At Horecatrends we spot a lot of national and international trends on a daily basis. We pick the most interesting ones to write articles about, the smaller trends we use in our column ‘Trends we spotted this week’. This week among others, the half marathon through the Walt Disney Studios Park and Icehotel 365 in Sweden.
If you like to read the whole article, click the title. Enjoy reading! read more
Die Deutsche Bank der Zukunft Q110 BerlinEven the banks start using blurring to sell their services. Recently in the USA, Capital One Cafés opened several outlets where you can combine working, relaxing and banking over a cup of coffee from Peet’s Beverages and of course free Wi-Fi. Blurring at the bank creates a ‘third space’ work / relaxing environment. Last year we already spotted that ‘Die Deutsche Bank der Zukunft / Berlin Q110’ is testing different ‘third space’ environments in their ‘bank lobby’ in Berlin, Germany.
Worry Dolls by the Omni hotel La Mansion del Rio
Fa-Raon (Bristol Hotel Paris)
Poem Palace Hotel Dubai
Fa-Raon (Bristol Hotel Paris)The ultimate bed time stories to read in hotels are stories which takes place in the hotel….. Don’t you agree? We once philosophized about starting our own hotel and one of the ideas that came up was writing a story which took place in the vicinity of the hotel. And sending this story to every guest two weeks prior to their arrival, to enhance the anticipation. Imagine the kind of stories that could be written about your hotel or the hotel you love to visit as a loyal guest. We haven’t had the pleasure of enjoying such an idea as guest yet but it’s quite interesting to see what is done with storytelling in the hospitality industry.
We made a small list with successful storytelling examples! read more
During the December month, restaurant ‘Lot & de Walvis’ (Lot and the Whale) in Leiden had a ‘wish tree’ instead of a Christmas tree. The guests of the restaurant could write down their wish and hang it into the tree. The wish that will be carried out by Lot is chosen through Social Media.
Everyone knows them; a ‘wish tree’. Especially when you visited Utrecht last December you couldn’t have missed it. The ‘wish trees of Utrecht’ were put down on five different squares in the city in which the people could hang their wishes. The trees on the squares were getting decorated with many different wishes and some wishes were granted. This idea came from entrepreneur Sidney Rubens in order to promote the Knuss Winterfest in an original way.
It is also possible to apply a wish tree on a smaller scale. Guests of ‘Lot & de Walvis’ could write down their wish and hang it in the tree situated in the restaurant. Besides that, they involved their community on Facebook in the final decision for the best wish and managed to achieve a relatively large audience. The message in which the people could vote was shared, liked and received a lot of attention. Also the message with the announcement of the winner was popular with 132 likes. The power of Social Media!
‘Lot & de Walvis’ is a part of the Hospitality Group Leiden together with Van der Werff, La France, City Hall and The Bishop. The board consists of the brothers Richard and Wouter van Leeuwen and Rob van Wijnen. Wouter van Leeuwen and Rob van Wijnen are responsible for the hospitality companies in Leiden. Richard van Leeuwen focuses on the four Harbour Clubs based in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Scheveningen and on Ibiza.
The Peninsula Hotels are ready for the Christmas season. The SnowPage, their mascot and limited edition cuddly toy is for sale for the Make-A-Wish Foundation®.
SnowPage is dressed to impress for the holiday fundraising campaign by the Peninsula Hotels. The SnowPage is fashionably restyled by the luxury toy art collective Papinee. They created a limited edition of just 300 toys for each hotel, and all profits will be donated to the Make- A-Wish Foundation®. If guests buy one of the SnowPages they will have a chance on winning an ultimate Peninsula experience with the “Golden Tickets”, offering prizes for all the family. The Golden Tickets are hidden inside some SnowPage boxes.
Papinee has hand-crafted 10 limited edition SnowPage toys, with the lovable snowman dressed in exquisitely embroidered costumes inspired by the arts, culture and architecture of each Peninsula destination. Hallmarked by Papinee’s detailed craftsmanship and vibrant design style, the exclusive SnowPage toys are designed with care using the finest luxury fabrics.
The Peninsula Hong Kong SnowPage will be dressed in a dark navy jacket, embroidered with vintage neon motifs, The Peninsula Beijing SnowPage will wear a signature Page cap with his red patterned coat with a traditional Chinese dragon design. A New York SnowPage is stylish in red, white and blue with hints of New York’s Art Deco movement, while the Tokyo SnowPage will be dressed in a classic cherry blossoms-embellished kimono.
An update regarding the Virtual Reality Cinema we wrote about back in October. The tour throughout The Netherlands sold out really quickly. &Samhoud media will now organise futuristic cinemas in Berlin, Munich, Zürich, London and Copenhagen in January and February.
Initiator Jip Samhoud: ‘We can see that our cinema sells out time after time and we sense that there really is a market for Virtual Reality. We noticed that a real business model can be made for VR cinemas. We’ve received more than 2500 visitors, the first few days that we’ve been open.’
The success of the Virtual Reality Cinema will also be continued in The Netherlands. During the Christmas Season, the cinema in Amsterdam will open again! In this special Christmas edition the Virtual Reality cinema can be found at the Passeerdersgracht 19a in Amsterdam from the 18th of December till the 23th. Opening hours and tickets can be found at vrcinema.samhoud.com.
In October we wrote about the first Virtual Reality Cinema.
In the cosy courtyard of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant York & Albany, an alpine-style winter chalet is installed. If you’re in London this is a great place to share cocktails and a snack platter.
This summer York & Albany brought the beach to downtown London. We wrote about their beach shack where seaweed Martini’s and Bacardi Rum slush in mini buckets and alcoholic popsicles with for example Pimm’s liqueur were served. This winter the beach shack is replaced by a pop-up winter chalet, complete with fairy lights, pine cones, lanterns, blankets to wrap yourself in and an open fire on the terrace. They will be serving a snack platter by chef Will Stanyer, raclette, venison Kromeski and rainbow trout with horseradish mousse, sweet treats like coconut and lychee snowballs and baked Alaska. All accompanied by hot or cold cocktails, including York & Albany’s own Winter Spiced Old Fashioned with home-infused vodka. The chalet is open from 30th October until the 28th of February 2016.
We read about the pop-up winter chalet in an article from The Telegraph about Christmas pop-up restaurants. We don’t have that many pop-up concepts in the Netherlands so we hope this pop-up will be an inspiration. If you check the website of York & Albany you can even find some great cocktail recipes.
Pizza Pi, a pizza delivery boat, is sailing the Caribean Sea and delivers pizzas at the Christmas Cove on the Great St. James Island.
The Pizza delivery boat of Pizza Pi is an initiative by Sasha and Tara Bouis. They bring the trend of food trucks, which are becoming pretty common nowadays, to a new level. They converted their house boat into a fully operational pizza bakery boat in two years. Sascha and Tara have visited the Pizza School of New York and now they make their own pizzas, including gluten-free pizzas aboard their ship.
Although we lack the Caribean sun, we can have great summers and we have a lot of water and water enthusiasts as well! It’s a great idea for Italian restaurants to start delivering pizzas by boat! Maybe one of the restaurants located at the lakes in the West and North of The Netherlands already does this…. We’d love to hear it!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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 is open from late November till late February 2015. There will be three matching winter events, each with a cool theme.
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.
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.
We couldn’t find an immersive Christmas Light Maze in Europe yet, howevere correct us if we are wrong. But we love the idea, another fun read more
We have been sharing inspiration on our website since 2007, inspiration that we find in the hospitality industry or by online spotting of what our read more
We have been sharing inspiration on our website since 2007, inspiration that we find in the hospitality industry or by online spotting of what our read more
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