BUNK hotel Amsterdam |A new hotspot in the former Sint-Rita church
9-3-2020
After the booming success in Utrecht, Amsterdam now also gets a BUNK Hotel. BUNK opened its doors on the 5th of March in the former Sint-Rita church in Amsterdam North. After a thorough renovation, the monumental building has room for 300 guests. Is it a hotel with hostel prices? Or a hostel with the quality and service of a hotel? BUNK invites you to experience it yourself. BUNK has a sympathetically priced restaurant and a broad cultural programming. With the compact rooms and Pods, the lively shared spaces and the free cultural offer, BUNK focuses on connecting with the neighborhood and the world.
Last Tuesday, the 3rd of March, I was present at a dinner at the BUNK hotel. You are already impressed upon arrival by the transformation of this large church into a hotel. Great to see the BUNK pods but also the 107 compact rooms in the belly of the church, a separate concept. From April onwards you can and go sleep there, I believe this is a special and pleasant experience in Amsterdam. It’s also a great place to enjoy dinner with dishes based on various international cuisines, including that of Amsterdam. ^ Oscar van der Maas
First edition of the Gin & Rum Festival in the Netherlands
9-3-2020
First edition of the Gin & Rum Festival at seven different locations throughout the Netherlands. Unlimited tasting of more than 100 different gin and rum brands. From the Piña Colada to the now indispensable Gin & Tonic. At the first edition of the Gin & Rum Festival everything revolves around these two distillates. Seven Dutch cities are taking part in the new festival this year and each location will be transformed into a true gin & rum paradise. Upon arrival, gourmets receive a full-fledged tasting glass with which they can taste more than 100 different types of gin and rum unlimited at the stands of well-known and emerging new brands. In addition to these tastings, visitors gain knowledge during substantive workshops, make their own cocktails and dance on fine tunes in the silent disco. Smell, taste and enjoy while being inspired by the stories of passionate distillers and bartenders.
This festival makes it possible to try the tastiest gins and rums with your friends at various unique locations in the Netherlands. Do not miss it!
Booking.com Launches New Pilot App CityBook in Amsterdam, London and Paris
25-2-2020
Booking.com, one of the world’s leading digital travel companies committed to making it easier for everyone to experience the world, recently announced the launch of a new pilot product, CityBook, a responsive digital guide for cities that seamlessly combines inspiration, planning, navigation and experience all in one place. The first pilots launched in the cities of Paris, London and Amsterdam.
This Pilot product leverages machine learning to make instant recommendations for travelers to easily explore all the best a city has to offer on the go. Booking.com just made exploring cities a whole lot easier.
Soulpicks app | Already 120,000 unique favorite places, restaurants, wine bars and Cafe’s worldwide
25-2-2020
Places where you like to go and share in private with friends, family and acquaintances. In the past year, 120,000 of these kind of unique ‘soulpicks’ were recorded and shared in the Soulpicks app by users and the experts associated with Soulpicks. Of all favorite places, restaurants are the most shared, but also wine and cocktail bars and cafe’s throughout the world are well represented in the app. More than 7,800 favorite places have already been added in Japan, more than 31,000 in the USA and more than 16,000 in the United Kingdom and France. The milestone is an important step towards the position of Soulpicks as a ‘go to app’ for the implementation of your leisure time, wherever you are in the world.
Trends we spotted | Week 8
24-2-2020
At hospitalitytrends.eu we spot many national and international trends on a daily basis. We pick the most interesting ones to write about, the smaller trends we use in our weekly column ‘Trends we spotted this week’.
This week, among other links to articles about the Crystal Clear Bread Challenge, cheese made from cauliflower and Popcorn Chicken Pizza.
Burger King New Zealand released a sandwich with just French Fries and at the New York Fashion Week Croc’s latest collaboration has been released: Crocs clogs for KFC fans!
KFC China created ‘pocket franchises’ via Wechat, a virtual franchise system to engage customers and encourage people to order from the restaurant. And the Travalyst coalition announces the development of new sustainability frameworks to help travellers to find sustainable travel and tourism options.
Gacha Gacha Coffee | A do-it-yourself coffeeshop by Maruyama Coffee
21-2-2020
A do-it-yourself coffeeshop, created by Nendo Design Studio for Maruyama Coffee In Japan. Although already closed it’s been an introduction to a coffeeshop that didn’t require many staff members. Nendo Design Studio created the almost fully-automated café called Gacha Gacha Coffee. The experience was inspired by Gachapon, a capsule toy vending machines that’s popular in Japan. The pop-up from October till November 2019, located in the observation deck of Roppongi Hills, featured 12 vending machines. At these machines consumers could purchase a capsule filled with coffee beans for ¥500 (USD 4.50). As from that the consumer had to take the coffee to semi-automated stations to brew it themselves. Staff only had to give information and clean up!
