Zenzez combines Hotel, Lounge and Showroom
2-1-2015
Matthijs Wilmink and Paul Mulder are the founders of ZENZEZ Hotel & Lounge. Zenzez is an attractive design- and cityhotel located at the edge of the city center of Apeldoorn (The Netherlands).
Interior
Zenzez Hotel & Lounge is fully furnished by the styling team of Riviera Maison. The owners created the hotel to be distinctive and to offer a contemporary and affordable luxury product. Guests of the hotel can buy the furniture and accessories during their visit. That makes Zenzez a hotel, lounge and showroom all in one.
Zenzez
Zenzez Hotel & Lounge is the first hotel in the Netherlands that is founded through crowdfunding. The hotel is located at a renovated Jugendstil villa from 1904 and has 10 rooms. The hotel is also suitable for business meetings and it has a luxuriously furnished businessroom. At the lounge you can go for a lunch, cup of coffee, high tea or a glass of wine.
NH Hotels show their hearts!
22-12-2014
The NH Hotel Group recently launched this year’s edition of the annual globally Christmas Campaign “Hotels with a Heart”. The campaign is in partnership with the Ronald McDonald Children Fund, Iris Hospital in Belgium and the Lenval Children’s Hospital in France.
Hotels with a Heart
The NH Hotel Group offers free nights, afternoon teas, Christmas dinners and cooking workshops in its hotels for families who have had a hard time because of the illness of their child. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the “Hotels with a Heart” initiative, which has gained a prominent place in the Corporate Responsibility Program of the hotel group.
Corporate Responsibility ambassador
In the Benelux, UK and France 43 hotels will invite special guests in the period from 22 December, 2014 until 11 January 2015. In total, about 300 hotel nights are offered worldwide. To make sure the families will lack nothing during their stay, every hotel has an ambassador to watch over every need of the families.
Campaign video
The campaign video about this initiative is published in several languages. It could have been an even stronger campaign if every country would tell another story instead of ‘just’ another variation in subtitle and voice-over. This would have strengthened this great gesture!
Experience in theater as storytelling for your product
16-12-2014
Undergo storytelling, experience a 3D animation and taste the product in a theater.
Recently I joined one of the theater tryouts by Glennfidich. Tony van Rooijen, the enthusiastic Dutch brand ambassador of the whisky makers gave a virtual tour of the distillery in Scotland during a tasting where he presented six different whiskys.
Experience in theater
Apart from the enthusiastic narrator and a stylish tasting kit, the virtual tour consisted out of a very detailed 3D animation of the brewery that had a lot of resemblance with the computer game ‘The Sims’. While the presenter went through the various stages of the brewing process he showed the buildings of the brewery from the outside and inside. Everywhere there was a visual explanation from a first person view, so you had the illusion walking through the brewery itself without leaving your lazy (theater) chair.
Virtual tour
A virtual tour like this can be very interesting for products with an authentic character. A rookie (like me) gets to see more about the brewing process of whisky and the expert will for example learn more about the typical taste each barrel emits.
Flexibility is the future
For theaters, but also for cinemas this way of a product presentation is an interesting case. The stage remains a wonderful place to tell your story and to combine this with a tasting your product and (controlled) experience of it. At most hospitality fairs and food festivals the stage plays an important role in the total concept thus the hospitality industry is already familiar with these crossover concepts. My experience fits in well with a recent article in Fast Moving Targets that shows that flexibility of the theater is the future. ^Armand
Winter garden in Amsterdam
15-12-2014
How do you use your outdoor area during the cold days? Do you transform it into a cozy winter garden or do you prefer a skating rink on the roof terrace? For three months Restaurant & Bar Herengracht changes its outdoor area into a winter wonderland. With heaters, fire places and a semi-roofed terrace it is a nice place to be during these dark days.
The Winter Garden Amsterdam
The Winter Garden is open from late November till late February 2015. There will be three matching winter events, each with a cool theme.
Typical wintry
At the terrace the temperature will be a few degrees higher than on the streets. Not only the ‘heaters’ cause these higher temperatures, but also by the nose warming winter cocktails, mulled wine and hot chocolate served from the special outdoor bar. Typical wintry snacks and dishes like homemade pea soup, cheese fondue and game completes this winter concept.
Three special winter events
The winter garden will set the stage for three events at Restaurant & Bar ‘Herengracht’, which is located near the ‘Koningsplein’ in Amsterdam. The first event will be hosted in Christmas spheres on 20 December, the second event highlights the theme ‘let’s go wild’ on 24 January with wild boar on the spit, the final special is a huge cheese fondue party.
The Tree Lighting Party by The Pierre New York
5-12-2014
Last weekend I happened to see a tweet of hotel The Pierre New York which invited its followers to The Pierre’s Holiday Tree Lighting Party. The Pierre New York, celebrates the lighting of their Christmas Tree by offering their guests a free cocktail if they take a little toy for charity!
We have recently written an article about the Christmas trees at the Claridge Hotel in London. For several years already they invite great designers to decorate their Christmas trees. They also organize a Tree Lighting Party just as the large department stores in London, New York and the ‘Bijenkorf’ in the Netherlands celebrate their ‘window lighting party’, since a couple of years.
