Amsterdam College Hotel Room
Amsterdam College Hotel Restaurant
Amsterdam College Hotel Restaurant

I do like this style. The College Hotel is partly staffed by students from a local hotel school. Therefor the service is sometimes not entirely up to the standards that FG Stijl has set for this hotel.

Update May 14, 2008:

Recently the owner of the Hotel (the Amsterdam school ROC) was forced by the Dutch Government to sell the school. Dutch Government deemed the risks of owning a hotel too high for a state funded school….The buyer is Michael van de Kuit’s Nedstede Groep BV. Contrary to many property tycoons, Michael van de Kuit wishes to stay as anonymous as possible. To that extent he even has retained a PR adviser to keep him off the journalists’ hooks.

Like a Local

Like a Local is a sited developped by fellow Dutchman in order to accomodate the traveler who wants to enjoy the real couleure locale (French for local circumstances).

You can search for accomodation. You can find locals who are willing to take you on a city tour or who like to offer you a meal at their home. Off course they ask an amount to at least cover their costs for it.

Like A Local started solely devoted to Amsterdam, but is branching out over various European cities. When it started, it was a bit overhyped on the internet. Now it is slowly, but gradually building up momentum.

Amsterdam , The Next Web Conference and Twitter

Next Web Amsterdam Conference Logo

Again, I must have been under the rocks. This is existing and happening on my doorstep (or in my backyard): Yesterday and today The 2008 Next Web Conference is being held in Amsterdam.

What is The Next Web Conference?

The Next Web Conference is THE European conference for industry thought-leaders, leading web-companies, innovative Startups, visionaries and real Web savvies. This third edition will be held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands on April 3rd & 4th, 2008.

Twitter
How did I find out about Next Web? Recently I joined Twitter as a result of attending the ITB Berlin Travel Bloggers Summit where I felt a bit as an outsider as I observed some fellow travel Blogger busy Twittering away while I was fudzing around with my old laptop in order to get a proper WiFi connection which was not stable at ITB.

At first I was afraid Twitter would be nothing else than ICQ that I used a lot eons ago. I am still a bit proud I have a very low ICQ ID number (under 100K while the last time I looked years ago they were in the 9 mio) laying around, but I don’t use it anymore. Also because after ICQ a whole lot of similar chat programs came around. When you are concentrating behind your computer it is frustrating to see the pop up screens flying over your computer or ICQ spammers harassing you. It may have become much better nowadays, but I won’t look at it. One of the advantages is that you can spread around your new posts via Twitter Feed, which as I am writing this is temporarily out of service, from a company not related with Twitter. The Blackberry and Iphone aficionados can keep in contact with each other and SMS Twitter feeds to each other.

Via Twitter I noticed that Robert Scobler, one of the Blogging Gurus (Yes from Scobleizer) was traveling to Amsterdam to give a presentation.

Early this morning another guy made the comment that two guys were paying attention to the presentation and the other 699 attendants were playing with their laptop, blackberry or Iphone…..

This comment triggered an old story of one of the partners of my former law firm who gave a presentation in Japan for the first time. I am now talking about late seventies/early eighties. When looking to the audience he saw everybody sitting with their arms crossed and a small bag in front on their tables instead of busy taking notes. After the presentation everyone left in a hurry. This was unusual because he was used to everybody coming to him with questions or to exchange business cards…..It turned out that he had speeched to an audience of private chauffeurs of the captains of industry who he was led to believe he would be speaking to. They all had their little Dictaphones with them and hurried to their bosses after the presentation, which story brings me:

Back to The 2008 Next Web Conference
The modern times learn me that you can behave like those wise Japanese bosses from the story above:

  • Most attendants have Camcorders and record the presentations. Either they publish them on their Blogs or on Youtube, or you get streaming life video from the conference.
  • You have live feeds from conferences like this on Twitter, just follow Twitter | Next Weblog or
  • Follow the Bloggers:

There are 25 startups featured who paid a hefty Euro 2.500 for having their 5 minutes of fame.

Barcamp Amsterdam IV
Tomorrow the conference will be followed by BarCamp Amsterdam IV. You can give them a notice if you want to join here. I will see if I can hop in.

If you like you can follow me at
Twitter | Happy Hotelier.

Post Alia: Most attendants seem to stay in the Lloyd’s Hotel in Amsterdam.

Added March 5:
If you want to know the twitter people with the most followers, click Twitterholic.com

Finding a Cool Hotel in Amsterdam – Nothing Zen! Part 7

Here we go again with my “Nothing Zen” series

A fellow TrendHunter, a very trend setting young lady from Down Under, younger than my 2 daughters (who, by the way, are two very trend setting young ladies themselves) is going to attend a conference at the VU university of Amsterdam in July and asks me whether I could recommend a Cool Hotel in Amsterdam.

My first reaction
Off course I first recommend her to stay in my own Haagsche Suites in The Hague, as commuting between The Hague and Amsterdam is usually only 45 minutes and my credo is always: “You should party in Amsterdam, but sleep in The Hague!”.

My second reaction
However, because her conference schedule is from 8.00 AM until Mid Night, she only needs a nearby comfy bed to crash and sleep in.

So my second suggestion to her is to look at the then one year open Qbic Hotel which is within walking distance. No other hotels are nearer by. Next near are some hotels at Schiphol Airport, but a bit noisy maybe.

My third reaction
As a local your knowledge of local hotels tend to be scarce. My only Amsterdam experience is a couple of nights stay at the Pulitzer Hotel, see my review at VibeAgent. Therefore this question is not so easy to answer. First I will give some off the cuff recommendations:

While talking about VibeAgent, fellow Vibe Agents recommended:

  • Renaissance Amsterdam Hotel
  • The Pulitzer Hotel
  • Bilderberg Hotel Jan Luyken
  • Hotel ‘t Jagershuis
  • Bed and Coffee
  • Amsterdam Marriott

Finding a very clever feature at VibeAgent
While looking in detail at VibeAgent, I discovered a very handy travel planning feature which is not so obvious. This is the map you get if you type in Amsterdam at their Hotel Search:

VibeAgent Amsterdam Search Page

The orange signs mean that the hotel has been reviewed by one or more of the VibeAgent members (who are called VibeAgents).
Here the order starts with the Pulitzer.
However, If you know the exact location where you have to be, you can drag the center of their map to your exact destination. Then their search results change while you move. Excellent thinking!

Vibeagent Search Results

Now the VU location is in the center of the map and suddenly you note a completely different list of hotels starting with the Novotel and the Holiday Inn.

VibeAgent has a long way to go with acquiring more content, but this is a very helpful tool to get names of hotels in a city you don’t know yet!

Fellow TrendHunters mentioned:

Hm TrendHunter should do a bit more homework. Maybe the lady in question and I should get together and do some more research.

Historic Hotels of the Benelux has 2 Amsterdam Hotels:

Some suggestions from the Weekend Hotel list for Amsterdam:

I believe there is no better site for finding a cool hotel in The Netherlands and Belgium than Weekendhotel. Search results of Weekendhotel should be matched with their List of Favorites which counts 38 hotels and B&B’s and even apartments in Amsterdam.

Maybe co author – and owner of the site- at Weekendhotel, Willem steps in with some suggestions as well, as I know he always looks at my Zen Series.

I intend to follow this up with my own list of favorite Amsterdam hotels after a bit more checking.

It still is very time consuming!