HTH Alumni Magazine #2

Magazine 2nd Edition November 2015

Celebrating our HTH Alumni 1

Š Copyright 2015 Hotelschool The Hague, The Netherlands, all rights reserved.

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At the heart of hospitality

Hotelschool The Hague has a long history of being one of the top Hospitality Management Schools of the world. The school was founded by industry, for industry, and now, 86 years later, our Alumni represent our past, our present and our future. They are one of our greatest assets as they maintain our legacy and reputation, and act as our ambassadors when finding new talent that we can groom to become the next generation of hospitality leaders.

Developments in our world are fast and furious; our founding fathers could probably not have conceived the way our business operates today. Hotelschool The Hague prides itself on not only teaching our students hospitality and business, but also on handing these young, vibrant, and ambitious people the learning, tools and skills they need to be open to change. In this way they can create their own future, by understanding and responding to the trends that form the hospitality needs of future generations.

Since my move to Hotelschool The Hague three years ago, we have initiated more than 20 Alumni chapters, starting in London and we are now completely global: from Singapore to Sao Paulo, from Berlin to Beijing, So, join us if you’re not already a member: take a look at our website to find out where your nearest chapter is: http://hotelschool.nl/en/aboutus/alumni.

This edition of our HTH Alumni Magazine portrays a fascinating and diverse selection of our Alumni, now working as Hospitality Leaders, Hospitality Enthusiasts, Consultants, and Specialists.

They inspire us with their stories of careers, of passion, of their lives; they are our role models, and their stories challenge us to continue to give our best. Let their inspiration be our motor to jointly maintain and grow our leading role at the heart of hospitality.

Susanne Stolte President Board of Directors, Hotelschool The Hague 3

Welcome

Hotelschool The Hague is proud to be ‘At the heart of hospitality’, since 1929. Established by industry for industry, Hotelschool The Hague is an international, specialised and totally independent Hospitality Business School located in The Netherlands. Hotelschool The Hague has approximately 2,000 students from over 50 nationalities, based over two campuses in Amsterdam and The Hague. Hotelschool The Hague is all about hospitality; we are a Hospitality Business School with a Master and Bachelor programme, Hospitality Consultancy and Hospitality Research services. Hotelschool The Hague is consistently ranked as one of the top Hotel Schools in the world. (TNS, 2013) Hotelschool The Hague strives to prepare young hospitality leadership talents for a successful career in the Hospitality Industry. ‘ 4

‘At the heart of hospitality’, since 1929

Table of Contents

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P26. Jorik America P28. Jolijn Zeeuwen P30. Melle van Uden P32. Esther Visser P34. Nicolaas Houwert P36. Sandra Sahusilawani P38. Patrick Brand & Erik Baumann

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P08. Maarten Markus P10. Erwin van Lambaart P12. Anastasia Priklonskaya P14. Marcel P. van Aelst P16. Yaela Betsalel P18. Maarten Dirks P20. Bert van Walbeek P24. Karin Kersten

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P42. Chong Chu P44. Benjamin White P46. Dim Hemeltjen P48. Philipp Weghmann P50. Tanja Roeleveld P52. Thomas van der Blom P54. Dennis GĂśppel P56. Liang Tan

More in this edition

P04. Welcome P06. Highlights 2015 P07. HTH Profiles P22. HTH Instagram P23. HTH Blog P40. Alumni Chapters P41. Le DĂŠbut Amsterdam P58. Credits

Highlights 2015

We would like to celebrate the key highlights of 2015 with you. 1. NSE results 2015: Hotelschool The Hague has been ranked amongst the top three of best universities and HBO institutions in The Netherlands. Furthermore, Hotelschool The Hague has been named best public Hotel School in The Netherlands in the Keuzegids HBO 2016.

2. Anna Bosten and Sterre Bisschop won the IHIF 2015: Student Challenge in Berlin. 3. On Monday 11 May, 16 students moved into their renovated Skotel rooms in The Hague. We expect to finish the entire Skotel renovation by February 2016. 4. 19 ambitious and enthusiastic students flew to Florida at the end of September, for SDV Abroad.

5. Hotelschool The Hague is proud to be one of the three finalists in the category ‘Best Hospitality Management School’ at the Hospitality Awards in Paris. 6. In September, our students launched an official HTH Sports Club, with a variety of sports. 7. We proudly organised the Hospitality Innovation Summit - Student Challenge 2015.

Top students from 10 International Hotel Schools attended this successful event. 8. In the summer, Hotelschool The Hague launched a new home page, mobile website and a brand new HTH Blog. #lookingforwardto2016 6

Today’s Students...

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otelschool The Hague was founded in 1929 by industry for industry, and 86 years later is still committed to best preparing our students for rewarding professional careers. To ensure this seamless transition from education to employment, Hotelschool The Hague investigated the needs and wants of our students and developed five student profiles. These student profiles will now be used in the future to ensure that our education, via our curriculum and our placement policy, best matches our student’s ambitions.

The five profiles identified by Hotelschool The Hague are The Hospitality Leader, The Hospitality Enthusiast, The Specialist, The Consultant and The Entrepreneur.

The Hospitality Leader has ambitions for a General Management role. This student is passionate and inspired by hospitality and keen to work for an International Hotel Brand. This student is looking for industry connections, leadership & personal development and management skills set within a Hospitality Business Study.

The Hospitality Enthusiast has ambitions for a Management role in Operations. This student is passionate and inspired by hospitality and keen to stay in the Hospitality Industry. This student is looking for hospitality know-how and leadership & personal development set within a Hospitality Business Study.

The Specialist has ambitions to work in Management in a specific discipline. This student wishes to specialise in a chosen field, for example, finance, human resources or marketing. It is likely they will seek a Master’s study to supplement their HTH education. A number of these students are keen to stay in the Hospitality Industry. This student is looking for in-depth subject knowledge and leadership & development set within a Hospitality Business Study.

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The Consultant has ambitions to work in Consultancy.

This student is passionate about theories and models and often looks for extra projects and activities to further challenge themselves while studying at HTH. As the Hospitality Industry develops, we see a growing role for this profile in our sector. This student is looking for knowledge, leadership & development, set within a Hospitality Business Study.

The Entrepreneur has the ambition to start their own business as soon as possible. This student is passionate about being an Entrepreneur and is often working on business ideas while still studying at Hotelschool The Hague. A very high percentage of these students remain within the Hospitality Industry. This student is looking for hospitality know-how, leadership & development and concept development skills, set within a Hospitality Business Study.

We wanted, with this year’s edition of the HTH Alumni Magazine, to showcase HTH Alumni that fit these profiles.

Our Alumni are our greatest strength, paving the road forward for the next generations of HTH talent. I hope you enjoy reading about our Alumni as much as we enjoyed meeting and interviewing them.

Tomorrow’s Industry

Hospitality Leader

Maarten Markus

Managing Director NH Group Benelux , UK, France, South Africa & USA

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ooking back on my career so far, it all started in Belgium. I was Front Office Manager at the Dorinth Hotel at that time and thought I was doing well. But, after three months I had a meeting with the GM who told me that the way I was managing was not great: my staff were leaving, I only gave commands, and I was not accommodating. In short: I was not the manager I should have been. It took me by surprise. He gave me two choices: to leave, or to stay and be trained by him. I chose the latter and stayed for one more year and worked as a day and night clerk. I started from scratch and worked my way up again. It was one of those experiences I simply had to encounter.

bankrupt. They offered me a position at that hotel to show I was capable of making it profitable again. I signed without even consulting the contract with my wife, who is a lawyer. She was pregnant with our second child and she moved back to Rotterdam. Those were challenging times, with two small children, travelling back and forth.

After nine months, the GM told me I was ready and I could become Front Office Manager again, so I did that for about four months. Then I became Front Office Manager for the Park Hotel in Amsterdam, got promoted to Rooms Division Manager and did that for about three years. I really liked that job, but I wanted to grow again.

When I was on a holiday in France, I read the newspaper and found an ad for a Rooms Division Manager at Golden Tulip in Accra. I applied for the job and went to West Africa for the job.

The first time we received the award for Best Hotel Chain in the Netherlands, it completely took me by surprise. I remember it well, I was SO proud! Also fantastic was winning the RAI Hotel tender, it had been in the planning for 15/20 years! With 650 rooms ‘Nhow RAI Amsterdam’ will become the largest hotel in the Benelux. Announcing this to the staff was amazing, everybody was so proud. These kind of things make my life very easy and make my job great.

After two years, Golden Tulip needed me as GM in Belgium in a newly acquired hotel, and I always dreamt of becoming General Manager. So I packed my things and went to Belgium. When the plane landed at the airport I was told that the deal to buy the hotel was off. It was in December and I had no place to live, so I stayed at a vacation park with no heating. Being used to the hot weather in Africa, it was so cold!

After a while, I moved to Rotterdam to work as Rooms Division Manager for Golden Tulip, and then they finally found me a position as GM, in Germany.

So my wife and I went to Germany. We arrived at the hotel, rang the bell… it was closed, the hotel had gone 9

Then I was offered a position as GM at Golden Tulip, later NH in Zandvoort.

From there I became Cluster Manager for three hotels, then Regional Manager for different regions, then I became Managing Director in Berlin. I became responsible for Central Europe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia). After that, I became responsible for the regions The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, UK, France, South Africa & USA. And that’s where I am now.

Life goes by really fast these days, I don’t ever have time to be bored. We are working on the complete rebranding of the former NH Hoteles group to NH Hotel Group: a total make-over of all aspects. In the one and a half years I’ve worked in this function, not a day has been the same: becoming more brand oriented, investing in properties, segmentation, many, many things are going on.

Looking back now at the time when I was Front Office Manager at the Dorinth and I was told I was not a good manager; I now know my GM was right, I still had a lot to learn. Freshly graduated from the Hotelschool, I was so confident, I was THE man, ready to take on the world. But you have to work hard, and use what you have learned in school, those management principles, in a natural way. Being a boss means not being a boss, but being a servant to your team, to make them excel. Now I have to manage about 2,500 staff divided over seven countries. Of course that brings many responsibilities along, but you grow into that role. Going from managing no one, to managing 2,500 people doesn’t happen overnight, you grow slowly into that position and, when it happens, the position fits like a glove.

I am where I am today because I was in the right place at the right time, with the right experience and background. Opportunities came along and I never had the chance to really think about a next move. I knew I didn’t want a safe career where I would stay in the same place, I needed more. If I get a call tomorrow to pack my bags and move to China, I will move to China. It’s as simple as that. If a company knows you are open to that, they will give you the opportunity to do so.

My advice to current students at Hotelschool The Hague: work hard, follow your dreams, travel and get out of your comfort zone while you’re still young. You have nothing to lose, only to gain and again: work hard! Believe in yourself and success will come.

“Being a boss means not being a boss, but being a servant to your team, to make them excel.”

Entrepreneur

Erwin van Lambaart Owner Ace Concepts & Events, Niehe Media and Van Lambaart Entertainment

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I

have always been interested in the theatre, and it has never left me.

The day after I received my diploma at Hotelschool The Hague I started working as Banqueting Manager, and afterwards I started working for Accor. I liked my job a lot, but my passion for theatre was still there. I travelled intensively at the time and saw plays, shows and concerts all around the world. Someday, when I was abroad, my wife saw an advertisement for a position as Managing Director for Joop van den Ende’s Theatre Company. Being a big theatre fan, I decided to write a letter.

I never expected to hear anything as I never went to Theatre School, but to my great surprise, I was invited for an interview. Afterwards, I was invited for coffee with Joop van den Ende.

The meeting was supposed to take 30 minutes but it lasted for two and a half hours; there was a click.

Joop makes a lot of intuitive decisions, so he offered me the job and I stayed for 14 years. I am very thankful that he took the risk of hiring a hospitality guy to run his live entertainment business. In the beginning, the company was quite small, with only the Circustheatre in Scheveningen, one or two touring companies, and one or two plays. 14 years later when I left, it was a company with €550 million revenue, 35 theatres in eight different countries from Hamburg to Madrid, and offices from London to New York.

