Nato Top: 5 * Hotel and Town Groan under Security Measures

Nato Noorwijk Huis ter Duin
Huis ter Duin in Noorwijk changed into a fort

Today and tomorrow 27 ministers of defense meet “informally” in Noorwijk, just a couple of miles North East from The Hague.

According to the Nato site they will

discuss the way ahead for NATO’s operations and Alliance transformation.

The ministers will discuss ways to ensure that the NATO-led operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo remain correctly configured and properly resourced.They will also consider NATO’s role in Afghanistan as part of the wider efforts of the international community to support the development of national security, governance and development in Afghanistan.

They will also address the continued transformation of NATO’s defense capabilities and how best to continue ensuring the availability of forces and capabilities for the Alliance’s operations and for the NATO Response Force.

In the informal meeting of the NATO-Russia Council, the 27 Ministers will address civil and military activities, as well as cooperation in Afghanistan and in the framework of NATO’s counter terrorism operation in the Mediterranean, Active Endeavor.

Nato Noorwijk Huis ter Duin 02
Photo Pim Ras

In order to make the meeting as secure as possible luxurious Grand Hotel Huis ter Duin has been fenced off from the outside world and looks like a military fort. Its premises and the complete town of Noordwijk have been declared temporary military zone. Without due form of process anybody can be searched and moved away from the area. A Dutch Marine minesweeper is anchored in front of the seashore located hotel and secures the seaside. Airplanes heading for Schiphol Amsterdam Airport have to make a detour as the area is declared a no flight zone as well and Noordwijk is just located in one of the frequently used approaches for the airport.

I am not sure the Huis ter Duin Hotelier is really very happy with this prestigious venue.

Would WTM accept a Blogger as Publisher/Editor/Journalist?

WTM LOGO

In order to sniff up some travel and luxury travel news I would like to attend WTM as a Blogger, not as a Hotelier. Not being able to offer thousands of rooms my hotel is simply too small to justify a visit to WTM (although I did that once in the past).

So by way of experiment I applied for a Publisher’s Badge.

In reply to my application I got following answer:

Dear Mr Van den Elshout,

Thank you for submitting your registration to attend World Travel Market 2007 as a member of the press.

Press badges are restricted to Publishers, Editors, Journalists, Photographers and Broadcasters. A press badge allows access to the Press Centre at WTM.

In order to process your registration we need to ask you to send us by mail a copy of accreditation in the form of a photocopy of a recognised press or media card, business card, NUJ card or a letter from the editor, that verifies you are working member of the press community.

Please print a copy of this email and send it with the copy accreditation to the following address:

As Blogger I would like to attend the WTM. However as a blogger I do not carry around business cards and I try to avoid any snail mail. So I am curious to see how this can be solved with WTM….

The funny thing is that for my other Blog I do the same with trade fairs and manufacturers and they have no problem to recognize a Blogger as press. They even are sending me tons of press releases……without questioning me….

Update 24th October 2007
Good sports at WTM. I just received their confirmation that they have accepted me and will issue a press badge after I had referred them to this post in my answer to the above quoted e-mail.

Paris: Hotel Everland, The One Room (One Suite) Cube Hotel has arrived.

Hotel Everland Paris 01
Hotel Everland on top of the Palais de Tokyo
Hotel Everland Paris 02
Wow! What a view from your room on the Eiffel Tower!

From the roof of the Leipzig Gallery of Contemporary Art the one room (one suite) Hotel Everland has moved to the roof of the Paris Palais de Tokyo where it will receive guests for an overnight stay and museum visitors during the day until the end of 2008.

In an interview with the Australian News Com Swiss artists Sabina Lang who with Daniel Baumann forms the duo “L/B” that created the artsy Hotel concept, commented:

“It’s what we thought of as an ideal hotel room,” Ms Lang said as she watched a giant crane being prepared to winch the prefabricated green unit up from the back of a truck.

Hotel Everland, originally conceived for Expo 2002, has already spent 18 months at the Gallery for Contemporary Art in Leipzig. But the view from the Palais de Tokyo, incorporating the Paris skyline and the Eiffel Tower, is of a different kind from the east German tower block guests saw there.

“You shouldn’t need a television,” Ms Lang said.

She said it was important for the work to be an actual hotel as well as a part of the museum. Guests pay Euro 333.- (currently $526.86) a night during the week and Euro 444.- (currently $702.48) at weekends, a comparable rate to other hotels in the chic 16th arrondissement, with charges used to cover running costs.

