Category: Hoteliers

Happy 2010 – Looking forward to 365 nights in Amsterdam Hotels

Vincent van Dijk DSC9108_lr

Happy 2010, the start of a new decade!

A new web 2.0 social media hotel review project:
Amsterdam counts 350 hotels and Vincent Van Dijk starts his dedicated blog Amsterdam Slaapt (i.e. Amsterdam Sleeps). Each day of 2010 he will tell us about his adventures in one of those 350 hotels, as each day of 2010 he will be sleeping out of his suitcase in one.

As Vincent uses to live and work in The Hague I’m really curious what his experience will be. Especially as my slogan is always: You should party in Amsterdam, but you should sleep in The Hague!

Nevertheless it is an interesting initiative which I will be following closely as he seems to plan to be reporting in Dutch only.

Here is Victor’s first Tweet as @AmsterdamSlaapt

@Amsterdam-Slaapt

“On January 1, 2010 I’ll start start the hotel project Amsterdam Sleeps in

Parkhotel Amsterdam

the stylish Parkhotel Amsterdam.

About Vincent van Dijk
Vincent van Dijk is a food and life style trend watcher and co owner of The Hague (Scheveningen) based ad agency HBMEO. He is a restaurant spotter for the Dutch Restaurant Guide SpecialBite err SpecialBite.com.

Sources in Dutch: Een jaar slapen in A’damse hotels – AT5 Nieuws and Misset Hotel.

Wow! Our Guests do Appreciate us!

Hoteliers-Com-Landing-Page-as-at-December-29,-2009

We use Hoteliers.com, which is not a traditional OTA that charges commissions, but a site that offers what the traditional OTAs offer, but for a moderate annual service fee. If you make your reservation via the website of Haagsche Suites, it actually goes via their website. Together with maintaining availability in one place, it helps us tremendously to prevent overbooking.

Hoteliers.com has announced that they will be giving awards for the first time in 6 categories that their own guest reviews monitor:

Best Over all
1. In de Duinen, Callantsoog
2. B&B Fort Amsterdam, Amsterdam
3. Haagsche Suites, Den Haag
4. Misc Eatdrinksleep, Amsterdam
5. Parkhotel Horst, Horst

Beste Service
1. In de Duinen, Callantsoog
2. Misc Eatdrinksleep, Amsterdam
3. Asgard Hotel, Groningen
4. Haagsche Suites
5. B&B Fort Amsterdam

Best Location
1. Hotel Torenzicht, Amsterdam
2. Het Roode Lopen, Ermelo
3. The Dylan Amsterdam
4. Bilderberg Landgoed de Wilmersberg, de Lutte (Twente)
5. B&B Fort Amsterdam

Best value for money
1. B&B la Festa, Amsterdam
2. Holland Hotel liauckama State, Sexbierum (Friesland)
3. Hotel Manna, Nijmegen
4. Holland Hotel ?t Anker, Mierlo (Noord Brabant)
5. Misc Eatdrinksleep

Best comfort
1. Haagsche Suites
2. Texel Suites
3. B&B Fort Amsterdam
4. Misc Eatdrinksleep
5. Dorint Hotel Amsterdam Airport

Cleanest
1. B&B Fort Amsterdam
2. Haagsche Suites
3. B&B van Ostade, Amsterdam
4. Hotel Fita, Amsterdam
5. Herberg de Hondsrug, Eext (Drenthe)

It wasn’t until a fellow twittering hotel ( @CarltonTheHague thank you!) in the Hague congratulated us for the many nominations and reading about it on the Dutch Hospitality News site Horeca Entree who recently also decided to start with a Twitter presence as @HorecaEntree, until it finally registered in my mind.. busy as I was with guests..

Congratulations for all the fellow nominees, especially In de Duinen, Callantsoog and B&B Fort Amsterdam! I know what hard work goes with it!

I would like to thank all our guests for their support and taking the time to fill out the review forms. Also I would like to thank the very nice and always helpful people at Hoteliers.com for their continuous support and good work. Hm thinking about it, it is about time Hoteliers.com do establish their own Twitter presence:-)

Hot Michelin Star and Hotel Newbe: Niven Kunz

Niven-Kunz-_MG_2269

The new 2010 Michelin Guide has been published and this is Niven Kunz of Restaurant Niven in Rijswijk, a suburb of The Hague. Probably he is the youngest Dutch chef awarded with a Michelin Star, or does he only look very young? Anyway, he’s now also a hotelier with 2 rooms. Congratulations Niven with your star and welcome as fellow hotelier.