What I like about Hotelschool The Hague is that you are trained both practically and strategically, and I think that is actually the secret behind why graduates from Hotelschool The Hague are so successful: they can handle both. Being pragmatic, they are able to solve practical problems, but they are also capable of

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developing a strategy. Hotelschool The Hague also enriches your personality.

It builds your way of thinking. You become part of an important community of like-minded people; Hotelschool The Hague Alumni are everywhere.

Sometimes people ask me: why do you do what you do? After all, the live entertainment business is a risky business. For instance, we are working on a big Disney in Concert Production in the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam. The cash out costs are €750,000. Basically we spent this money in nine hours. We have to sell close to 14,000 tickets just to break even. It’s fantastic if we do sell out the shows of course, also financially, but I do it all for that short moment after the show is finished. You have a few seconds, and in those seconds you have the ‘ultimate platinum chemistry’, as I call it. You see the eyes of the actors, the faces of everyone who worked on the production, you feel the relief that it all worked out, the audience anticipation, the will to applaud and to give a sincere standing ovation. I do it all for those five seconds. It is great to make a lot of money, live in a nice house, to go on vacation, but more importantly, you need a personal motivation.

The creativity that I incorporate within my job and my way of managing has a lot of similarities with the way children think, their playfulness and openmindedness. Small children think without boundaries, they have fantasies that are incredible. Creativity is being able to think without any limitations or boundaries. My father used to say, “When a client says “no”, that is when the selling starts.” If there is a problem and going left doesn’t work, you turn right. If that doesn’t work, you go below or over it. But there is always a way of getting across to the other side: creativity and innovation builds bridges!

I now (co) own three companies; Ace Concepts & Events, Niehe Media, and Van Lambaart Entertainment. With Ace Concepts & Events we were involved in the SAIL organisation, the largest public event in the Netherlands with 2,3 million visitors. We started one and a half years prior to the event with six people, and at the end we had 180 employees working on the event from our organisation, and over 2,000 people working for us at the event during the week itself. We sold 50,000 hospitality packages, we were responsible for finding all the sponsors and for activation, marketing, public relations and for the event itself. We built a whole new concept around the event and are now being approached by cities around the world who want the same format.

My dreams for the future? I would love to win a Tony Award on Broadway.

Also it has always been my dream to have different companies, in different industries, while working together at the back office. So I would love to have a small chain of five hotels in my five favourite cities in the world, have an entertainment company with artists who can stay in those five hotels, to have a marketing company that can help those two other companies etc. But recently, I have also been approached by a number of corporate companies to come and work for them in the hospitality industry and other industries; so I’m not there yet!

“Creativity is being able to think without any limitations or boundaries.”

Specialist

Anastasia Priklonskaya Manager Audit KPMG

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s a young girl finishing secondary school in Russia, I knew I wanted to study abroad to gain international experience. The Netherlands provided me with that opportunity - because of its international character and the fact that it is simply a very nice country. As a bonus, it was not too far from Russia.

When I visited Hotelschool The Hague I felt at home immediately, so the choice was easy. I graduated in 2007, after my internship in New York at the Head Office of Leading Hotels of the World. I came back to the Netherlands as I liked it there.

I enjoyed my time at Hotelschool The Hague, especially living in Skotel, you bond so quickly with everybody. It was always fun, even given the heavy study load and the teamwork. Now we’re all spread out all over the world, but whether I’m in Atlanta or Moscow, or anywhere, there is always an opportunity for a little Hotelschool reunion.

Just two weeks ago, I attended a wedding of a friend in Budapest, and last year I visited several old friends from the Hotelschool in London. We try to keep in touch anyway we can, whenever we can, luckily Facebook makes it very easy for us.

Part of the reason behind this is that if you have a Russian passport, it is quite challenging to obtain a work permit. So it is not that easy to get a job in Europe, the US or pretty much anywhere. That is why I decided I wanted to study further, and get a Master’s Degree. I was always into Finance; at Hotelschool I was always doing the finance part of different projects. I enrolled for the Nyenrode Accounting and Controlling PreMaster and later followed the Master. I applied at KPMG Audit for a Traineeship, working four days and studying one day per week. And I’m still with KPMG today, seven years later. I still learn every day and my job gives me a lot of opportunities to develop further. Self-improvement was the key to climbing up the ladder. In September I completed the final exam for the chartered accountant qualification; I like to keep on learning.

My Bachelor years were vital to my success today. The skills I learned there; I’ll be using them for the rest of my life. Teamwork, leadership and client contact are very important in every consultancy or job, and it is skills like these that they still don’t teach in many Master Programmes. The fact that we practiced feedback and worked exclusively in teams was very beneficial.

Today, I am a Manager Audit at KPMG. Every month of the year is constantly changing and I’m getting new interesting projects. I currently manage eight accounts, and I am very involved with all of my clients. Ultimately, our client contact is what really makes the difference, as we put the client first. I love the international aspect of my job; especially working with Russian clients, it keeps the Russian connection going and it gives me a chance to visit my family and friends as well.

I do love travelling. Where do I want to go next?

Everywhere! On the top of my list are Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, maybe India. When travelling, it’s great that you have the chance to meet up with Hotelschool Alumni.

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I will never forget the Outdoor Programme in the second year, it was a tough psychological experience in the winter.

We had to sleep outdoors, it was really cold and we built a tent, but it was too small for everyone, and I remember some of us had to sleep on the floor. It definitely brings you closer as a team, and rarely do you find leadership programmes like this at other universities.

I like to take things as they come, moment by moment, and that’s why I don’t know where I’ll be in 10 years, but probably in a finance-related position. I’m quite ambitious in general, so I’m not going to be a stay-at-home mom, that’s for sure!

“Wherever I travel, there is always an opportunity for a little Hotelschool reunion.”

Hospitality Leader

Marcel P. van Aelst Executive Vice Chairman Hotel Okura Co. Ltd Japan

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I

started working in restaurants when I was 16. I wanted a motorcycle, so I started working to save up money.

I ended up really liking the restaurant industry and the owner of one of the restaurants encouraged me to go to Hotelschool The Hague.

In 1966, when I was at Hotelschool The Hague, the campus at the Brusselselaan had just been opened. The Hotelschool gives you a certain train of thought, it teaches you to think ahead and to think in a different way. At the time I couldn’t see the value of some of the courses, like a course called ‘Interieurkunde’ or ‘Interior design’, where we had to learn to read architectural drawings.

But that course certainly proved its worth: I once made a calculation, and I think that in my career I have signed contracts with a total value of over two billion dollars for hotel renovation or new hotel purchases.

At my final year at the Hotelschool, I worked with 12 students on a project, ‘Hotel Development in Amsterdam’.

For this project we interviewed the GM of Okura as well as people at Hilton, the Tourist Board and KLM amongst others. Afterwards, Hilton made me an offer to go to the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal for their Executive Training Programme, and Okura offered me a position in Tokyo. It was back in 1970, I had never flown before. That is why I chose Okura, simply because Japan was the furthest destination.

Now I am the President of Nikko hotels (JAL Hotels) and, since 2010, Executive Vice Chairman of the Okura Group: some 80 hotels with 26,000 staff members, 48 delicacy shops, one museum, and two factories. 26,000 people is a lot, but still my Executive Committee only consists of eight Directors.

Some people think that when they graduate from Hotelschool The Hague, they will almost immediately become General Manager, but, of course, that takes time. At Okura I started as Assistant Director of Sales.

Afterwards, I became the Director of Sales at the InterContinental in Frankfurt, Germany, then became General Manager in Copenhagen. A year later, I moved to San Francisco to start at Mark Hopkins Hotel InterContinental. I came back to Amsterdam in 1994 for a number of reasons. I was appointed Vice-President and General Manager of Hotel Okura Amsterdam and was responsible for our international properties. In 2009, the President Mr Ogita and I decided to take over the management contracts of more than 50 Japan Airline Hotels.

In September, we celebrated the 44th Anniversary of the Okura Amsterdam and at that event I announced stepping down as President of Hotel Okura Amsterdam. I will continue as Executive Vice Chairman, officially I have the job until I

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turn 72, but I’d like to slow down. I’ve always worked very hard, so I can’t just stop from one day to the other, but I have to slow down.

Looking back, would I have done things differently? Well, I wish I had visited my son’s baseball games on Saturdays more. Too many times I was caught up in work, attending cocktail parties because I felt I had to be there. But looking back, if I hadn’t been there, would I have missed anything? Would they have missed me? In hindsight, I think I could have done less with the same result. But I enjoyed it, and maybe I also did it because the Japanese do the same.

The Japanese way of working is also my way of working, to some extent. Reliability is very important to me. The biggest issue for the Japanese is losing face, so they always aim for perfection. The Japanese take very little vacation, they feel embarrassed if they take a week off. I’m not that bad, but this year I’ll take a three week break for the first time since 1993.

I am extremely proud of the focus on F&B as the ‘Image Maker’ of our property. Two Michelin stars for Ciel Blue, one star for Sazanka, one for Yamazato and a Bib Gourmand for Serre Restaurant. I am also proud of the changes we achieved with the JAL hotels, taking them over at a loss, now making a good profit. But what I am really proud of is having trained seven General Managers for the Okura Group, three of them Dutch. I trained them and now they are all in leading positions.

The secret to success? Timing and good luck! It’s always a combination of things. It’s about being yourself, knowing what you want and always going for quality. Be open.

Give your staff the opportunity to shine. I am low-key and approachable, my door is open. I only ask of people to do a good job, in whatever they are doing.

My advice to students seeking a career in hospitality?

Take the opportunity to go abroad and learn from different companies and cultures. Don’t go for the jobs that just look good on your business card, Manager this or that.

Do it now, don’t wait until it’s too late. We are lucky that we work in an industry which, besides having different cultures, is the same all over the world. If you can get used to a different culture, you can work wherever you want.

“I think that in my career I have signed contracts with a total value of over two billion dollars for hotel renovation or new hotel purchases.”

Entrepreneur

Yaela Betsalel Founder & Managing Director Typhoon Hospitality

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I

own a Marketing and PR Company, specialised in the Hospitality Industry.

This means we get to tell the stories of awesome Hospitality Brands, anything from traditional restaurants, bars, hotels, and spirits to food brands, hospitality suppliers and culinary events. We provide a full range of communication services: PR, design, copywriting, events, social media. You name it, we do it. We are a niche agency, focussed on hospitality.

I actually started this company by accident. I was working in a hotel, and at the same time, I organised an event; the Amsterdam Bar Week. This became so big that I quit my job and focused on that. During Bar Week, we basically organised 100 events in five days, all brand activations in different bars. It was fun, but not very profitable for me, as it was just one week per year. But then the bars and brands contacted me and asked me if I could do something like that on an ongoing basis, and so I started up Typhoon Hospitality in 2012. I didn’t really have a well thought through business plan; we took each day as it comes and learned through trial and error. We have grown rapidly: in less than three years we have grown to a team of 15 and we have over 40 clients. 80% of my staff are HTH Alumni!

What I enjoyed most at Hotelschool The Hague was working in groups on realistic projects. With much of the theory I wondered: when will I ever use this? But, during these projects, everything was translated back to a realistic situation. So everything we did, whether I liked it or not, felt very useful.

What you learn at the Hotelschool is to be resourceful, to be very creative in finding solutions and to be a ‘Jack of all trades’. That for me is the essence of the school: Hotelschool The Hague produces problem solvers!

The most useful subject for me was finance. I hated Finance; I was never a numbers girl. However, now that I run my own business, I realise that I couldn’t have done it if I didn’t have any knowledge on the very basic Finance Principles I learned at Hotelschool The Hague. It is so important. Eat your veggies, people! And learn your Finance!

Eat your veggies, people!

And learn your Finance!

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At Hotelschool The Hague you learn to combine the strengths of your team members to finish a project. For me that now feels natural.

Also in my team, I don’t try to mould people to fit into a certain role, I look at what a person does well and I fit that into a job.

