CityHub, a capsule hotel in Amsterdam

15-12-2015

Last month CityHub opened its doors on Bellamystraat in Amsterdam’s Oud West district. Fifty state-of-the-art sleeping units, a ‘digital first’ lobby and an app that familiarises travellers with the city.

We spotted CityHub in 2012 when they got the idea and were exploring the possibilities. CityHub is an initiative of college friends Sem Schuurkes (32) and Pieter van Tilburg (29). The young entrepreneurs set themselves the goal of improving the traditional hotel experience in line with the current zeitgeist and technological capabilities. After a successful crowdfunding campaign, they opened a small pilot branch, ‘CityHub Beta’ in Amsterdam’s Oud West neighbourhood in July 2012. With an average occupancy rate of 95% and enthusiastic reviews on Booking.com, Airbnb and TripAdvisor, the pilot was hailed as a great success. Their popularity and success also resulted in a private investor (angel investor) and ABN AMRO coming on board to help Schuurkes and Van Tilburg set up the location with 50 Hubs on Bellamystraat.

So last month the CityHub opened its doors enabling their guests, mostly the travel-savvy Generation Y, to explore Amsterdam, socialise with friends and share experiences online. According to the owners a new kind of traveller has emerged: 20- to 35-year-old digital natives. For them, ‘discovery’ is the key: five-star hotels and stereotypical tourists spots don’t make them tick; they want to hear about the city’s hotspots from people in the know and enjoy a personalised travel experience instead. They are connected 24/7 and expect information on the go: a principle that is not optimally utilised by many traditional hotels. CityHub builds the entire travel experience around these new developments in the travel industry, through a city app, an online chat platform with a personal host, and unique Hubs in which to sleep. read more

Nightswap exchange nights

3-12-2013

Through the Nightswap website people can lend out their house or room and get a night in someone else’s house in return without any financial transaction taken place. It’s possible to collect nights and spend them all in once, home swap at the same moment or to buy extra nights. The website offers insurances as well and is an alternative for peer-to-peer websites like Couchsurfing.org and Airbnb.com with a slightly different business model.

Food sherpas

6-8-2013

There are more and more food sherpas in touristicareas. Food sherpas are local people who receive tourists and show them the city. Unlike tourist agencies, the food sherpas lead you to local restaurants where you normally wouldn’t come as a tourist. They take you on a local culinary discovery tour and not only tell you where to go, but also what to order in restaurants. For example food sherpas can be found in Paris, where they guide tourist to the not so touristy Paris.

Hotels could set up an agreement with local people to guide the hotel guests through the most local hotspots. This as reaction to the deployment of an AirBnB host, because the success of this concept is that tourists can stay at the local people

Peer-to-peer lending

10-7-2013

The platform AirBnB where individuals can offer their homes for temporary rental to tourists or expats has now become a huge success. It appears that more branches copy this concept. We’ve spotted ‘Eat With‘, a website where users can offer their ‘kitchen’ as an alternative for the restaurants in the area. CampInMyGarden, a website that offers sleeping places in gardens and outdoor houses, a cheap night and often at central locations. Now the platform ‘Boat Bound’ is launched. Whether you are looking for a fishing boat, a sailboat or a barge, Boat Bound offers private boats anywhere in the United States, at any price. We wonder when we can rent a boat in the canals for Amsterdam at Boat Bound.

EatWith

14-5-2013

Imagine, you are on a holiday and you want to eat a local dish. You can eat a meal at a restaurant, but you can also have a dinner at someone’s home… The global community EatWith invites people to dine in homes across the world. Users can offer their ‘kitchen’ on the website of EatWith as an alternative for the restaurants in the area. Travelers can have a cozy dinner at someone’s home, share stories, have an unique experience and meet new people. It is a similar concept as AirBnB. The question is to what extent providers on this website must meet requirements such as hygiene and so on.