The ‘Shanghai Tower’ will open its doors in Shanghai in 2014. The building has a total height of 632 meters with 121 floors. Between the 84th and 110th floor of the building there will be a hotel with 320 rooms. This is the highest hotel in the world. The building has walls of glass so it gives a 360 degree view of the city. The ‘Shanghai Tower’ will also have a number of retail stores, offices, cultural facilities and an observation deck.
Restaurant, Bar & Marina Terrace I-Dock, located on the ground floor of the new Room Mate Hotel Aitana Amsterdam, opened its doors at February 8. The hotel bar I-Dock is a place where hotel guests and passers-by can enjoy breakfast, lunch, dinner or drinks. The menu is Mediterranean oriented with the concept of small dinners. Guests can taste different dishes or share the small bites with each other. At night the hotel bar transforms into a night club with DJs and live bands. I-Dock is a initiative of business caterer Vitam.
Now KLM Royal Dutch Airlines makes it possible for customers to pay their booking through social media. Consumers are already able to book extra services through social media, such as a seat reservation or extra baggage addition, but they can now pay their booking via Facebook or Twitter as well. KLM will send the customer a link in a private message on Facebook or Twitter, consumers can choose the method of payment and complete the transaction. A KLM service agent receives a payment confirmation and sends a message to the customer. KLM is the first airline that makes it possible to pay through social media.
Restaurant Sjalot & Schanul in Belgium is welcoming to all its guests, including the children. The restaurant charges a fee for children based on their age. A child of 4 years will receive a dinner for € 4,= and a 6-year old will pay € 6,= for a slightly larger portion.
Bello Bergamotcello is the new fresh version of Bello Limoncello. The Bello Bergamot is made of the Bergamot lemon, a citrus fruit that is normally used in tea or perfume, because of its aroma. The liquor-makers Natwerk used these lemons to make a Limoncello. Chef cook Jaimie van Heije was so excited by the special Limoncello, that he serves the drink in his restaurant and has put a cocktail variant on the menu.
The ‘Home Exhibition’ in Amsterdam RAI is really a female fair, but each year around 25,000 men visit the event. To do the men a favor, during the event from 15 to 23 Feburary, there will be a Men Café again. Men can drink a beer here, eat some croquettes and there are pool tables. Racing driver Tim Coronel will be present to accompany the men in the café. The visitors can sit in the Dakar buggy of Tim Coronel and take a picture.
“Kwik, kwak, kwek, please come back”. That is the motto of the Hampshire rubber duck. It’s a business gift for special visitors of the hotels and a cool way to give a friendly reminder of your visit. There are various photographers that shoot rubber duckies around the world. Perhaps you’ll see the #HampshireDuck pop-up on social media any time soon..
Emmett’s introduces typical Chicago deep dish style pizza’s in New York. These pizza’s look more like a quiche rather than a traditional pizza. See the video for a review.
Update: in the meanwhile we’ve tried this pizza ourselves. Take a look at my report here ^Marjolein van Spronsen
The hotel ‘The Thief’ in Tjuvholmen (Norway) welcomed its guests at the first day of the Olympic Games with French kissing hetero and gay couples from different races. The campaign is inspired by a video from Norwegian singer Annie and Norwegian visual artist Bjarne Melgaard and in collaboration with a national LGBT-organization. With the campaign the hotel supports the #principle6 campaign, based on the Olympic values. The video of kissing people is projected in room #410 and visible at street level for two weeks.
The municipality of Amsterdam appointed four locations for pop-up stores at the ‘Zuidas’, near Amsterdam Zuid train station. From 1 May onwards the locations are available to unique concepts that complement the existing offer for six months. All competitors, with both food as well as non-food concepts, can send in their plans before 5 March 2014. The four winners will be announced on 13 March. Perhaps the area will be enriched with a test sleep facility, a tasting area or a collaboration between local entrepreneurs like we’ve seen in the West of Amsterdam.
We all know that Fashion Weeks are concentrated around fashion shows and after party’s but this year Marc Jacobs took the opportunity to do another type of stunt!