This is why we also have rather unusual job titles. We have a Master of Organised Chaos, a Guy Who Makes Shit Happen, a Match Maker, a Fire Starter, a Pitcher, a Gate Keeper, and a Story Teller.

One guy’s job title is 11110000:1 0011111:10011000:10001001, that is obviously our programmer, and his title is a winky smiley face in binary code.

You may think that these are silly job titles, but they’re not, they describe exactly what the person does: all our team members are extremely proud of their title! Besides that, I don’t want hierarchy within the company. It doesn’t matter what we call you, just be you and be the best ‘you’ that you can be.

Plans for the future? I don’t know even know where I will be tomorrow. I think Typhoon has proven to be a successful formula. It can generate rapid growth and at the same time maintain clientele. I am very proud of our new clients, but even more proud of our existing clients who have been with us from the beginning. We are in a niche market with limitations, so for the future I foresee that we will cross some borders. With this I mean physical borders, hopefully somewhere sunny. Not metaphorically, as hospitality will always be the focus, and that is what we are good at.

Starting your own company is amazing, but I couldn’t have done it without eight years of working experience, so my advice to students who are dreaming of starting their own business is to gain work experience first. Look around at different companies, learn from them, take bits and pieces from these experiences and later on start your own company and read a lot: there are so many amazing blogs out there, in whatever field you are interested in! Hospitality, Operations, HR, Marketing, the list is endless. You can learn so much from reading these blogs.

Keep developing and keep challenging yourself. You are never done learning.

Specialist

Maarten Dirks

Global Head of Learning Lobster International

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I

currently work for Lobster International: a learning company that operates LobsterInk.com. Lobster Ink is an educational platform showcasing detailed, high-definition video-based courses for staff and management working in the Hospitality Industry worldwide. We work with the world’s largest hotel management companies; we cover 23 languages and over 100 countries.

Before this, I spent my entire career in the Hospitality Industry. Working for Lobster International is the first time I ventured into something else, but it was not completely unexpected.

After graduating, I moved around a lot. Following my last Hotelschool internship in Cannes, France, my first job was in Scotland; at a small castle near Edinburgh. I worked in the HR department for two years and was then ready to move on and get out of the Scottish rain. It was a good way to find out that, at the age of 24, it’s hard to be taken seriously in HR. I decided to go back to Operations so I joined the Food & Beverage department at the Grand Hyatt in Melbourne, Australia. I stayed there for nearly five years. This F&B experience was invaluable, but it also made me aware that the typical F&B lifestyle was not for me. I went back to HR and joined the Training Department. I always enjoy interacting with people and seeing how they develop.

Soon after that, I was appointed Training Manager at the Park Hyatt in Saigon, Vietnam. However, after a short time I resigned in order to start my own company, which was an amazing experience.

However, due to circumstances, I later moved to East-Africa, where I took a position for a short time at the Kempinski Djibouti Palace Hotel. Djibouti is a tough country in one of poorest corners of the world; it’s incredibly surreal to be running a five-star hotel there. Leaving was a good call for me.

Following this spell of short-lived adventures, my luck changed. I found a position at the Sofitel Saint James in London as HR Director. There I joined a work group set up to further develop the hotel’s training principles into a program that was labelled: ‘The Ambassador Programme’. The Ambassador Programme became a huge success and was

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recognised with a Global Hospitality Award! It also helped develop my career further. I was able to progress within Sofitel from London to Macau, as the Regional Director of Training and Talent Development for China, a very exciting country.

After a few years in Macau, Sofitel offered me a new position back in Europe. I returned, to Paris, as the new Regional Director Training and Talent Development for Sofitel EMEA. This move back to Europe happened right on time for my wife and me to see the arrival of our daughter, Emma.

Early in 2014, Accor moved in a new direction with its brands, and Sofitel was restructured. This was a good moment to try something new so I joined Lobster International.

A typical working day now starts at the office and ends with a quick recap with the team and a bit of a laugh. I do travel quite a bit and I enjoy it; the only challenge is balancing travel with a young family.

When I think back to my time at Hotelschool The Hague, one of my favourite memories is arriving at Skotel and having this sense of freedom. I was away from home and I loved it.

Something the Hotelschool taught me is that it is good to be a generalist; knowing a little bit about everything, is an incredibly valuable base to start from. Ultimately, it really prepared me on all fronts.

There was a new programme I joined in 1999, called Learning and Education, which included having 3rd year students mentor a group of new students.

That programme shaped my passion for learning and development for the rest of my career. In my opinion it is a real privilege to be (and have been) a student at Hotelschool The Hague; it requires a lot of commitment. When you’re there, balance your time: work hard and play hard.

“The Hotelschool taught me is that it is good to be a generalist: knowing a little bit about everything is an incredibly valuable base to start from. Ultimately, it really prepared me on all fronts.”

Consultant

Bert "Bow-Thai" van Walbeek

Managing Director The Winning Edge VP Business Development Asia

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A

fter graduation in 1964, I decided to go to Paris to work in the kitchen of the three Michelin Star Restaurant, Tours d’Argent for a year, before moving back to the Netherlands to do military service.

After that, I joined the Amsterdam Hilton as Chief Steward, where I learned how chain-hotels function.

With InterContinental and Sheraton, I held multiple positions in Munich, Lisbon, Bangkok and Cairo where I was Vice President of Marketing for the Middle East. After three years, I decided to go back to Bangkok to work for Siam Express as Executive Vice President in charge of the International Leisure & MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences & Exhibitions) Division.

In 1993, I finalised the concept for a boutique consulting company called “The Winning Edge”. The company focuses on Marketing and Sales Training and Coaching, developing the Asian understanding of the MICE market as well as executing mystery shopping. The Winning Edge is involved in projects in Bali, the People’s Republic of China, Macau, Malaysia, Mauritius, Bahrain, Taiwan and Thailand. Over the years, the focus of The Winning Edge has shifted from Marketing and Sales to Risk Mitigation and Crisis Recovery Management, which explains my present involvement in an independent Safety & Security Certification organisation, Safehotels Alliance.

I still like to think back to my time at Hotelschool The Hague. I learned some valuable lessons from Henry Thijs, who was the instructor in the kitchen back then. Not only was he a fantastic chef and teacher, but he also always motivated his students with his charm and his famous saying: “Il faut arroser. Toujours arroser.”

In 1963, a group of friends and I snuck out of the students’ dormitory of the Badhuis Hotel and went to lay the first stones of the building at the Brusselselaan, which was new back then. At the reunion in 2010, I 21

met my old classmates again; most of them are already retired and live a very different lifestyle. I’m not thinking about retiring yet; my wife and I enjoy every day in Thailand and other parts of Asia.

I still visit the Netherlands twice a year, to lecture about tourism at NHTV Breda. Due to the consumerism and social media, the reputation of any business needs more protection than in the past. These media can share a bad experience of a customer easily with over 100,000 people. Therefore organisations have to realise that they need to act to prevent this from happening. The attitude of avoidance and ignorance which is still common in many places worldwide has yet to be overcome, but the advanced transparency is accelerating this process.

I expect that within the next 10 to 15 years, the major hospitality companies will fall apart and become real estate companies. General Managers today sometimes walk through the lobby without greeting a single guest; they care more about their boss at executive level. This trend needs to end soon, so that hospitality can return to hotels: the guest satisfaction figures must be more important than the quarterly results! As a result, we see that boutique hotels are still up and coming and guests are seeking smaller hotels where they are greeted by name instead of their room number.

In 1992, I developed the “The World, Our Guest”-campaign as the Chairman of the TAT Marketing Working Group. Thailand was able to bounce back after the crisis and tourism once again became one of the country’s major sources of income. During the protests in 2010 and 2011, I played a role behind the scenes. I helped to ensure that the industry was up-to-date with current developments and I was able to come up with and co-author a plan for the industry to “Bounce Back” as described in the published booklet with the same name.

This publication led to further engagement with a Taiwanese magazine for which I wrote a series of articles on the topic of event management. 32 of these articles have been published in a book which is now used by various Chinese Universities as a case study book. For these publications I was honoured with the title Dr Mice!

“Hospitality should return to hotels.

The guest satisfaction figures must be more important than the quarterly results!”

For today’s students, I would like to share some advice. Firstly, it is important to realise that EQ is much more important than IQ. Attitude is key when starting a new position. Unfortunately, students often leave their schools with the impression that they know much more than the Managers. Even if this is the case, it is much wiser to keep this to yourself and not have this attitude; people will then be eager to invest more time and money in you. Secondly: never stop learning! Listen more and talk less! During your internships you are still a student, so take the time to learn more and study the different cultures and the people around you. Thirdly, be different and brand yourself. Wearing bow ties since 1979 made me stand out from the marketing & sales ‘crowd’ and has become my ’trademark’. Last but not least: be tolerant to the people around you and when meeting people from different cultures. Do not judge other people by your own values, especially when you are a guest in a foreign country.

#Hotelschoolthehague

1.“I truly believe in the cliché that you can achieve anything, as long as you believe in yourself and are prepared to work for it.” - Ronja H. 2. “If you are able to sacrifice who you are, for what you will become, you will be successful.” - Jun N. 3. “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” - Noortje K. 4. ”Recognition selfie @ the 10th Recognition Dinner for Excellent First Year Students in The Hague.” - Floris D. 5. “Smile, life is beautiful!” - Victoria R. 6. “Act accordingly” - Jeen F. 7. ”My dream is to travel the world, from opportunity to opportunity.” - Merel V. 8. “Communication is the organisation.” - Sam S. Alex M. Jasper S. 9. ” ”Dont try to be something you’re not, because you are who you are.” - Harmeet T. Follow us on: 22

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Am I allowed to network here?

ean Paul Wijers (graduated at the Hotelschool in 1996) is involved in the organisation of many networking events every year, with his Protocolbureau and Institute for Strategic Relationship Management (ISRM). Together with Hotelschool The Hague he developed the six-day postgraduate course ‘Strategic Relationship Management’ for professionals, starting in March 2016 at Hotelschool The Hague. Interview and text: Carla van Elst, Photography: Ilya van Marle.

a good evaluation and follow-up which are also devised beforehand, this leads to a significant return per euro spent in all cases.

Structure increases the effectiveness of networking meetings “Sometimes networking meetings appear to be mainly intended for not doing networking.” People tend to say beforehand that the main objective of the meeting is for people to meet and get to know each other.

Postgraduate course Key to the strategic relationship management is having a networking strategy. Jean Paul Wijers observes that there hardly ever is one.

“People think that ‘if I send an invitation to someone, he/she will be pleased’. But these days everyone receives many invitations, so you have to turn it around: you have to be extremely pleased if people take the trouble to come to your meeting. If they come, then make sure you pay attention to them, so that you really get to know them. So don’t let your own staff – the account or sales managers, the aldermen and their civil servants – crowd together.”

And curiously enough this is often not the case. Who isn’t familiar with networking meetings in locations that are much too small, for which the wrong people have been invited, have packed programmes, music that is much too loud, long-winded speakers and lengthy dinners. “What also happens now is that everyone tries to achieve more effect with a relationship or networking event by choosing a location that is even more special, with even more entertainment and even more exquisite food. I believe this is the wrong way to go about it. You have to set up a networking meeting with the peace and space for people to meet each other. It’s as simple as that.”

Together with Hotelschool The Hague, Wijers developed a postgraduate course Strategic Relationship Management for event managers, cabinet staff, fund raisers, communication experts, marketers, policy support officers, PAs, etc. Here you learn how to translate a corporate strategy into a networking strategy and here you learn to see the whole networking process from a broad perspective. “This way, you are better capable of increasing the effectiveness of network meetings yourself and you learn how to inspire and persuade other people in your organisation – managers and colleagues from other departments.”

