The Happier the Hotelier, The Happier the Guest
Today the Alderman of The Hague, Karsten Klein, jointly with the COO of Accor Benelux, Caro van Eekelen opened the new Suite Novotel (118 rooms) in The Hague. Time permitting you will see me reviewing this interesting hotel.
I’ve seen some of the Nuclear Security Summit 2014 here in The Hague and took a bit of video and some photo’s at the final press conference where Obama thanked the Dutch for a well organized summit and showed he knows a Dutch word “Gezellig” that many English speaking people claim is not so easy to translate….My idea is that the following English words give some meaning to gezellig: Cozy, snug and intimate cover it more or less.
After the press conference the president was induced to being photographed in front of the Victory Boogie Woogie, the latest and unfinished painting of Piet Mondrian, who died in New York before he could finish this painting. This painting is in the collection of the The Hague Municipal Museum of Modern Art (Gemeentemuseum).
Location just next to The “New” Church of The Hague which dates back to 1658
Birdies were necessary to keep the tweeps focussed
Excellent sandwiches and soup by Pavlov
KeesBteA had had his hair sharply coiffured for the occasion.
The Organizing Trio. Thanks!
Yesterday Dutch Government resigned after Geert Wilders withdrew his support for the minority Government led by Mark Rutte. Today there was a big debate in Parliament here in The Hague whether or not to have new elections and before or after the summer holidays…
But for me the most important event of the day was the Twitterlunch in the Hague, organized by Amsterdam Based Event Queen @Puur, together with the The Hague based @filosoof and @1espresso who organized a 070 Twitterlunch in Pavlov
As always when I go to such events, it is good to see that apart from their actual looks or sizes, the characters of those who act on line – in this case twitter – and who dare to attend such events are generally in line with the impressions they give you online. A nice feel of meeting old friends even with the ones you haven’t met before yet.
The venue Pavlov is excellently located for such event and they did their best to accommodate everyone.
And the best of all? Hardly anyone’s attention distracted by a mobile. Tweeps were communicating In Real Life;-)
The best compliment for The Hague? @Puur commented: “Where can you find a city where surfers are walking in the city center with their surfboard under their arm?”
Interested in the photoset? Here it is on my Flickr Account.
It was an animated event and will certainly be repeated.
Oh yes and why the by 020 in the title to this post? The fact that it was someone based in Amsterdam who took the initiative…a telling tale…while there are many people involved in social media and active on Twitter in or from The Hague and many events in the Hague…maybe a bit sleepy mentality? I do agree, but my motto is always: “You should sleep in The Hague and Party in Amsterdam” The exception of a well organized event proves it;-)
Darren did it again: He pulled 100+ Travel Bloggers and Travel PR types together for informal networking at Travel Blog Camp 2011. A big Thank You to Darren!
The venue was back where it started in 2008: in a London Pub at the south border of the Thames with a nice view over the city.
The food was excellent and the new two room set up was great where food was served in one room and the venue was in the other room.
I was acting as the “Official Photographer of the event”, hence I was more concentrated on making photos in very difficult (dark) light conditions, than on what actually was going on.
Luckily there were some who summarized the event:
I’ll be updating this if I find more stuff.
One take away from the event for me is: Travel Bloggers have to become more business like. Especially those who want to monetize their blogs. Thus far, I have refused to try and monetize this blog. So there is some work to be done if I want to monetize… and eventually that is what I wish
As an amateur photographer I noticed another aspect: The use of avatars by travel bloggers. One comment you can see in my prior post and further comments on the use of avatars will follow.
Also I wasn’t up to networking as I should have been and due to the light conditions I couldn’t take more or better photos than I did. Sorry for that.
I was making photos on Darren’s first ever TBCamp of 2008. For comparison’s sake you might want to look at the First TBCamp set.
Personally I like the photos of TBcamp10 better.
Last edited by GJE on November 14, 2011 at 11:53 pm
I’ve returned from visiting WTM and TBCamp. Just before I boarded the Ferry back to the continent, I spotted this Moon rising above Dover. Thought to share it with you while I’m sifting through my photos from TBCamp and trying to order my impressions into a nice blogpost.