After all the talk of alternative payment methods like Bitcoin recently, he decided to open a pop-up tweetshop, a store where you pay with social media posts, a brilliant idea to promote his fragrance Daisy. In essence this store was more about the experience than the shopping, being located in beautiful bright loft in Soho, the brand organized a set of activities. One was a photo-booth style field of daisies, where you could take daisy #selfies. When uploaded with #MJDaisyChain to Instagram or Twitter you could win great prizes with the messages, such as bags, full bottles of daisy, sunglasses and other gadgets. Other than the daisy-field booth there was also a cart with a coffeemachine and baristas making fresh coffee, ladies who were giving free manicures with Marc Jacobs nail polishes and lot’s of daisy art and daisies. A dj made the atmosphere even a bit more exciting and the “fabulous” NYFW visitors were having a ball. One simple tweet with the hashtag #MJDaisyChain earned you a small daisy roller and for the larger prizes your post had to be chosen. All together, a rather briljant concept and you bet that the # was trending during the opening days! ^Leonie van Spronsen
The QBara restaurant in the Fort WAFI Leisure Complex (Dubai) opened late 2013. The restaurant serves dishes inspired by the flavors of the region with a modern twist. Guests choose multiple dishes from the menu, which are served ‘family style’. For example we ate a few small dishes like ‘scallops, sumac and sweet & sour shallots’ and ‘tomatoes, watermelon and homemade Shanklish & mint’. The dishes we tasted were delicious with mysterious ingredients (for us) like za’atar butter and grilled vegetables ‘mechouia’. The desserts were also delicious; we loved the tempura Medjoul dates. As the alcohol consumption is less in this region, many restaurants have an extensive mocktail menu with great combinations of ingredients. All of this combined with the unique environment, with elements as the ‘magic wall’ (see a YouTube video of the wall here) and the house-Arabian music, makes for an amazing experience. The restaurant has a modern design that is enriched with oriental style. ^Marjolein
No red roses, bonbons or discount but attention! That’s what Droste’s attends its guests on with a nice little envelope for your telephone during the Valentine’s dinner.
Since last weekend, you can go bowling in nightclub Trouw in Amsterdam. There are three professional bowling lanes in the basement of Trouw where you can play from February 7 to March 2. Club Lebowski places pop-up bowling alleys at various locations and it took three days to place the bowling alleys at Trouw. During restaurant and club hours guests can throw strikes, spares and gutter balls along with up to six friends. The bowling alleys are open from Tuesday to Saturday for €10,= per hour.
A real bacon lover? Visit the bacon restaurant ‘BarBacon’ in New York City. The restaurant opened last month and is completely in the theme of artisan bacon. The menu includes a variety of bacon sandwiches, salads, bacon chocolate chip cookies and even a bacon whiskey variant. When serving ‘The Tasting’ the guest will receive a selection of four types of bacon and there is a bacon of turkey or vegetarian bacon. ‘BarBacon’ serves local craft beers and whiskeys in combination with various types of bacons. Maybe they can serve a shot bacon liqueur?
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
There is a one stop shop in Oslo that combines a stylish cafe, laundry and a library. The philosophy of the Laundromat concept is to offer a warm and friendly environment where you can meet a diverse mix of visitors on your laundry day.
This furniture lights up your garden, looks nice, and is very comfy. Vondom designed this furniture of recycled materials.
This insects hotel is located in the Dutch province Limburg (village Beesel), next to a large frog pond, with the aim to house insects and to stimulate nature.
Perfect for the smaller (hotel) bathroom. Drawers and cabinets are incorporated in the bathtub, where you can nicely storage all your towels and shampoo. Designed by Royo Group.
Is the glass half full or half empty? That’s the everlasting discussion between optimists and pessimists. This glass, that’s always half full can solve the discussion permanently.
A kitchen knife for the wannabe Bruce Lee or Chuck Norris. With this knife you’re the kung fu master in your own kitchen (for a moment).
For the men that want to jump into the action after a night out there is the limited edition Viagra beer from Brewdog. The beer is a wink to all products that are released before the Royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, therefore its especially for the ‘Royal Parts’.
Planning a wedding can be a full-time job. The Wedding Café & Lounge, located in Mumbai, offers couples a place to arrange all the aspects of the big day, while enjoying a dinner. From a florist, to a travel agency to plan the honeymoon, to suppliers of the bridal make-up.