Tailor made protocol Jean Paul Wijers is of the opinion that a networking meeting has to be structured if you want it to have the desired effect, and structure is achieved by means of protocol. “And I am not talking about the classic protocol with the iron rules of former times, but the modern approach of protocol specialists – event managers or protocol officers – who can develop a tailor made protocol for every occasion.” The main result of a networking meeting that is structured this way, is the increase of measurable results. This is an important known fact for event managers who have to answer questions about the ROI of their events on a daily basis. “Experience shows that you meet 3 to 4 people at a non-structured networking meeting who you actually already know and that by structuring the meeting you can increase this number substantially to 10 to 12 persons.” Together with

Visit our HTH Blog via blog.hotelschool.nl 23

Specialist

Karin Kersten Managing Director Transaction Banking ABN AMRO

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I

am a person who really enjoys solving complex puzzles - I like to find a solution to tricky dilemmas. I noticed this when I was in secondary school, and at university and when I worked for McKinsey & Company. If somebody says “this is too difficult” or “this is impossible”, I jump right in and make it happen. On the other hand, I love working with people, rolling up my sleeves and just getting things done. I grew up in an entrepreneurial family - my parents had a confectionery shop, so they worked 7 days a week, and I helped them out everywhere in the shop. At Hotelschool The Hague, I also noticed that I enjoyed getting things done, while connecting with people and working in teams.

Hotelschool The Hague attracted me because I liked the service industry. I enjoyed my personal development. When I look back, I don’t think of the theory I learned, but the team spirit, attitude and human interaction. People from Hotelschool The Hague have a common mentality. They are truly client oriented and have a ‘can do’ attitude. The selection procedure is an important part of this.

Living on campus was a whole experience in itself, coming out of my shell and learning to speak up. For me it was a journey of personal development.

I experienced my first challenge when I was living at Skotel, as my roommate was an evening person and I was a morning person. We quickly had to find out how to live with each other, how to adapt. In a way it was good that we were so different. I still see many other Alumni. A funny thing is that ABN AMRO is listed as one of the top three employers for the Hotelschool, so there are quite a lot of Alumni at my work.

Around my second placement I discovered that I like to work with figures and that I like to solve problems. After that it was a step-by-step process, and I gradually moved towards a career in Finance. Working at a bank means you have to solve complex problems while you are dealing with financial services, working with clients, colleagues and other stakeholders.

After Hotelschool The Hague, I studied Business Administration and, as I had a great affinity with numbers, in the end I switched to Business Economics.

After graduating I went into Investment Banking and joined MeesPierson. I was responsible for IPOs, mergers & acquisitions, making valuation models, advising boards of companies on transactions and the likes. When working on valuations, I always wondered, why are we doing this transaction? Why are we bringing these particular companies together?

I liked to work with company boards, but I wanted to think further, develop strategies. So I decided I should work for a strategy consultancy firm and applied for a job at McKinsey & Company. It gave me the opportunity to look into different industries and several different

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countries. You get to see the companies all the way from the canteen to the Board of Directors; a great learning experience. After several years, I discovered that when I work on a project I get attached to two things: the problem and the people.

After McKinsey & Company I joined ABN AMRO in 2003. What drew me to Transaction Banking was that it is at the heart of dayto-day banking, the daily line to your clients. You also work in a large team and with clients. At the same time, you have to roll up your sleeves and get things done.

I am also passionate about putting sustainability into practice in very tangible ways - the ‘little big things’. It’s all about believing in something. It’s also about giving meaning to the concept ‘green means business’. This is not only an idealistic concept; you have to make a business case out of being green; making little steps that move on to a greater meaning. I believe in combining sustainability and innovation in a way that is meaningful to clients.

“When I work on a project I get attached to two things: the problem and the people.”

Some people have a clear destination in their career, a goal they are aiming for. I don’t have that feeling. For me the journey is much more important than the destination.

I want to have a challenging journey, and I don’t yet know where it will end.

#HTHFact: Karin Kersten is a Member of the Board of Trustees of Hotelschool The Hague.

Entrepreneur

Jorik America

Company Owner Boosty

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P

hilippe van de Wetering and I met at Hotelschool The Hague. We set up Boosty seven years ago. After graduation, we decided to travel through Australia, New Zealand and Asia. We were inspired by the several ‘conscious’ food concepts we experienced during our trip; convenience food, but healthy.

We loved this idea and wanted to bring this to the Netherlands.

The idea for Boosty was born; a fast-fresh formula with the focus on delicious and healthy food. We found a great location on the Frederik Hendriklaan in The Hague, and we were able to rent it; it was meant to be! From day one it was successful.

The second restaurant in Curacao has just opened.

Boosty Amsterdam (Hoofddorpplein) was opened by Dennis van de Busken, who also studied at Hotelschool The Hague. We now have five restaurants and we are looking to expand further.

Our concept is based on the idea that fast and fresh foods can go together. You can create your own juice, sandwich or salad with our self-order system.

This is especially convenient for people with certain allergies or diets. Besides that, we focus on getting a smile on every customer’s face. We also made signs with the effects of the different ingredients. The tomato, for instance, is the love apple. It helps you to relax and take any hesitation away.

We work together with the Haagse Hogeschool, doing research with the dietetics department to get all the information we need about nutrition, which means we are always up-to-date.

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I really enjoyed my time at Hotelschool The Hague. Both Phillippe and I were active members of La Confrerie.

The most valuable course for me was TMS (Training Management Skills); I still benefit from it greatly every day. You learn to really deal with people and with your staff. It taught me how you can motivate them and how to give feedback. It is so important to keep your staff motivated. Because of our management style, people find it great to work at Boosty.

Hotelschool The Hague is such a fun place to be, you’re surrounded by like-minded people. When a Hotello applies for a job here, we don’t even need an interview because the selection has already been made by Hotelschool The Hague. So every Hotello who ever worked for us, has turned out to be a top-notch employee; they always ‘stand out’ above the rest.

The future for us is franchising.

We are currently looking for franchisers to work with in the Netherlands. In the end, we would like to have 20 restaurants within five years in the Netherlands. We want to focus on the Netherlands for now, which is the easiest for us. We are busy talking to potential franchisees.

“When a Hotello applies for a job here, we don’t even need an interview because the selection has already been made by Hotelschool The Hague.”

Hospitality Leader

Jolijn Zeeuwen General Manager Hilton Schiphol

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M

y Hilton career started in 2000, when I joined the Hilton Amsterdam HR department as a Management Trainee. During this traineeship I learned so much, and really enjoyed being part of the Hilton team. After the five months of the internship, I graduated and was offered the job of HR Agent at Hilton Amsterdam.

One and a half years later, I was given the opportunity to transfer to Hilton Amsterdam Airport Schiphol to become HR Manager, a role which I worked in for two years with great pleasure.

In HR you have a supporting and advisory role, so in order to develop my commercial and operational knowledge, I moved to the FD department. In the following five years, I fulfilled several positions and in 2010 I was promoted to Hotel Manager.

As Hotel Manager I worked at Hilton Schiphol and in The Hague, back and forth, to cover a pregnancy leave period. In the end, I went to The Hague and worked there for four years. Then they asked me to relocate to Schiphol for the opening of the new Hilton Schiphol.

It’s great to be back! It’s fun to see that many staff members are still part of the team; we have such a strong and experienced team.

Together we bring a total of almost 1,500 service years with us to the new hotel, which is quite unique for an opening of a hotel. We are not a typical airport hotel; we are a hotel located at an airport. We give our guests a complete experience, instead of guests only visiting us for a functional reason.

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We are going to focus more on the meeting segment, we are going to be a MICE hotel (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions). We want to become the leading MICE hotel in Europe: that is our aim for the near future.

When I studied at Hotelschool The Hague a new curriculum had just been introduced, so what I learned at Hotelschool The Hague was to adjust to new situations and to change constantly, to explore new ways of learning. I learned how to communicate, how to present myself and how to interact with people.

What makes a great manager? It’s important to work together with your team, after all, everyone is replaceable, including me. Therefore I think it is important to train, coach and guide the team the best way possible, to get the most out of each individual so each department can deliver the highest service and quality to the guests. I particularly learned this while working at the HR department.

Getting the most and best out of the team positively influences the results of the Hotel and creates a great team spirit.

Of course, I am very proud that I am able to work in this position, opening the new Hilton Amsterdam Airport Schiphol Hotel as General Manager, but I had the same feeling when I moved to The Hague, or when I became Director of Operations, or when I started in HR. I just feel very privileged that I could always take the next step at the right time in my career with Hilton. I would never say, “look at what

I have achieved”, because that would be ridiculous, you always do it together with your team. Winning is a team effort, you never win on your own.

The funny thing is, that I constantly change my career plans along the way.

I planned to continue to study after graduating, but then I realised I enjoyed putting the theory into practice. I thought that I would build my career in HR, but then I wanted to further develop my competencies, so I moved in another direction - changing my plans yet again. That’s why I don’t have a calculated plan of where I want to be in 10 years. So far I have been lucky that I was in the right place at the right time, ready for the next great step in my career. I adapt very quickly, I don’t see obstacles, just challenges.

“I don’t see obstacles, just challenges.”

Specialist

Melle van Uden

HR & Training Manager W Amsterdam

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S

ince I was young, I’ve always been fascinated by the Hotel Industry; the operations and how everything worked in the hotels in which I stayed with my family. I even asked the receptionist if I could sit behind the desk to see how they checked guests in and out. When I was 14, I started my first job as a dishwasher in a restaurant. I was so motivated to work in the hospitality industry that, at the age of 15, I moved to Van der Valk, where I started working in F&B and Banqueting, and went on to the Front office at the age of 16. I was 17 when I started at Hotelschool The Hague. There was no doubt about me going to the Hotelschool; I even made sure I graduated from school earlier so I could start with Hotelschool The Hague sooner. For me choosing an education is the same as buying a house or finding the perfect job. When you walk in, you just feel it; this is the place where you belong. You can change the way people think, but you can’t change the way people feel.

I had the same when I went to an open day at Hotelschool The Hague.

Hotelschool the Hague exceeded my expectations. I loved it so much, after I came back from my internship in London I was asked to join the Recruitment & Promotion team as a student ambassador, to organise the Open & Selection Days in Amsterdam. It is quite a funny story, because I invited some friends from London who were interested in the Hotelschool to one of the open days. As we were watching the presentation, I felt so proud that, when people asked questions, I didn’t feel like the answers they got actually did the school justice. So I stood up and said: “I’m very sorry; I’m a student here and I think I can explain it better.” We really restructured the way the Hotelschool is presented at open days and at fairs.

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I loved the real-life case projects, working with real companies, inside and outside the Hospitality Industry. During my study I gained experience at a number of companies; Marriott, Hilton and some fine-dining restaurants. I did my final internship at Booking.com as Sales Coordinator for the Benelux market. The company was rapidly growing at that time; we grew from 1,000 to 3,000 employees and from 25 to 80 offices worldwide in a year. I learned a lot, from cold calling and sales acquisitions to negotiating and advising hotels on rates and availability. After the internship, Booking.com offered me a job in the same role, which I did for another six months. I still didn’t know exactly what direction I wanted to go in my career. Therefore I decided to do my Pre-Master of Business Administration for Entrepreneurship at the VU University, as entrepreneurship is something that matches my personality.

During my Pre-Master I was asked by the Hotelschool to work part-time at the Recruitment Department at the Amsterdam campus.

In the summer of 2013, I was looking for a new full-time job and found a position as a Recruiter for Starwood Hotels in the Netherlands, including Sheraton Amsterdam Airport Hotel & Conference Center, Hotel des Indes, a Luxury Collection Hotel, and Hotel Pulitzer. From February 2015, I’ve worked as Human Resources and Training Manager at W Amsterdam. As a Human Resource Manager the most important thing is to create a great environment for your employees, to keep them happy and comfortable; a place where they can develop. It’s crucial to inspire and motivate them along their journey.

With an opening, like the W Amsterdam, it’s essential to recruit and build fabulous teams and train them to be ready to represent the W Brand on service and brand standards. It’s great to find the right people, at the right place, at the right time, and be part of creating the best environment for them. You have the chance to allow people to grow into superior positions by training and coaching each individual talent. In the end, it’s all about building relationships with different stakeholders and generating revenue.

