Category: Hoteliers

Juxtaposed Religion: A Must Have for Every Hotelroom? (Dutch Design 36)


From time to time images of this bookshelf with the 7 books of the world’s most important religions came along on my computer. It is a habit in many European hotels to have a Bible available.

I believe it is about time with the world shrinking and shrinking by all the traveling we do, to have the 7 religion books side to side available in every hotel room to enable us travelers to take notice of all these religions and to create more respect for each other.

Quote from Swell Future:

5,084,000,000 people, 5,360 pages, 3,700 years, 243 countries, 7 books, 1 shelf. For the first time, the world’s most influential religious texts are brought together and presented on the same level, their coexistence acknowledged and celebrated. JUXTAPOSED: Religion is the first in the Juxtaposed series of curated bookshelves.

Juxtaposed is an idea from the Dutch – American designers couple Mike and Maaike

What would you say?

Plans for Salzburg Sound of Music hotel hit sour note | ABS-CBN News Online Beta

The photo, featuring Maria von Trapp, 94, the second eldest daughter, center above, with her brother Johannes von Trapp and their sister-in-law Erika von Trapp, at the opening, belongs to a NY Times post stating that they opened June 29, 2008….

VIENNA – The former home of the Trapp family, made famous by the 1965 film “The Sound of Music,” will not re-open as a hotel after all following opposition from residents and politicians, the owners said.

The villa in Aigen, near Salzburg, failed to receive final approval Wednesday from the city after neighbours complained it would bring hordes of tourists to their peaceful suburb.

“It seems like the Villa Trapp, the original Sound of Music family home, is not getting a permission to open as a hotel, although all legal conditions have been complied with,” the owners, Marianne Dorfer and Christopher Unterkofler, said in a statement received by AFP.

“Local politicians… are obstructing the permission,” they added.

Local councillor Traudi Lackner told the daily Kurier: “The owners wanted to open not only a hotel, but also to use it for events: the house would have become a magnet for day tourists.”

Some 300,000 fans of “The Sound of Music” visit Salzburg every year, taking part in special themed tours, and local residents feared the small villa would soon become a tourist spot as well.

The Villa Trapp, which was inaugurated in July, needed formal approval as it is located on protected land.

Dorfer and Unterkofler said they planned to appeal the decision.

They said all previous city assessment reports had been positive and that politicians had supported their project until residents pressured them to turn it down.

“All the politicians we contacted were positive and motivated us, saying how important this project was for Salzburg tourism,” they said in their statement.

“There is no objective or legal reason to block a 14-room hotel in Aigen,” they added.

The villa was the home of Captain Georg von Trapp, his seven children and their governess Maria, later known as the Trapp Family Singers, from 1923 to 1938.

as of 12/05/2008 1:20 AM

Plans for Salzburg Sound of Music hotel hit sour note | ABS-CBN News Online Beta

Update

I found a later article that claimed the original Von Trapp residence is available as a B&B at a blog Visit Salzburg, a guide to Salzburg written by locals.

Last edited by GJE on December 3, 2011 at 11:01 am

10 Questions For (18): Carl-Peter Echtermeijer of The New Vienna Ring Hotel and The Grand Hotel Wien

Happy to present a real hotelier to you. Ha, I should have known that asking him my 10 questions would create as answers: “The Ring, Grand Hotel Wien and The Ring”:-). The first photo shows him very proudly with the 2008 Tripadvisor award for The Ring.


Carl-Peter Echtermeijer with the 2008 Tripadvisor award

1) Who Are you?

I am currently Assistant General Manager of 2 luxury hotels in Vienna, the famous Grand Hotel Wien, part of Leading Hotels of the World and The Ring, Vienna’s Casual Luxury Hotel, a luxury design hotel we opened in 2007

2) What do you like about what you do?

I like working with people for our guests, I like the fact that hotel industry is like theater, every day and every situation is different, I like facing challenges, making things possible to our clients and guests, having an overall thinking-out-of-the-box  mentality.

