Amsterdam has grown to become a hugely popular destination for business travellers across Europe and the world. Its growing industries and easily accessible location means corporate travellers find it an attractive destination to meet. Amsterdam also offers a wide range of cultural attractions, from museums and galleries, to restaurants
and nightlife.
Speaking to Business Destinations, the Park Hotel’s General Manager, Bram van der Hoek, describes it as medium-sized, but encompassing all the style and individuality of a boutique hotel. Refurbished a few years ago, the Park has 200 rooms, is based in the heart of Amsterdam, and has high-end dining and executive facilities.
Van der Hoek says that they wanted to “create a kind of mid-sized hotel with the DNA of some boutique hotels.” He adds: “Obviously what you feel most in boutique hotels, you don’t really find in mid-sized hotels like ours. We have 200 bedrooms and 750sq m of meeting and event space. Usually these are just mainstream hotels. That’s why I think it’s also so successful in the business market.”
Typical clients range from business travellers to tourists visiting for the weekend, as van der Hoek says: “From Monday to Friday it’s business guests, and on the weekends we have a lot of individual travellers that come to Amsterdam to explore and enjoy our destination.” Judging from the feedback he has received from their business clients, the decision has been a huge success. He adds: “Actually, what we are hearing from our meetings and events clients and corporate clients is that they love the hotel because it has all these elements in it that you would find in a smaller boutique hotel. Business people these days would like to experience emotion, rather than staying in, let’s say, the mainstream hotels next door.”
Cultural epicentre
Located in the centre of Amsterdam, the Park Hotel is right in the middle of the cultural district, benefiting from some of the city’s most prestigious museums. Van der Hoek says: “The location of the hotel is really superb. It’s right in the city centre next to the museum square, with all the famous museums. Our neighbour is the Rijksmuseum, which is due to reopen soon having been closed for ten years. We’re all looking forward to that.
“A few months ago we had a brand new opening of the museum of modern art, the Stedelijk Museum, which is in our back yard and, of course, we have the Van Gogh Museum and the Concert Building. So, from a location point of view, it’s really one of the best.” As well as the museums, the hotel is perfectly situated for shopping, with the famous PC Hooftstraat nearby, which has many international fashion labels. There is also ample entertainment, with the Leidseplein and the Leidse Square close by, with many restaurants, bars and casinos.
Culture is an important aspect of the hotel, and it is eager to blend into its surroundings with its own artistic offerings. The hotel opened its own gallery zone that exhibits local artists’ work, in the comfort of the hotel’s living room. Van der Hoek says: “Every two or three months we change the art in the gallery zone and host events with local people in order to attract them to the living room.”
Feels like home
The living room is a specially designed space that is unlike a traditional hotel’s public seating area, and is intended to offer guests home comforts, van der Hoek says. “With the public space, rather than boring lobbies or waiting rooms, we designed something different. We have a stunning fireplace, especially in wintertime, so it’s really nice to relax and browse through the selection of books. The living room has a big guest library as well. It’s designed so that you feel like you are at home.”
Another addition to the living room area is the new Jewellery Bar, which is styled like a traditional European coffee house during the day, and by night turns into a bar. He says: “Once you enter the place you will find a very lively, dynamic, high design living room filled with art and also the Jewellery Bar. We call it the that because it features fine chocolates and pastries during the day and in the evening it will be transformed into the living room bar. The Jewellery Bar really transforms into a full bar with a great selection of international wines and spirits, as well as dinner and desserts. So you have this 24-hour dynamic feeling in the public spaces of the hotel as well.”
Making a statement
The centrepiece of the hotel, and the feature that van der Hoek feels attracts the most local visitors, is the MOMO restaurant. Van der Hoek describes MOMO as a “statement” in Amsterdam, adding: “We built a destination restaurant, bar and lounge, rather than a typical hotel restaurant and bar. We have a concept team working in the hotel that is constantly looking for new initiatives and so creating a restaurant, rather than a hotel restaurant, is a big challenge in hotel business. We see a lot of people enjoying our restaurant.”
The restaurant offers pan-Asian cuisine, and blends both western and eastern influences to give customers a sophisticated, international experience. It has been deliberately given a distinct identity from the rest of the hotel, so that it encourages non-guests to visit. The management actively encourage the local community to come and use it, which van der Hoek says is essential to maintaining the hotel’s unique atmosphere: “It is often felt that you are only allowed to come to hotels when you have booked a room, but we actually try to get the locals in and try to get the locals and other visitors to Amsterdam into our place. Once locals are in the hotel, your guests also enjoy it because they have the chance to mingle with them.” While MOMO is primarily the hotel’s restaurant, it can also cater for private business functions, with an exclusive room above the main dining area set aside especially for this. He says: “It’s a very good space to do business during lunch and dinner.”
Get down to business
As with any hotel in a popular business city, the Park has a number of conference facilities, and hosts a lot of corporate events. The Netherlands has become a leading player in a variety of industries, including IT, environmental technology, life sciences and biotechnology, and Amsterdam attracts a lot of business visitors from across Europe and beyond. Van der Hoek says that they are able to cater for many types of events, and have in the past worked with a wide range of companies as diverse as Apple, Heineken and Abercrombie & Fitch.
He says: “We actually have nine meeting and event rooms and we named them after destinations. For example, we have meeting rooms called New York, London, Berlin, Sydney, and Tokyo. We also have 750sq m of meeting and event space. The hotel is actually one of the market leaders in that segment here in the city centre.” In addition, the hotel has a gym, which is around 80sq m, with a personal trainer available to assist guests keen to exercise. There are also a range of shops and boutiques in the hotel, allowing guests to buy gifts and souvenirs.
Understandably for such a centrally located hotel, the Park is easily accessible by all forms of transport. Amsterdam benefits from its modern hub airport, Schiphol, which can be reached by train or car in around 15 minutes. It also has its own car park that can house nearly 50 cars – a rare capacity for such a centrally located hotel.
The unique style that The Park has gone for is clearly its biggest asset. Both the hotel and MOMO have achieved a number of industry awards in the past few years. Van der Hoek says that it is both the boutique styling and location – which he describes as “triple A” – that have garnered the hotel’s unparalleled popularity.