Entrepreneurship is something that really appeals to my personality. I want to have a job where I feel excited from the moment I wake up. My dream for the future is to continue exploring and discovering new experiences. Think big, believe big, act big, dream big, and the result will be big. This means I don’t know if I’ll be working in Sales, Marketing, or Human Resources, or perhaps own my own pancake restaurant. I’m open to moving abroad in the future, but I’m happy in Amsterdam at the moment.

My advice for Hotelschool The Hague students would be to enjoy life and to not give up quickly. However, if you realise you are not in the right place, have the guts to quit and find a place where you can create an enjoyable career path for yourself. If you graduate from Hotelschool don’t immediately apply for a Manager’s function in the first place; I think you should take it step by step and you’ll find yourself in a Managerial position when you’re ready for it.

Find a mentor who can help and inspire and motivate you to develop further, especially during the first steps of your career.

“The most important thing is to create a great environment for your employees, to keep them happy and comfortable, a place where they can develop. For new generations, it’s crucial to inspire and motivate them along their journey.”

Specialist

Esther Visser HR Manager Stayokay

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I

have worked at Stayokay as an HR manager from 2011 onwards.

Founded in 1929, Stayokay is the largest chain of hostels in the Netherlands and it’s a great place to work. The culture at Stayokay is transparent and open. It has social responsibility and sustainability in its DNA. Stayokay is a professional and commercial business where quality is delivered; the fact that these aspects go so well together is a strong motivation for me and additionally, team spirit and staff commitment are also very important. On top of that, there is room to develop your own work and personal skills and those of your team. I am proud that I am able to contribute to this company from my HR position.

After graduation, my first job was as a Consultant at a Job Agency. My job was to interview candidates for temporary jobs. You could say that this is where my HR career started. Following that, I worked at a catering company as a party service coordinator. As an Event Manager I was responsible for events for 10-1,000 people, from the locations to menus to the entertainment. After two years, I joined the Marks & Spencer HR Management Trainee Programme. I worked for them for six years as an Assistant Personnel Manager and Personnel Manager in their stores in London, Amsterdam and The Hague.

My main focus was staff planning, recruitment, appraisal and duty management.

That was followed by working as a Personnel Manager at Stage Entertainment for two years. It was a great job where the biggest challenges were how to get the creative staff on board when

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introducing new HR policies and procedures and to give HR support and advice throughout the re-organisation.

In the 10 years before I joined Stayokay, I worked for development and fundraiser Plan Netherlands as HR Manager. While I was there, the organisation changed a lot making my role in HR extremely varied. I was involved in job ranking, compensation, staff development and safety & security.

I was also able to visit several developing countries in Africa and Asia.

In my current Management Team role at Stayokay I am responsible for the HR Strategy and putting this strategy into the annual planning of all HR activities, together with my team of four. The major areas of responsibilities are recruitment, employee satisfaction & well-being, training & development, administration & policy, compensation & benefits, absence management and performance management. I like HR because I like to make people in a company feel good about their job and the way they can perform and develop in their function. I find it important to make things less complicated and make clear what the policies are; after all, people are the most important influence on guest experience. If the guests keep coming, the business will grow. I find the legal side a very rewarding part of my job. Labour law in the Netherlands is dynamic and I like staying on top of the latest legislation and translating it to HR policy and practice. Coming back to the Hospitality Industry almost five years ago, after such a long time away, felt like coming home. Technology has changed immensely over the years but the feeling of working with "Hospitality People" has not.

The memories I have of Hotelschool The Hague, are mostly of other students and lecturers. I have great memories of the Vinology lessons given

by Mr Schoenmaker, the "guest kitchen" lecturer Mr Sikkes, and even the Business Administration lessons of Mr Buys. People like that taught us with great passion. I remember the excitement of gaining new skills, working in teams and laughing about mistakes. The most valuable lesson I learned at the Hotelschool, is that you always have to look at things positively, you don't complain, you do something about it and you get on with it!

My future plans are to work for Stayokay for a few more years. After that, I would like to finish a Master’s Degree and work as an HR Director. Another option is to start my own business as an independent HR Consultant or Coach.

“Coming back to the hospitality industry almost five years ago, after such a long time away, felt like coming home.”

It seems the current Hotelschool curriculum is more demanding than it was 30 years ago. The environment is much more international. Students should have good planning and organisational skills, but also be able to adapt to different situations and cultures. They should be team players as well as independent thinkers. What hasn’t changed though is that for future students, Hotelschool The Hague is still one of the best choices they could make!

Hospitality Leader

Nicolaas Houwert Hotel Manager Hilton Paris Orly Airport

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W

hen I was a child, I’d love helping my parents when they threw a party at home, running around the house, entertaining guests and making sure they felt at home. Already then I realised that I liked hospitality, but it was only after my first visit to Hotelschool The Hague that I really knew I wanted to study there.

I loved my time at the Hotelschool, especially the combination of practical work and the theory. I actually enjoyed going into the kitchen to cook, and into the hotel rooms to clean them. Only by making up the rooms and scrubbing the toilets yourself, you really learn to appreciate all the hard work that has to be done in a hotel.

Living together in the Skotel was a blast!

I lived together with so many amazing people; people from different countries, cultures and backgrounds. One of my roommates is still one of my very best friends; he even was a witness at my wedding. We also have a group of about 10 friends who meet regularly to reminisce about our time at Hotelschool The Hague. Nowadays, most of us are married and have children, but we make sure that whenever there is something to celebrate we come together.

A lecturer I clearly remember is Jos Stroom, for ‘Training Management Skills’, who gave us practical management tools on providing feedback and showed us ways of convincing and leading others. We also went on ‘Outdoor’ with him, where we camped out in the wilderness in the Belgian Ardennes, working on all kind of different tasks in a completely random team. What I learned there I still use today on a day-to-day basis. Trying to put myself in the shoes of someone else is essential for me to be able to manage a hotel successfully.

On 2 February 2002, the same day as the wedding of Willem Alexander and Maxima, I met Rogier Braakman who was working for Hilton in Amsterdam.

He was in charge of Purchasing for Hilton in the Netherlands and was actually looking for a replacement for himself as he was moving on within Hilton. So he invited me for an interview and six interviews later, during which I met all the GMs of Hilton in the Netherlands, I became Purchasing Manager for Hilton in the Netherlands in May 2002.

I have stayed in the organisation ever since, but have taken different steps.

After three years in Purchasing I wanted to return to Operations, and became Front Desk Manager for Hilton Rotterdam where I was quickly promoted to Operations Manager. Nowadays, I am the the Hotel Manager of Hilton Paris Orly Airport Hotel, after having worked in Antwerp and Copenhagen.

The special dynamics of a hotel are the favourite part of my job. You need to constantly adapt to changing environments. Some circumstances you can of course influence, for example which rooms are being cleaned when and in which order, but you also need to adapt to the weather or other unexpected changes which you cannot influence. It is all about operational efficiency and how you can improve it on a day to day basis. Only when everyone works together it seems flawless to the guest, who then has a unique experience.

I love spending time in Paris, because it is a phenomenal city which attracts people from all over the world, and it is an amazing feeling that you can just go out in Paris, having the Eiffel Tower next door, without spending hours in the car.

I don’t know yet if I’ll retire at the same company, but I am still very happy in the hotel business.

I’m looking forward to moving on and possibly become a Regional Director or even Vice President in the future at Hilton. I definitely see myself growing and am looking forward to taking on more responsibilities in the future.

Students of today, I can only advise you to give 100%, all the time. If you like hospitality and have a passion for it, really make use of it and get out there! Make sure you travel, because there are so many great people to meet and so many great places to visit. You will learn so much more about yourself when you go abroad and live in another country and experience different cultures. Go out and explore the world!

“Trying to put myself in someone else’s shoes is essential for me to manage a hotel successfully.”

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Consultant

Sandra Sahusilawani

Global Philanthropy Advisor SOS Children’s Villages

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I

loved the entire time at Hotelschool The Hague. My most memorable moments include: the Skotel, the first semester (the Havik during my time), the hours in the kitchen, the food fights in the canteen, internships abroad, basically the student life in general. There are simply too many memorable moments. I really enjoyed the practical courses; the mix of practicality and theory. I remember a few lecturers such as Mr Schoenmaker, because of his “Joie de Vivre” and Mrs Lin with her American insights.

After graduating from the Hotelschool, I started a traineeship at a large Dutch Bank. I worked as a Corporate Account Manager and later switched to Financial Personal Planning.

I held several management positions at companies who were into financial services. I worked in the Financial Sector for 15 years.

After those 15 years, I reached a point in my career where I felt that I had neglected my social responsibility.

So first I tried to find ways to volunteer and help others. SOS Childen’s Villages needed someone who was used to talking to others about money, and who liked to work with people. I used to work with people who wanted to use their luck to make more money, now I work with people who want to spend their money to improve other people’s luck. That is a different position to work with and to actually see what that money does is rather fulfilling.

This year I moved to SOS Childen’s Villages International, which is headquartered in Austria but I am based in Amsterdam. As a Global Philanthropy Advisor I acquire and engage with global major donors and support other SOS offices to increase the income of leadership giving

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sources. What we do is all based on general children’s-rights: they need to have a family, they need to have a home, they need to have good health care, and they need to have an education. We take these things into consideration and we see what is missing in their situation and how we can support a family in any way.

In the past, a company would raise money or have social budgets to spend on projects. That was great and it was very simple. Now companies don’t only want to give money, they also want to have employee engagement so that they can improve their HR policies. As more young people are aware and willing to take part in social projects, I challenge big hotel chains not only to give through their donations, but also to try and find other ways to help children and youth in upcoming and developing countries.

The non-profit sector in the Netherlands is relatively small. It’s not easy to get into the non-profit sector if you want to. I always advise people to show through their actions how much they are worth to these NGOs. I tell them to take up a project, do some voluntary work, show them how much you are capable of, and that you are willing to help others.

I would say that Hotelschool The Hague students in general are very result-oriented. I think they should often ask themselves, “With my career, will I impact lives in some way?” In the end, you want to be proud of what you achieved and not only of the monetary value it provided. Climbing up the corporate ladder is great, it’s definitely a great ride. But make sure you stay close to who you are. Take a step back and make sure you know where you are going. Ask yourself: is this going to fulfil my dreams?

One thing that I learned from the Hotelschool, which is something I find very important, is to be able to relate to all kinds of people. In my job I talk to a lot of influential people but, at the same time, I also talk to SOS staff in the field. Making the connection between different levels and showing that they are all part of the overall mission is something you learn at the Hotelschool.

I still keep in close contact with Alumni from the Hotelschool. Most of my best friends are Alumni. Two Alumni work at SOS Children’s Villages as well. I work with them, spend my free time with them and their families, and I still travel with them.

Looking at the future, my first priority is to educate my daughter to be happy.

I will continue working for SOS Children’s Villages in the foreseeable future, raising money to support more children. We can end poverty in the world in this generation, and I look forward to contributing to this mission.

“I used to work with people who wanted to use their luck to make more money; now I work with people who want to spend their money to improve other people’s luck.”

Entrepreneurs

Patrick Brand & Erik Baumann Owners Hoteliers.com

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H

aving met during their practical placement, Erik and Patrick are now partners in both life and business. In the last 10 years they have grown Hoteliers.com into a successful business, servicing over 1,500 hotels in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg. Hoteliers.com currently has a staff of 28.

I (Erik) started at Hotelschool The Hague in 1996-II and graduated in 2000. I have always loved hotels; when I was 16, I went to a hotel in Luxembourg to do a placement, to make sure that the hotel business was really my passion. I was supposed to stay for two weeks, but I ended up staying another four weeks. Finally, my brother had to come and get me as I didn’t want to leave. It was the hospitality, travelling, restaurants and fine dining that I really loved, and I still do. For my second placement at Hotelschool The Hague, I worked for Golden Tulip Hotels in the Marketing Department. This was a thrilling time, as they were about to launch their first corporate website and it was my first step into the world of internet. Back then were the hype days of the internet, and I was offered a job at an internet agency after graduating. However, the dot-com bubble burst and the agency went bankrupt, leaving me unemployed. As I didn’t want to take any money from the Government, I went to the Chamber of Commerce and followed my dream to start my own company, combining the Hotel Industry with internet. This led to the start of Hoteliers.com.