After spotting the first champagne which is drinkable with ice, is this cognac as well designed to drink on-the-rocks. This limited edition is developed by ABK6 Cognac and was launched on the Vinexpo in Bordeaux. By adding ice, hints of peach, lemon sorbet and iced mint will dominate the taste.
{youtube}3cy3gKwirLk&feature{/youtube}
With this clever box-system of swissRoomBox, almost all types of cars can be tranformed to a caravan. The boxes will be assembled to your back-seat and trunk and contain a small kitchen and shower with hot water, a bed and a table. The options of the boxes are expandable. An extra carbox on your car is recommended, because of the size of the boxes.
Making sushi is normally a job for experts. But there is a new tool that makes it easier to create this delicious Japanese dish. And it comes squared instead of the normal round shape! Ross Patten introduced the Rice Cube during the Australian MasterChef. After a few slide movements with the futuristic device you will have the perfect squares.
The Scottish whisky brand Johnnie Walker just opened and experience center in Shanghai. Besides an explanation of the destillation process there is an interactive blending table and a porcelain bottle collection in with Johnnies journey to China painted in the typical Chinese style.
The wake up pillow is the ideal weapon in the battle for sleapyheads. The remaining hours of sleep are set with a pull on the label, the weight on the pillow works as a snooze button. That’s a rapid wake up and no more noise for others.
This first environmentally beneficial billboard is launched in the Philippines by Coca-Cola and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and consists of the Fukien tea plant. These plants absorbe each 13 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. This billboard also makes use of recycled materials, such as old bottles of Coca Cola.
Not only are these sugar sachets practically mono-dosed to 1 teaspoon of sugar, but these funny designed sachets are cheering up the table as well.
Funny tablecloths and placemats, inspired by ‘The Last Supper’ of Leonardo da Vinci. See the pictures here.
Supermarkt chain Tesco has launched a test with a new prototype navigation system in one of its stores in London. The system is compatible with Android smartphones and shows the location of the phone in the store. Customers can enter their shopping list in to the application which displays the perfect route for all your grocery.
After exclusive pop-up picknicks in Montreal, Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin it is New York where the concept ‘Le Diner en Blanc’ unfolds on the 25th of August. The dinner guests must be dressed in white and bring their own table, chairs and food. The location is secret untill a few minutes before the start of the dinner.
Cheese lovers pay attention, with the Barbeclette it’s now possible to put cheese on the barbecue. Ideal for a cheeseburger or in addition to your vegetables.
If you like Japanese food, these covers are a must have. iMeshi has imitated various dished for the iPhone 4 and Xperia X10. The plastic protection covers will be noticed!
Three inhabitants from New York took the initiative to get a swimming pool in the Hudson river. The ‘+Pool’ is for every New Yorker and combines different uses of a swimming pool. The concept of a swimming pool isn’t new. Last year swimming pool ‘Bad Buiten’ opened in the Amstel river (Amsterdam). The unique feature about the +Pool, is that the initiators want to filter the water from the Hudson river itself and are going to finance the project by crowdfunding.
The creatives from Berg Design transform the standard recipe into a piece of experience(marketing). By combining various information of the bought products with available data, they put for instance the total amount of Calories, the average rate of circulation and other information on the bill. The (personalization) possibilities are limitless.
In 2009 we informed you about unexpected friendly gestures from the Hyatt hotel group to their visitors. They gave away free massages, offered breakfast on their cost or guests didn’t had to pay for the bar tab. Nowadays companies like KLM continue these acts of generosity. With the steady growth and prominent position of social media in our lives these unexpected gestures are a strong stimulans for positive mouth-to-mouth or ‘mouth-to-media’ advertising.
Japanese design studio Fantastic Design Works created fairytale interior of Alice in Wonderland restaurant inspired by the Lewis Carroll classic. Restaurant features several different “rooms” and each of them is an imaginative combination of psychedelic decorations, dramatic designs and waitresses dressed in Alice costumes. Watch the pictures at websites mentioned below. The restaurant can be found at www.diamond-dining.com.
Candyland a new Nightclub in Tokyo is located on Avenue Omontesando in the district of Shibuya. An area with a high density of restaurants and luxury shops. Realized by the American architect and designer Tiffany Dahlen Virginia Melnyk and inspired by the colorful candy and other sweets, discover all the details on the websites mentioned below.
Bezoek horecatrends op