Combine the Tree Lighting party with charity
The Pierre New York Hotel is trying to tempt guests to take along a toy for charity. A couple of years back I read about parties in Hollywood where Christmas trees decorated by celebrities were auctioned for charity. Nice idea to create a similar auction with your local celebrities!
^ Marjolein van Spronsen
Free pizza slide with A-grades
1-12-2014
The Greenville House of Pizza in New Hampshire is offering its young customers the chance to earn free slices with homework and good grades. The strangest marketing actions are organized to inspire young people to earn a free meal at a fast food restaurant. Last year for example, we read in an article that girls could get a free slice of pizza if they showed their “boobs” in a Pizza Place in Illinois. (Not) a good example of trying to get more guests through community involvement. 😉
Stimulate students with pizza slices
The owner of the Greenville House of Pizza, a 28-year war veteran helps young people with their homework and treats free pizza slices if they get an ‘A’. In addition, students can do their homework in his “Study Hall Special“ until five o’clock in the afternoon and in the meantime enjoy a slice of pizza for only 35 dollar cents. The owner even helps with the homework, if he understands the subject!
Social commitment
My youngest daughter is currently in high school and sometimes I hear that she didn’t consume her lunch but ordered a pizza with friends instead. Knowing this makes the action above much more sympathetic and that occasional pizza slice is eaten anyway! ^Marjolein
Small hospitable gesture: Leave it at Hyatt
27-11-2014
The Grand Hyatt Melbourne has launched its ‘Leave it at Hyatt’ service, enabling visitors to safely store their belongings on site, ready for their next stay.
We have been writing about small hospitable gestures for quite some time now and this is one great example. ‘Leave it at Hyatt’ is facilitating frequent visitors to travel lighter or in case they are a bit over packed for one return flight, to pick their luggage up the next time. According to the Australian Business Traveller, regular guests can fill out a form and leave items at the reception (all within reasonable proportions of course). When they return, guests can get their items delivered to their room. Clothes can even be dry-cleaned if requested!
The ‘Leave it at Hyatt’ service is creating repeating visits and brand loyalty
A similar service like ‘Leave it at Hyatt’ is sometimes offered at wintersporthotels. Having the ability to leave skies and ski shoes at the hotel enables the guest to travel lighter. On the other hand, hotels are assured that the guest will return! Nice small gestures. What small hospitable gesture can you offer your guests? ^Marjolein
Storytelling by Hotel Casa 400
26-11-2014
Hotel Casa 400 launches storytelling website ‘Home To 400’ and shares its history by the motto “Mi Casa es su Casa ‘.
In 1957 Gabbe Scheltema, Frits Bolkestein and the late Nol South took the initiative to introduce a successful student hotel concept from Copenhagen in Amsterdam in Copenhagen. They wanted to offer a solution to the lack of student housing and wanted to solve the increased demand for hotel rooms in the peak summer season as well.
“With us behind every room a story”
The hotel pays tribute to the founders and 57 years of history by launching a unique website with stories from students, staff and visitors of Casa 400. The accompanying video for instance tells the story of the housekeeping staff, but there are also extensive written stories about (former) residents.
Expanding the storytelling website
Besides stories that are published already the website will gradually be supplemented with stories of all students, employees and guests. It is one of the best examples of storytelling in the hospitality industry nowadays.
Blackjack with taste, Vino Casino
25-11-2014
Last Sunday at the ‘Wine Weekend’ wine fair I spotted the ‘Vino Casino’ game. ‘Vino Casino’, as you can see in the picture is a specially developed BlackJack table, representing a large world map and different vintages on the side.
Blackjack with taste
The game begins with a wine tasting, without seeing the label. Through smell, taste and look participants need to indicate the country / region and the age of the wine. Blackjack with taste thus! The casino chips, which are distributed in advance, must be deployed on both the country and the age groups. When the country or year is correct the number of casino chips is doubled. You can agree in advance how many bottles to taste at this blackjack table. The one who has the most casino chips at the end of the flight, is the winner.
For staff parties or during a tasting
This game is perfect to teach your staff or guests more about wine, in a fun and playful way. It gives a competitive element to a tasting and selects the real ‘wine connoisseur’ among your friends and colleagues. ^Bram Kosterink
An Airbnb with as host the KLM
21-11-2014
KLM listed an MD-11 as ‘Spacious Airline Apartment’ on Airbnb
The Dutch carrier KLM has teamed up with Airbnb for a promotion in which aviation enthusiasts can win a night’s stay in Amsterdam. The lodging would be inside one of the airline’s just-retired MD-11s. It’s listed on Airbnb as a ‘Spacious Airplane Apartment’ in Amsterdam. Airbnb says the Wi-Fi equipped two-bedroom lodging option also comes with two kitchens, a living room, eight “small” bathrooms, 116 windows and “a giant cockpit panorama window”. Unfortunately flying is prohibited. The Airplane Apartment is available for three nights only, Nov. 28-30 2014.