Guests book online at the Hotel Everland site but stay only for the night after closure of the museum. During the day, the room can be inspected by museum visitors.

Reservations, which opened at the start of October, have been brisk and the first two months are already booked out. But the two artists have not been tempted to change trades and abandon art for the hospitality industry.

“It’s absurd to have a one-room hotel and it’s never going to be a success as a business plan,” Ms Lang said. “We just like to play around with the idea of exclusivity and luxury.”

Mexico, Zacatecas: Luxury Small Hotel in a Bullring

Zacatecas
Serene Pottery Scene where once the bulls roamed
Zacatecas

Back to Luxury Hotels:
Quinta Real Hotels is a chain of presently 9 luxury hotels. For me the Bullring turned into an all suite hotel in Zacatecas in the province of Zacatecas with 36 Master suites, 13 Grand Class suites and 1 presidential suite is a true boutique hotel. I have put it on my wish list.

Shocking Hotel Art: "Iraq War Memorial: Death of Prince Harry"

Trafalgar Hotel
Trafalgar Hotel

This weekend the London Trafalgar Hotel served as podium for Bridge Art Fair, a Chicago-based arts programming organization Bridge, NFP which organizes annual Bridge Art Fairs in Chicago, Miami and London.

As Part of The Bridge Art Fair Capla Kesting featured Iraq War Memorial: Death of Prince Harry.

Iraq War Memorial Prince Harry
Iraq War Memorial: Death of Prince Harry

by Daniel Edwards, well known for controversial sculptures, which include a nude, autopsied Paris Hilton, a graphic interpretation of Britney Spears giving birth and “Fidel Castro’s Deathbed Portrait”.

The Capla Kesting Press release explains it as follows:

LONDON, England – A war-mutilated Prince Harry is the symbolic fallen hero in a memorial honoring those willing but unable to serve in the Iraq conflict. Harry, brother to Britain’s future king, was poised to be the most celebrated soldier of the Coalition forces, but due to the “specific threats to kill or kidnap him,” he was kept home. However, Prince Harry will be remembered for his intended tour of duty in a memorial to be unveiled at the Trafalgar Hotel October 11th courtesy of Bridge Art Fair.

“Iraq War Memorial featuring the Death of Prince Harry, the Martyr of Maysan Province” draws inspiration from Harry’s willingness to sacrifice for his country, and the sympathy for his disappointment of an unfulfilled patriotic aspiration.

“This war memorial is dedicated to the brave at heart,” said spokesman David Kesting. “But the brave men and women Prince Harry inspired to enlist for combat following his announcement to serve six months in Iraq are not forgotten.”

The Memorial features Prince Harry laid out before the Union Jack with pennies placed over his eyes and head rested on the Bible. The statue suggests the tragic outcome of a confrontation in Iraq’s Maysan Province with the Iranian weapons smugglers for whom Harry’s tank regiment was scheduled to patrol. Prone with his unfired gun still holstered, Prince Harry is represented clutching a bloodied flag of Wales, and holding to his heart a cameo locket of his late mother, Princess Diana, while a desert vulture perches on his boot. Harry’s head is earless, denoting the explicit threats against the Prince from militia leaders saying they planned to send him back to his grandmother “without his ears.”

A bronze casting of Prince Harry’s “severed ears” also set for display at the Trafalgar Hotel will be offered on eBay.

Harry had stated he would leave the army if he was left in safety while his regiment was sent to a war zone. “Prince Harry’s spirit must have died the day they told him he couldn’t serve,” speculates New York artist Daniel Edwards. “That’s what this memorial is about.”

Like Paris’s Victor Noir Memorial, security for the Prince Harry Memorial will guard against vandalism from expected throngs of admirers believing luck in love and fertility may come by kissing the lips of the memorial to England’s reputed playboy “pinup prince.”

They even set up a website: Prince Harry memorial

There they claim the visitors comments were much more positive than the Press and the reactions on Internet:

The opening for the public was great. For all the negative press that we got and brandishing on the website NO ONE MADE A NEGATIVE COMMENT. Actually it was quite the opposite of what was said about it online. People responded very positively to the work. Remarking on the various details of the piece, like the locket, the holstered gun, the roses in his helmet and pound coins on his eyes. I think we had close to 500 visitors and no one had a negative thing to say. People really enjoyed the work and made numerous positive remarks commenting on their stance regarding the war, pubic service and the royal family.

The website features a picture of the London Towncrier who reportedly was responsible for announcing Harry’s birth:

Towncrier
The London Town Crier

I believe it is a great eye opener and reflection on present times.

What do you think?