I took this bit dreamy portrait photo last week when he was showing off at the 2010 Food festival in The Hague which was very well organized.

You can congratulate him on Twitter as Niven Kunz

Hotel Managers have to be Critical and see Everything

Hotelier-about-Hotel-Managers-P1050506

A proud hotel manager showed a couple of fellow hoteliers an me the finest rooms of the hotel. I noticed this curtain hanging loose and took this picture. I was utmost amazed that the hotel manager didn’t notice it and didn’t apologize with a: “Oops I’ll have to put maintenance on notice…” which I would have done.

I showed the photo to the hotel manager’s boss later.

The hotelier answered:

“Thank you! Thant is good to know! But you know, when I was younger and was managing housekeeping in a hotel, this is what always happened to me: Once a week I had to do the hotel tour, checking the hotel with my boss. I just had checked everything myself half an hour before I took the boss around and you know what? There would always be at least one light bulb that ceased functioning in the meantime and the boss would always spot it! Sigh”.

That is a wise answer.

My Dear Wife, mrs Happy Hotelier, has the keenest and sharpest eye for details, details and … for details: She nudges me every day: ” Seen that? Repair it! Make it work”. I’m learning every day.

It could have happened to me. Thank you Mrs Happy Hotelier for teaching me to have a keen eye: I wouldn’t have noticed this loose curtain prior to your lessons:-)

This is the main reason I always check our guests in personally.

Life of a hotelier is not easy….

I hope guests reading this could give hoteliers a little bit of leeway in the future…

Proud 2010 Gault Millau Hotelier

Gault Millau 2010 sticker for Haagsche Suites

Yesterday, as the first of the 5 or 6 prestigious restaurant guides in The Netherlands, the Dutch version of the Gault Millau Guide presented its 2010 awards and 2010 guide with the best 500 and something Restaurants and best 220 Hotels of The Netherlands here around the corner in The Hague. I’m a bit sad I had to miss the ceremony…so near by.

Today I received the sticker proving the Gault Millau editors deem Haagsche Suites worthy to belong to the best 220 Dutch Hotels in their guide. Thank you Gault Millau for the quick service, that even beats the new listings on your own website 🙂

Gault Millau started in France as a restaurant guide in 1969. It was founded by two restaurant critics, Henri Gault (1929-2000) and Christian Millau. The French site is a mere window for their paper guide.

Yesterday the Belgian and Luxemburg Branche of Gault Millau also presented its 2010 Guide and awards.

I grabbed the following from the Misset Horeca Site:

Plaese note the best restaurant has been awarded 20 points out of 20 which is remarkable in the Gault Millau history. At the same time our Belgian neighbors awarded a Dutchman, Roger van Damme the Chef of the year award for his Antwerp based lunches only restaurant.

Gault Millau’s top 13 Restaurants of The Netherlands:

Points Restaurant City
20 Oud Sluis Sluis
19,5 Inter Scaldes Kruiningen
19,5 Beluga Maastricht
19,5 De Librije Zwolle
19 De Leest Vaassen
18 La Rive Amstel Hotel Amsterdam
18 Chalet Royal Den Bosch
18 De Lindenhof Giethoorn
18 De Bokkedoorns Overveen
18 Parkheuvel Rotterdam
18 De Zwethheul Schipluiden
18 De Leuf Ubachsberg
18 ‘t Brouwerskolkje Overveen



gaultmillau 2010 logo
Two of those top restaurants, Parkheuvel and De Zwetheul are easy to reach for a dinner when staying in Haagsche Suites.

Two other Restaurants Calla’s and Seinpost who also earned good points are even nearer to Haagsche Suites. Seinpost has the best wine food combining sommelier of 2010.

Austria, Italy, Germany and Switzerland each have their own Gault Millau guides.The US and the UK have their Gayot guides. Gayot was a friend of Gault and Millau and they published joint guides until a schism in 2000.

Gault Millau is said to be the guide of the food purists more than the Guide Michelin….