I (Patrick) graduated from Hotelschool The Hague in 2001.

Personally I came across the Hotelschool by coincidence, when I was working at the beach club Bora Bora on the boulevard in Scheveningen. Two of my colleagues were very enthusiastic about ‘the Hotelschool’; this sounded so interesting that I applied for a selection day and got accepted. After graduating, I moved to Amsterdam and started to work for the Recruitment Agency Vitae.

However, I soon missed a link with the Hospitality Industry so I started to work for Wentink Events, one of the three leading companies for corporate events.

This is when Erik came up with the idea of Hoteliers.com and asked me to set up the sales, the commercial part towards the hotels.

Hoteliers.com is a provider of commission free e-commerce software for individual hotels, helping them to increase their direct business and become less dependent on commission websites. We help them with everything they need to be bookable online, ranging from a responsive hotel website with a booking engine and online payment, to channel management software to manage rates and availabilities on all other online travel agencies. We make sure the bookings are delivered directly into the hotel’s PMS and last but not least, all hotels can be booked on the consumer website www.hoteliers.com.

“The only time success comes before work is in the dictionary.”

Hoteliers.com is now a successful international company; however we faced many problems when we started, especially with regards to our international expansion. At first, we opened up everywhere without a real strategy; we met someone in Rome and set-up an office there. However, it became clear that you need to have substance in a country to be successful, and this can only be achieved by having a clear focus. Our strategy is now to expand country by 39

country, starting with our neighbouring countries and in this way, we have been very successful.

This means that travelling, another of our passions, has become a big part of the job, as our clients are located in Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the UK. If we look forward, we want to focus on growth, especially in Germany as it a much larger market than the Benelux. Another focal point is doing more business with existing clients, as it is easier to sell additional products to clients that already use certain products, and it offers them more benefits.

A major part of my life (Erik) was determined by Hotelschool The Hague and the placements. Firstly, I met Patrick on the practical placement, and secondly, my first step into the internet business was part of my placement. I’ve seen that many graduates of the Hotelschool share the same beliefs and social skills, this is probably the result of a good selection process. Furthermore, you learn respect, something that is needed in every life stage and values that cannot be taught in a book but are crucial when doing business. The ‘Entrepreneurial Spirit’ is something that we find most Hotelschool students have in common. We often meet up with Hotelschool Alumni who are now entrepreneurs, and discuss our ideas and thoughts about the business.

Our advice for both future and current students is to follow your heart; many people only talk about wanting to be an entrepreneur but the only thing that makes the difference is: do it! But don’t forget that it comes with a lot of hard work and focus, it’s only in the dictionary that success comes before work!

From being a Student...

K

eeping in touch with you, our Alumni of Hotelschool The Hague, is very important to us as you present our past, our present and our future.

A few years ago, we launched our first Alumni Chapter in London. We now have over 20 Chapters all around the world. We believe that these local HTH Alumni Chapters are a powerful networking platform for all our HTH Alumni.

You can find the following HTH Alumni Chapters on Facebook: Bangkok, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Curacao, Dubai, Dublin, London, Oslo, Rotterdam, Sao Paulo, Singapore, Stockholm, Washington and Zurich. Beijing and Shanghai can be found on LinkedIn. More Chapters are under development.

Our HTH Alumni Chapters are a great way for Alumni to interact and network with those who find themselves in the same international cities worldwide.

With the establishments of these local chapters, the spirit of our special HTH community is kept alive in all corners of the world. So if you are in (or close) to these cities, make sure you join them!

Furthermore, we would like to invite you to join our Alumni LinkedIn page. Here we will share the latest updates.

In case you have any questions or if you would like to inform us about changes in contact details, please send an email to Alumni Relations: alumni@hotelschool.nl.

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To being part of our global Alumni Network

Le Début Amsterdam

Hotelschool The Hague’s fine dining restaurant Le Début at the Amsterdam Campus has been given a new look.

The wood-filled interior now reflects the sustainability and warmth Le Début stands for. In collaboration with interior designer Eric Gutter a timeless concept has been created, where every four weeks, in cooperation with international students and suppliers, a new multicultural menu will be served. The combination of high quality service and locally sourced dishes ensures a high rating on the Dutch restaurant review site IENS, with a score of 8.5.

Now the interior has been refreshed, this will certainly contribute to an even higher experience of the guests. Joost de Vos, F&B Instructor: “We always focus on sustainability, preparing special dishes with seasonal products from top suppliers. We wanted to reflect this in the interior. Through wood chip plants, Moroccan tiles, brass lamps and wallpaper photos of a greenhouse in the Westland, we want to create a homely atmosphere in which our sustainable ideals are reflected in.” If you would like to take a look and experience the new Le Debut Amsterdam, please make a reservation via http://hotelschool.nl/en/book-table-le-debut-amsterdam or call +31 20 851 29 00.

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Entrepreneur

Chong Chu Co-Founder Foodhallen

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W

e have opened three interrelated concepts within the Foodhallen Amsterdam.

Brasserie Halte 3, opened first in August 2014. It is an all-day concept, starting with breakfast, which flows over into lunch, dinner and it is a place to go for drinks. Our menu has something for everyone, especially for local residents. The second concept, Meat West, only opens for dinner at 18:00. It focuses on meat and wine and is more ‘fine-dining’. This second concept opened in September 2014.

The third and largest concept, the Foodhallen, with 1,100m2, opened in October 2014. The Foodhallen encompasses 21 food concepts where we provide the space and all the facilities, like chairs and tables. We own the five bars inside. The Foodhallen is a meeting place for friends to catch up and have a drink with a snack.

You can come here with a group of people and everyone can eat something completely different.

In the first three months there was no time to stand still and reflect.

There was a huge buzz around the Foodhallen, so everyone wanted to come and see what it was all about: every night hundreds of people turned up, seven nights a week, it was insane. When there’s a buzz, you have to deliver and live up to everyone’s expectations.

After about five months, things started to calm down. Operations were running smoothly, everyone knew what to do. Only then did we have time to stand still, take a look around and realise: wow this is what we created. What we’ve done is crazy, in three months opening three huge concepts, going from zero staff to 160 employees, it was a lot to handle. Operations, staff, suppliers, other partners, everybody wanted something from us. Working seven days a week, 12 hours per day, it 43

was a crazy roller coaster ride. Now I can even sometimes take a day off.

Which I really need sometimes, to be away from it all, to clear my mind and to come back with a fresh, clean mind-set and new ideas. Not everything is perfect; we are still learning. We just opened, we haven’t even finished a full year. We especially want to learn from our own mistakes: what did we do wrong, what could have been better? We listen closely to complaints, from “there are too few seats” to “it’s too hot inside” and “the quality of the air inside could be better”. These are all points we are working on, to keep improving all the time. You have to keep developing to stay new and interesting for people to keep coming back.

After Hotelschool, I went to Shanghai to work there, came back, and started a small company importing Bonsai Trees; I did that for a year, still wondering what to do with my life. Afterwards, I opened a Chinese and a Japanese restaurant in Rotterdam and then this opportunity came along. Two of my friends and current partners went to Madrid and got inspired by Mercado de San Miguel; they came back and we talked about it, thinking: this is really what is missing in Amsterdam.

We might open similar places like the Foodhallen in other cities, adjusted to that particular city and the people from that city, maybe also abroad.

My parents always owned restaurants so as a kid I grew up in restaurants, always walking around in kitchens and behind the bar - I didn’t know anything else. First I didn’t want to go into the restaurant business myself, complaining about the long hours and the lack of free time, but when I went to an open day at Hotelschool The Hague with a friend, I knew: this is it, this is what I want! It’s in my blood. I learned a lot at Hotelschool The Hague, especially management skills: how to be a good Manager and how to approach your staff and how to inspire them to believe in what you believe.

“You have to keep developing to stay new and interesting for people to keep coming back.”

I have a close group of friends that I know from Hotelschool The Hague, who I still meet with every week. We were friends from day one at the Skotel, now 14 years ago. I just give them a call or send them a text saying: shall we have dinner tonight? And they will all be there! To me that is so special. A lot of those friends from the Hotelschool now have opened bars and restaurants in Amsterdam. They are starting companies, doing something. It is great to see each other grow, also getting girlfriends, wives, and children. We’ve been to each other’s weddings. It’s funny to see: Alumni from Hotelschool The Hague are taking over Amsterdam. The other day there was an article in the newspaper: ‘Where can you eat the best steak or best burger in Amsterdam?’

It was a top five, and I was on the list, Riad Farhat was on the list, Matan Shabraque was on the list, all Alumni. So of course we posted it on Facebook, tagging each other: how funny is this? We are all from the same school, all friends, and we all opened places in Amsterdam. We all inspire, motivate and help each other. It was Riad who told me to come to Amsterdam; I didn’t believe him at first - now I know he was right!

Consultant

Benjamin White

Senior Consultant, Hotel Investment Advisory and Asset Management at CBRE Hotels

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A

fter graduating from Hotelschool The Hague, I joined Fairmont Hotels and Resorts on their Leadership Development Programme. I spent approximately four years with them working on properties in Boston, New York, Singapore, before returning to London. It was at this point that I realised Hotel Operations wasn’t the path that I wanted to follow in terms of a long-term career.

I didn’t necessarily see myself ultimately becoming a General Manager or remaining in operations, so when the opportunity presented itself for me to become a Consultant and stay connected to the Hospitality Industry, I joined CBRE Hotels.

CBRE is the world’s largest commercial real-estate service and investment firm and one of the largest hotel-specific advisers globally. I have been at CBRE Hotels for about two and a half years now and I think that I have been very lucky when I look at where I’ve got to and what I’ve seen and done, to date. I think one of the greatest challenges of moving out of operations into the advisory field has been fitting back into a regular time schedule, in terms of Monday to Friday within an office space. However, I have been on a steep learning curve as well, having been exposed to new levels of hotel real estate complexities and financial analysis.

It might be a typical thing that you hear from people connected to hospitality, but no day is the same. My team specifically focuses on feasibility studies for new hotel investments, as well as operational reviews of existing hotels. We work across EMEA rather than just the UK, and we cover all classes of hotels, from budget to luxury properties. One month I could be looking at a project for a budget hotel development in the UK, where I will write a feasibility report (which has similarities to projects we conducted at Hotelschool) and the next month I could be inspecting and assessing a hotel’s operations at another European location. I travel approximately once a month and these projects take me all over the UK as well as Europe.

The interaction I have with the multitude of different individuals in the Hospitality Sector is something I enjoy most about my current position. When I visit a market to conduct field research for a project, I speak with local general managers, council members, tourism institutions, conference and event centres, and local businesses. You get to speak to a whole host of different people across a variety of professions, in an area that you may not have had the opportunity to visit before. Not only are you personally learning about a new area, you get to meet and hear from people that may have 10-15 years more 45

experience in their specific sector than you have and so the opportunities to expand your personal knowledge are endless. I have found the career I want to be in; it can be demanding and stressful, but also hugely rewarding and fun - it’s an exciting place to be.

I had an amazing time at Hotelschool the Hague, it was a great four years and it went by far too quickly. One of the best things for me was the hugely international mix of people that were in my year. I’m still very much in touch with many of them. The first year was a perfect way to create real friendships that have lasted and hopefully will continue to do so.