3) What don’t you like about what you do?

This question took me a while to think about, I cannot tell you what I do not like, my personal opinion is that one should see this job as a hobby.

4) Please tell us all about your blog and your aims with it.

The blog we recently developed and implemented (The Ring Press) for our The Ring, Vienna’s Casual Luxury Hotel is meant to inform guests, journalists, actually the on-line community about who we are, what people think and wrote about us and with which partners we work. I personally see this blog as a very unique on-line marketing tool.

5) Your top 3 destination experiences you’ve ever stayed to date and why?

Thailand due to the spa experiences, France due to the excellent food and the French mentality, Holland due to the very open culture and off course Friesland.


Grand Hotel Wien with the Concierge and Bellboy in the cold

6) Your top 3 accommodations you’ve ever stayed to date and why?

Paris as I wanted to surprise my wife, Bratislava to experience this upcoming city, Garda lake as we (my family and myself) needed a summer break.

7) Your top 3 most memorable food experiences to date and why?

The famous Heuriger in Vienna and Austria, this is so typical and so nice. Google it and give it a try, our Japanese restaurant Unkai as it is indeed the best Japanese food in Vienna ..number 3 is yet to come

8) Your 3 worst destination/ accommodation /food experiences to date and why?

I only had a very bad food experience in Bratislava due to the fact that 1.) the food was terrible and 2.) we were definitely treated like foreigners..one does not expect that anymore

9) Can you offer the readers 3 travel/ food / accomodation / things to do tips about the city you are currently living in?

Do stay at one of Vienna’s trendy design hotels or at the recently opened Hotel Stadthalle (a bit of a green hotel focusing on green travel), visit the Heuriger restaurants and do plan culture, culture, culture ..also nightlife is great in Vienna. For dinner : our restaurant At Eigh at The Ring : aroma cuisine, new and spectacular.


The Ring Hotel with its new led Xmas lights

10) Any Question(s) you’d expected me to ask that you would like to answer?

No, I would have asked the same questions and I am so happy to have the opportunity to get presented in this blog. Thank you!

Thank you Carl-Peter!
First congratulations with the Tripadvisor Award! A great achievement! Secondly: I have been informed that your at eight Ring restaurant got a very high Gault Millau rating recently – you should update your Blog!

I started this presentation with a bit of teasing, but when I was new to the internet I think I would have reacted the same as Carl-Peter: “Don’t divulge too much of yourself: They can use it against you”.

I will be meeting Carl Peter soon and get a personal tour of this new Viennese Hotel The Ring. Looking forward to it. Stay tuned!

"Royally" Fed Up with RandstadRail


RandstadRail. Photo by Dennis Holtkamp

RandstadRail is a light rail initiative to have quick public transport between the two cities The Hague and Rotterdam. The idea is RandstadRail can use both the tram rail and the train rail network. The only problem is that they are much wider and heavier than ordinary trams. A fact that the The Hague Municipality played down heavily when we organized a protest when the City planned to have RandstadRail driving through our very narrow part of the Laan Meerdervoort in The Hague. Then they claimed our protests were mere NIMBY (“Not In My Back Yard”) protests.

My main complaint is that our part of the long Laan Van Meerdervoort is too narrow for Randstadrail.
What happened yesterday evening proved me right again:


RandstadRail crashes two taxis in one

A TV crew was shooting an interview with a foreign Prince in our small luxe hotel, Haagsche Suites, for a BBC series to be broad casted in spring 2009.
After the shooting I had ordered two taxis, one for the Prince and one for the crew. We had just loaded the crew’s gear, cameras, lighting equipment and tripods in the first taxi. We were saying good bye to the party on the sidewalk. All of a sudden we heard two enormous bangs: RandstadRail had crashed into the second taxi with such speed that the second taxi was smacked at least 5 meter further against taxi number one.


The poor driver of the second taxi in dire need of a replacement car.