The idea behind Gacha Gacha Coffee is to create a coffee experience that makes you choose your beans, take time to watch it brewed and maybe even talk about coffee with a barista and of course enjoy the view at the observation deck! But as Trendwatching (we spotted Gacha Gacha Coffee in their ‘Innovation of the day’-trendletter) indicates it’s a great example on how you can use automation to face labour shortage, which we’re facing in the Netherlands as well.
Trends we spotted | Week 7
17-2-2020
At hospitalitytrends.eu we spot many national and international trends on a daily basis. We pick the most interesting ones to write about, the smaller trends we use in our weekly column ‘Trends we spotted this week’.
This week, among other links to articles about a nicotine-like ‘meat patch’ and the Fondue Pizza by Pizza Pilgrims and The Cheese Bar.
An international project upcycles shellfish to tackle plastic pollution and Café Jack and Beyond in London serves ‘bottomless Cake and Prosecco’. And a new water-saving defrosting system, called Boss Defrost, offers a more sustainable solution.
And an article on how the Coronavirus is hitting the business of American Chinese Restaurants and some inspiration for Valentine’s Day 2021!
Click on the title if you like to read the full article. Enjoy reading!
The city of Igualada & Airbnb | ‘Healthy Destinations Lab’
14-2-2020
A healthy tourism project between the city of Igualada (Spain) and Airbnb provides a blueprint to promote lesser-known destinations across the world. As told by Airbnb the number of arrivals of guests to the region increased 50% in one year propelled by domestic travelers. In late 2018, Igualada City Council and Airbnb announced the creation of the “Healthy Destinations Lab”. The innovative project brought together industry, policymakers and locals to explore, generate ideas and collaborate on building a healthy and sustainable tourism model for the municipality of Igualada, located within the L’Anoia region in Catalonia (Spain).
We wrote about the ‘Global Office of Healthy Tourism’ by Airbnb back in 2018 and recently they published a whitepaper on New Sustainable Tourism Destinations in which they, amongst other topics about sustainable tourism, subscribe the project with the city of Igualada in the Anoia region in Spain. The effect of the project: Guests arrivals in the Anoia region grew by almost 50% in 2019, 71% growth of domestic travel in the Anoia region in 2019, 16 of the 35 municipalities in the Anoia region received travelers through Airbnb.
Trends we spotted | Week 5
3-2-2020
At hospitalitytrends.eu we spot many national and international trends on a daily basis. We pick the most interesting ones to write about, the smaller trends we use in our weekly column ‘Trends we spotted this week’.
This week, among other links to articles about ‘Truth & Tonic, the first plant-based café on the Strip in Las Vegas and at an ATM outside of the new Vagabond venue in London, dispensing a glass of prosecco!
Other articles are about CHEW, another personal and reusable straw and an eco-friendly chocolate bar by Kit Kat, flavoured and sweetened with cacao fruit!
The Mandarin Oriental Ritz, Madrid will reopen its doors in the summer of 2020 and Beyond Meat had another collaboration with Dunkin’ this time! A limited edition of the Beyond D-O-Double G Sandwich with Beyond Sausage!
And a very important development in Spain Aqua Abib created a solar-powered system that turns salt water into drinking water and commercial salt. Big, bigger, biggest – At the Lamanna’s Bakery in Scaborough Canada they created very big pizza slices and even sweet ones like The Donut Slice!
Trends we spotted | Week 4
27-1-2020
At hospitalitytrends.eu we spot many national and international trends on a daily basis. We pick the most interesting ones to write about, the smaller trends we use in our weekly column ‘Trends we spotted this week’.
This week, among other links to articles about the loss of the third Michelin star by L’Auberge du Pont de Collonges, Restaurant Paul Bocuse and the most expensive bottle of gin ever is made by Skully Gin!
The Fairmont in San Francisco created a temporary and controversial solution for their very busy breakfast buffet and you’ll be able to enjoy ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ in London as well!
Karma the food rescue app, will install 100 communal smart fridges across Sweden, the UK and France. And in New York, the meat-free sushi restaurant ‘Beyond Sushi’ is expanding., they will open their 7th location.
Click on the title if you like to read the full article. Enjoy reading!