I was a member of La Confrérie as well as SentiQuesto. I tried to join in with both Student Associations because, at the time, there was still quite a separation between the Dutch and the Internationals. When I joined La Confrérie, all of a sudden, I was in a whole other circle of friends and experiences, as I had shown that I wanted to integrate. I certainly took skills I developed at the Hotelschool and from participating in both of these Associations, into my time in Hotel Operations. The skills I gained at the Hotelschool also helped me in the way I approach my work now, as a Consultant. It taught me how to work with people, how to listen to people, and how to understand them. Hotelschool The Hague gives you a great grounding in other skills such as Marketing and Finance, but in team work you really get the chance to become an expert.

“Life is short and you have to make the best of it.”

What is my advice to students? Don’t take opportunities for granted. Life is short and you have to make the best of it. You may not know what you want to do when you graduate, but make the most of the opportunities that come your way; you never know where they may take you.

What may have been great one day, can be the opposite the next. You need to keep focusing and developing yourself in all aspects of what you do, constantly reassessing your personal goals. One of the best things I have learned so far is that there are lessons you can learn from any individual. You can learn something just as vital from a line-staff member as you can from a general manager, and you have to be willing to take that in.

#HTHFact: Benjamin White is the Co-Founder of the HTH Alumni London Chapter.

Entrepreneur

Dim Hemeltjen Co-Founder M2Leisure

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I

come from a family where hospitality is kind of the norm. So when I was looking around at universities, after secondary school, I of course looked into Hotelschool The Hague; I was immediately interested and felt at home there. I was very young when I started; I had just turned 18, and I think I was even the second youngest in my year. I truly enjoyed my time at Hotelschool The Hague, especially living in Skotel and my time with La Confrérie. One of the many positive and vivid memories I have from school is the close friends I made. I still see them often.

Thinking back to my time there, I definitely don’t regret it. I am proud to have gone to Hotelschool The Hague. The Hotelschool helped me so much in my development. You learn things they don’t teach you anywhere else. I notice it often, it’s the little things; but it’s those little things that help you in daily business and in life in general.

In working life, I never really had to apply for a job. I sent out CVs but I never really had to go through the whole application process. I was lucky. When I did my final internship I worked for Center Parcs. Their head office is in Rotterdam, so when I was doing my Master there at the Erasmus University, I occasionally stopped by to say hi to some people. One time I ran into Mark Haak Wegmann. He told me to send him my CV, which I did: two months later I was working there. I worked for Center Parks from mid-2004 until about 2011, mainly working on the coordination of development projects in France. Following this, I started my current company M2Leisure together with, amongst others, Mark - my former boss and now one of my partners. M2Leisure is a Consultancy and Development Company for the Leisure Industry.

Starting a new company is exhilarating. Because of the field we’re in, we couldn’t stop our day-jobs straight away, so we worked on some projects to start with, just to keep our heads above water. Each project needs large investments. The field we work in is a niche business; we mainly develop water parks and holiday recreational centres. One thing I had to get used to is working for myself; I had always worked in teams before this, at school, my internships, and in my former job. Now I have

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to make all the decisions myself, which is very exciting of course. The business is always a gamble but we have been very lucky, especially with the locations. We get to work all over the world in countries like the Netherlands, Germany, France, Romania, India, Canada, China, Morocco, as well as countries in South America.

For my work I speak a lot of French. I happened to learn how to speak French because of the Hotelschool and the first internship I did, which was in France at Hotel Chateau Des Alpilles, in SaintRémy-de-Provence. I also have to speak a lot of English and German for business, but French has become a very large part of it; we wouldn’t even be able to communicate with some clients if we didn’t have French speakers.

In the future, we intend to stay active in the countries where tourism is developing or where it has great potential to develop. This can be either inside or outside Europe.

From experience we tend to look from a resort business model´s perspective, this means looking at short stays, family oriented, local, sustainable and the environment; we also focus on (indoor tropical) water parks.

“I never really had to apply for a job.”

My advice to students is: work hard, play hard. It sounds corny but it’s true. Open up the books and get your work done. Before you know it, you won’t have time to learn and study anymore. I see that a lot of students often forget to study; they forget that they actually have to learn something. But also: don’t forget to enjoy your time at school!

#HTHFact: Dim Hemeltjen is one of the Board Members of the Hospitality Management Club (HMC).

Consultant

Philipp Weghmann Executive Vice President – Europe, Preferred Hotels & Resorts

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I

did both my internships in Cape Town as I always wanted to live there. Just before graduating in 2002, I moved to Cape Town, to work for Horvath Tourism & Leisure Consulting; my second internship and my first job. Back then I didn’t have a real plan of what to do. I only knew I wanted to stay within the Hospitality Industry, but I didn’t want to work in a hotel.

and making sure that the “A players” stay within the company, so we don’t have much turnover in key positions.

I went back to Europe for personal reasons and moved to Barcelona.

There I found a job, doing business development at HOTUSA Hotels, a big Spanish representation company with its own hotel chain called Eurostars Hotels.

One of the challenging parts of my job is managing very diverse teams with different cultural backgrounds. The way people react to certain things is so different in each team. I am glad that I am able to handle people with different nationalities, to understand their needs and to keep them all happy. I also learned this at Hotelschool The Hague where you always had to work in different teams on various assignments. Each team member had a different approach and work ethic; this combined with their different nationalities made it a very challenging work environment. You just had to deal with it and get the job done - make it work no matter who was on your team. That was an extremely valuable lesson.

After two years, I moved to Preferred Hotels & Resorts to work as Regional Director Iberian Peninsula & Mediterranean for five years. In 2011, I moved to Miami to become Area Managing Director - Latin America & Caribbean, and last November I moved back to Barcelona, where I now work as Executive Vice President – Europe, which means I have to look after 180 of our member hotels, from Russia to Morocco and everything in between. I look after six offices with 40 people. We are the largest soft brand for independent luxury hotels and we do Global Sales & Marketing for 650 hotels worldwide, in 85 countries. I look after the relations and new development of 180 of those hotels in 22 countries.

Usually, I am in the office one week and the other week I travel for two to three days; hectic at times but also very rewarding and interesting.

It helps that I usually visit great city or resort destinations. HR is a very important part of my job and I spend a lot of time recruiting talented staff 49

I am proud to be have been with this company for eight years and I am very loyal towards the company; I think loyalty is coming back into fashion. When I was a student at Hotelschool The Hague, the perfect career was described as one where you would switch from different hotels and companies frequently, it was even considered mandatory to move up the ladder. I am not sure this applies as much today. I am also proud of having negotiated some of the major deals for the company and having brought really good valuable people into the company.

I would tell current students to enjoy their time at Hotelschool The Hague fully.

Don’t worry too much about your future.

You are going to discover so much about yourself during the four years of your study. You will end up having a great career, not necessarily right away.

You will not have a senior position right after graduation; this is definitely something that needs to be said: don’t expect to move into a senior position right away, you will not be ready for it. Enjoy the friendships you make, some people will become your best friends, probably for life.

Your time at Hotelschool The Hague can be quite intense, and spending so much time together means you will immediately bond with many of your fellow students.

“To become a great GM or CEO, you need to be an all-rounder.”

If you want to become a General Manager or CEO or, like in my case, Head of a region, you need to be an all-rounder instead of a specialist. You need to have an incredibly solid amount of base knowledge in many different areas. That certainly helped me to become good in what I do, in Strategy Development. You need to understand how certain things relate to each other, how different departments interact. #HTHFact: Philipp Weghmann is the Founder of the HTH Alumni Barcelona Chapter.

Specialist

Tanja Roeleveld Manager Sustainability Landal GreenParks

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I

graduated from Hotelschool The Hague in 2000. After the Hotelschool, I had various jobs in Marketing and Communication before ending up working for Landal GreenParks as Communication Manager. Starting at Landal GreenParks was really great, but after five years I was up for something new. They offered me the opportunity to apply for a new role, as Manager Sustainability. This career switch was a completely new experience for me at the time: not only did I focus on sustainability, but I was able to work in a more Strategic Role which has been a great challenge.

One of the biggest responsibilities of my job is to inspire and stimulate the whole organisation to be a more sustainable company.

I have to facilitate this in such a way that everybody is able to integrate this into their day-to-day work.

At the moment we are preparing the 2015 Sustainability Report. This is reporting at a communications level. I also work closely with Dutch politics; we look at how we can help our guests recycle more and waste less in our various parks. On a day-today basis, we work a lot with the different parks. We help them prepare for and get a Green Key Certificate, the international eco-label for holiday parks, hotels and other Hospitality Businesses.

Is it a coincidence that I ended up in this job? You never know. I think when you start working for a company like Landal GreenParks you need to have a love for nature in general. It’s completely different than working for a company which you know causes

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a lot of pollution.The product we offer is in the middle of natural surroundings, so if we don’t respect nature, we have nothing in the future. That’s the Landal GreenParks’ vision in a nutshell. We take care of nature, since that’s the USP of the holidays we offer.

The best thing about my job is that I get to work with so many different people throughout the company and that I can advise people and try to make things better on a sustainability level. That means that I talk about how to increase our use of renewable energy, so that it is really on an environmental level. But I also work on how we can make our employees happier, what we can do for them. I also implement the things I learn in my professional life into my personal life. From my professional life I know the things that are bad for the environment and I try to adopt as many things as possible in my personal life as well. I try to avoid using the car, for example. I find it important to teach my kids about it; in the end they need to live on this earth and leave it for the next generations to come.

When I look back on my time at Hotelschool The Hague, the most memorable moments were when we just had fun with all the other students. I loved the things we organised with the sorority.

I managed to do my study in four years. I worked hard, especially in the last two years; I often worked five nights a week. I liked working together with many different people. I learned to value the differences between all the members in a group when doing projects.

Marketing was the course which I enjoyed the most. The lessons taught me how to think differently, out of the box and to be innovative. In general, my time at Hotelschool The Hague was just a wonderful period that I enjoy looking back on. It’s the normal things I enjoyed the most.

Many of my best friends are Alumni. With the ‘year-club’ I go away for weekends; all over Europe. I also like to meet up with each other and the kids, having fun outdoors and at the beach.

Looking at the future, I would really like to continue developing Landal GreenParks into the sustainable company that I believe to be good for the future. I believe that sustainability

makes Landal GreenParks a better company. I also find it important to push the companies we work with to become more sustainable. For the moment, Sustainability and Change Management are the things I found myself doing: I will continue learning more about them.

“If we don’t respect nature, we have nothing in the future.”

Specialist

Thomas van der Blom Procurement Supervisor Marriott International

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I

always wanted to work in an international environment as my Dad also worked and lived abroad as well. I am very happy that I was selected to study at the Hotelschool The Hague. The setup of learning and applying what you learned worked out well for me. My first internship was in Germany in a very small village called Erbach. The hotel was called Schloss Reinhartshausen Kempinski and had its own vineyard. It was a totally different experience for me to be in a foreign country where I did not yet speak the language; thankfully I learn fast. My second internship in Beijing, again, opened up a whole new world to me. I worked there during the Summer Olympics, a fantastic experience. The Chinese culture, the different lifestyle and being able to experience the Olympic summer games and what they did to the city was amazing.

The most memorable moments at Hotelschool The Hague for me would be going on the internships, coming back from them and exchanging experiences with all other students returning from their internships. Robert Gallicano, Daane Bolier and Sander Allegro were the most inspiring lecturers; their lectures were always interesting as they used captivating examples from the industry.

The Management of Strategy and Change module was definitely my favourite course at the Hotelschool. Together with a team of five we worked on a case assignment of a hotel that we also visited and from which we received all the information. For my final project, I helped Mercure Hotels who were looking into standardising their breakfast formula. We started to search for trends and travelled around the Netherlands to visit seven different Mercure hotels.

After finding out what the different hotels were doing themselves, we presented a report with all our findings regarding the current situation together with our recommendations based on our findings and trends.

For me it was clear that, after graduation, I wanted to find a job outside of the Netherlands. Therefore I packed my belongings and left for Curaçao to find a job there. I started working for the Avila Hotel as a Cost Controller - the cost control course I took at the Hotelschool really helped me! After about two years, I left the company as I wanted to move into a more operational position. By coincidence I found a new job with EWT, as a Purchasing Agent.