I am very glad nobody was standing between the two taxis when it happened and luckily there were no personal injuries. This is not the first time this happens in front of our hotel. A couple of weeks ago RandstadRail crashed a car with a whole family inside it….not sure they didn’t have any whiplash injury then.

Now I really can say I am “Royally” Fed up with RandstadRail!

Review: Grasse – Bastide Saint Mathieu – A Real Gem!

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Bastide Saint Mathieu: Entrance

I’ve preluded to this review a long time ago in French Riviera and The Art of Booking Online: Nothing Zen! Part 3. I didn’t publish this review earlier, because I had terrible problems organizing my photos last year. That problem I only solved recently.

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Front

In July 2007 we were probably among the last guests of the Dutch couple who had started Bastide Saint Mathieu:

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View from our James Gordon Bennet Suite

A French Bastide recently restored with meticulous care, surrounded by 2 hectares of its own gardens and parkland. It Sleeps 14/17 in beautiful large bedrooms, with marble ensuite bathrooms. Fine terracing and gas flare lit cuisine d’ete for outside parties and entertaining. Huge swimming pool, boules piste. Great views; splendour and privacy in the triangle between Mougins, Grasse and Valbonne; 15 minutes Cannes, 25 minutes Nice.

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our beautifully appointed sitting room

It is a villa with 2 suites and 4 rooms, 1 of which is a single room.

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Our Bathroom

All rooms are individually and elegantly decorated with period pieces, open log fires, air conditioning and all of today’s facilities. The property is also available fully staffed on an exclusive basis with catering arrangements made available to suit the individual wishes of guests. In a corner of the typical Provencal garden is a lovely pool and sun deck overlooking the olive groves and hills of Mougins. There guests can spend some lazy hours soaking up the sun rays and enjoying the fragrances of lavender, flowers and herbs bordering the area. It is surrounded by various old villages and a vast choice of restaurants and golf courses,

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View from the outside breakfast area over the garden

Bastide Saint Mathieu offers a truly unique ambiance of luxury, charm and tranquility.

The former Dutch owners had sold to the present British owners who would start operating it August 2007. That was another reason for publishing this not immediately. It is my view that a lot of the fun of a staying in a hotel is made out by the way the owners/staff receive you. I am glad I could find two recent positive reviews in the meantime.

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The Pool

We stayed two nights in the James Gordon Bennet Suite, which has a separate sitting room and bedroom and we were pampered well by the former owner Inge.

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La cuisine d’été

Since our stay they have added a pergola to the swimming pool and made a covered area on the terrace for Al Fresco breakfasts, lunches and dinners. They have a marvelous photo gallery on their site.

I wouldn’t mind going back.

Post Alia: Still Nothing Zen!
While doing online research for this post, I found out that sites like Tripadvisor really are putting the smaller hotels like Bastide Saint Mathieu to a disadvantage vis a vis the big chains: Usually not many guests do write in a hotel’s guest book, I would estimate one out of 4 guests. If they write in the hotel’s guest book, they are not likely to write an online review. So my estimate is that less than one out of twenty guests writes an online review. Then the big question is where the review is written online, as there are many possibilities….
So Bastide Saint Mathieu has only 3 reviews on the US Site of Tripadvisor and the same three on Tripadvisor’s UK site. However when I looked at their UK an French sites three weeks ago, the UK site couldn’t find Bastide Saint Mathieu and the French site had 7 reviews….I see now the same 3 reviews. Probably they have now acknowledged he change of ownership…

It used to be a member of Chateaux et Hotels. I’m not sure it is now. Ah, darn, they still are! I wasn’t sure, because Chateaux et Hotels deemed it feasible to change their site. If you now are searching a hotel on their site you only can search for available hotel rooms. If the hotel is fully booked, you can’t find the hotel on the very site of their own marketing organization. This is Mighty Stupid! Chateaux et Hotels took away their maps……Why make it easy (as they did in an earlier version of their site) when you can make it difficult?