EWT is a wholesale company that supplies all kinds of hospitality companies, especially within the Caribbean area.

“I am very happy that I was selected to study at the Hotelschool The Hague. The setup of learning and applying what you learned worked out well for me.”

In 2013, I moved to the Renaissance Curaçao Resort & Casino to work as a Purchasing Manager. This meant many more tasks and responsibilities as I had a complete team working for me, so I learned a lot more and expanded my horizon. I became the Purchasing Manager and continued to work within the company for three years until I was offered the position at Marriott’s European Headquarters. So I recently moved to Frankfurt, Germany, where I now work for the Marriott International Procurement Team as Procurement Supervisor at our European Headquarters.

#HTHFact: Thomas van der Blom is the Founder of the HTH Alumni Curaçao Chapter 53

This team is responsible for leveraging the combined purchasing power of the European Marriott Hotels to achieve attractive pricing on products ranging from the beds in the rooms to the coffee served at breakfast.

Every day is different in my job. It can be anything from a day filled with analysing spend records from hotels to provide meaningful insights to our vendors, to meeting various suppliers, to visiting owners who are going to open a new hotel with us; in all these situations I explain the advantage of working with Marriott International Procurement.

The thing that I enjoy most about my current position is the multitude of stakeholders that I work with; vendors, hotel employees, owners, Marriott HQ (either locally in Eschborn or Bethesda, MD) etc. I enjoy trying to provide the right solution for all parties involved, from a strategic point of view.

At this moment, it is clear that my future is in Procurement and Purchasing. I don’t have a clear picture of exactly where I’ll be in five years’ time; I’ll take it as it comes and take the opportunities that present themselves to learn and grow.

If you are studying at Hotelschool today, make sure you enjoy your time there. It will be one of the most amazing times of your life and it will open doors for you in the future.

Make sure you finish school, because it doesn’t come easy! In the end you need to work for where you want to be.

Specialist

Dennis Gรถppel

Director Aircraft Management & Aircraft Sales PrivatAir

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I

t was obvious I would end up in the Aviation Sector as I always had an enormous passion for Commercial Aviation. Since I was little I collected aircraft models, I watched aircrafts at airports, and I followed airline companies in their development.

Throughout my study at Hotelschool The Hague, I was already focused on a future career in Aviation.

Every step I took, my internships, my projects, reports, they were all aimed towards my future career. For my first internship, I was persistent on finding an internship at an international business hub. That’s why I chose Dubai; it’s an international city and environment to work in. I ended up working for the Jumeirah Group at the Madinat Jumeirah Resort. I worked 11 hours a day, six days a week and I met very interesting people.

For my management internship, I naturally wanted to find a company in Aviation, hoping I could eventually stay there and get a contract. I have to thank Elina Sperth, the Placement Coordinator at Hotelschool The Hague for she knew someone at PrivatAir in Geneva, Switzerland.

Subsequently, I started my internship in Geneva. I was involved in restructuring a division of the company called Business Aviation (meaning private jets). The internship was great, as PrivatAir, renowned in both Business and Commercial Aviation, has a very high service level and quality standards, and deals with ultra-high net worth individuals and VIP clients (who occasionally already happened to be the same clients as the VIP clients I worked with in Dubai).

After my internship, PrivatAir offered me a full time contract. I graduated in July, went on vacation in August and started as a fulltime employee in September 2011.

I started as Manager Business Aviation and grew from there into

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Manager Aircraft Management and Aircraft Sales. Clients from all around the world come to us for aircraft sales and acquisition, aircraft management and aircraft charter services. PrivatAir provides complete acquisition, sales and support services for (heavy) business jet owners. At the other end, we work with customers who can afford to charter a private jet, type Boeing or Airbus, for private use. To put it simply: we work with extremely wealthy people - an international clientele with an emphasis on Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Our business can be very delicate and discrete. When you deal with numbers that can (sometimes) exceed €100 million (especially in aircraft trading), you need a solid partner like PrivatAir. The company's wide range of clients include royalty, heads of state, public officials, celebrities from the arts, sports and entertainment industries, captains of industry and private aircraft owners. When I started, naturally this environment was quite surreal but after a while you get used to it. You get familiar with the clientele and the international character of the company.

After four years, I was promoted to Director Aircraft Management & Aircraft Sales, heading the Aircraft Sales and Aircraft Management Department. My responsibilities are more or less the same, but now I work on a more strategic level.

In addition, I also serve as Chief Operating Officer for AirClub, the leading corporate jet alliance. The idea behind AirClub is to become the leading alliance within the sector of Business Aviation (so private jets). Currently I am working on global coverage, even expanding to the US. The alliance is still in a startup phase; however, AirClub already represents around 100 private jets in Europe and a few in the United States.

My average work week can be quite surreal sometimes.

If you think about it, it is quite bizarre to have business meetings on a mega yacht in Monaco or in a palace in Dubai. However, it does enable me to selfreflect. It is interesting to see that extreme wealth comes with extreme power and responsibility. Actually, it makes me very happy with the (normal) life I have.

I enjoy going back to my hometown (Venlo) in the weekend, spending time with my family and friends, or meeting new people at my favourite bar around the corner.

“Don’t only look at tomorrow, but also take a look at the day after.”

Recently, I travelled around the world in two weeks together with a colleague also from Hotelschool The Hague. Unfortunately I can’t take a lot of vacation, so we carefully planned it and decided to go for it. It was crazy, travelling almost 40,000 kilometers around the world, following the Equator. We started in Geneva, went to Frankfurt, Singapore, Sydney, Auckland, Tahiti (dived with sharks), Los Angeles and Las Vegas (flew with a helicopter over the Grand Canyon) before we returned to Geneva again. When we came back it felt like we had travelled for three months.

My advice: don’t only look at tomorrow, but also at the day after. Use the elements from your education that fit with your plans for the future and focus on those, use them to your advantage. Additionally, feel privileged to be able to study at Hotelschool The Hague. You are the lucky ones, being able to get an education, being able to study: not everyone has that opportunity!

Consultant

Liang Tan

CEO and Founder Ozou Media Lab OML Pte Ltd.

I

always wanted to do something which combined my passion for travelling, good food, languages and management: this is what the Hotelschool provided.

Since my graduation from Hotelschool The Hague I have lived all over the world, starting with the US, Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. I consider myself very fortunate with the wide variety of work I have done and the different cultures I have got to know.

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Thinking back to my time at Hotelschool The Hague, working hard and doing a lot of teamwork was fundamental to my career success. One very exciting part was when I was a Computer Lab Assistant, teaching classes; we did some research on consumer behaviours.

Back then, in 1988, we used Apple Mac’s desk computers, using hyper cards, the first version of HTML, to do interactive questionnaires. These computers were positioned in the lobby, surrounded by many excited

participants as it was very innovative, collecting data which was later translated to Excel sheets. Overall, I would choose for Hotelschool The Hague again, as it gave me the opportunities I have now.

For current students, one piece of advice is to never give up. There will always be setbacks, but you can overcome them as long as you have a positive mentality. Also, if you graduate from Hotelschool The Hague, you have a good foundation to succeed in the Hotel Industry and elsewhere. You have to be persistent and believe in yourself. I worked in New York, the toughest place to survive, then Hong Kong and Paris, followed by Latin America and I am still here. Stay positive, even though you have sleepless nights, there will always be brighter days!

I graduated in 1990 after which began a long career.

For my managerial placement, I went to New York to work at the Radisson Empire. This was when I got the opportunity to work as Finance Controller and Vice President for a French restaurant company, with six to seven units, meaning seven different companies. This was a tough experience as I also ran the management office while generating $8 million sales with 120 employees.

After leaving following a burn-out, the crisis started in New York and in 1995 I found new opportunities in Singapore. I started to work for Micros-Fidelio, a German Software Company, where I was the Product Manager for Asia Pacific and I launched their accounting software.

Following this, I have been lucky to be able to experience many career moves: starting at the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong, working on the opening of the Mandarin Oriental Majapahit Hotel in Surabaya, Indonesia, via Hyatt International in Hong Kong as corporate internal auditor, moving to Switzerland, reporting to the Vice President in Finance, and afterwards becoming Assistant Director of Finance for the Hyatt Regency Paris-Charles de Gaulle, as well as being responsible for Hyatt Regency Madeleine. When I realised that my career was not fulfilling me, I took a sabbatical in Paris and radically changed my career again. In 2000, I started to work for Cap Gemini Consulting, running their web agency, leading my own development team including software engineers, interaction designers and graphic designers.

After some time, I received the offer to work within Cap Gemini Consulting in South America for a nonprofit organisation, the International Institute for Communication and Development. After the consulting job via Gap Gemini, the Managing Director offered me a job with IICD. I became the Capacity Development Programme Manager, being responsible for two countries, Bolivia and Ecuador. We helped to fight poverty with the use of ICT and worked on five areas: agriculture, education, healthcare, good governance and the environment. Nationwide in Bolivia, I managed a team and 15 different projects, whereas in Ecuador 57

we started with no projects, and after five years had 10 different projects running. One of the most rewarding achievements was in Bolivia, when two of the projects gained international recognition, and one of them was nominated out of 90 global nominations by the InterAmerican Development Bank in Washington D.C., in 2004. As a result I was asked to speak at international conferences for the World Bank in Lima, Peru and Regulatel (the Association of Telecommunications Regulators for South America).

After my Latin-American experience, I moved to Amsterdam and opened my own consultancy firm called Delphin Consulting. One of my notable costumers was the World Bank, for which I set up a pilot in Micro Finance.

While getting more involved with Innovation and Technology, the Venture Capital Fund asked me to set up a business for them in Singapore. This is when I founded the company Ozou Media Lab OML Pte Ltd back in 2009.

“I consider myself very fortunate with the wide variety of work I have done and the different cultures I have got to know.�

Currently, I am CEO and Founder of Ozou Media Lab OML Pte Ltd based in Singapore, a company that helps European technology companies to extend their market to Asia through Singapore. One of my main clients is NovoLanguage, a technology start-up company, launching in South East Asia at the moment, where I am functioning as regional Director of South East Asia, as well as their Operations Director.

During my tenure at Iris Software, as their VP Operations for Asia-Pacific, we managed to secure Asia Pacific deals with corporate hotel chains such as Marriott, Ritz Carlton, Accor and Sofitel.

When looking at the future, I hope to build my company into a global business. We have already grown from six employees to 20 and are now expanding to 25. With two offices and more to come, I hope that NovoLanguage can become a standard for not only the hospitality industry but also a platform for different industries. Personally, I would like to build my dream house in Bali. I have worked and lived there, and to me it is the most quiet and tranquil place to be.

#HTHFact: Liang Tan is the Co-Founder of our HTH Alumni Singapore Chapter.

Credits

1. Editor in Chief: Miriam Sperling. 2. Art Director: Vivian van der Wielen. 3. Deputy Editor: Robin van Dort. 4.

Deputy Editor: Emma Steenstra Toussaint. 5. Photography: Giampiero Maietti. 6. Text Editor: Roger Staats.

Contributors: 7. Alanah Blokdijk. 8. Sylvia van der Tuin. 9. Simone Williams. Assistants: Malte Weege & Antonia Becker (not pictured). Special thanks to: All Alumni featured in this magazine.

Contact: If you would like to be featured in one of the Alumni Newsletters, the Annual Alumni Magazine or on our HTH Blog, we would kindly ask you to send an email to alumni@hotelschool.nl. Please provide us with some background information, e.g. current position and professional career. Printing: Xerox Nederland B.V. Follow us on: 58

instagram.com/hotelschoolthehague

facebook.com/HotelschoolTH

Strong heritage, established in 1929

Excellent world-wide reputation in a wide range of industries

Business study set in context of hospitality with a focus on personal development, leadership and management

Over 50 nationalities on our campuses in Amsterdam and The Hague

Respected network of Alumni working in senior management positions

Best value of all the International Hotel Management Schools

International University, 100% in English

Two international internships

Small community and classes, warm atmosphere and personal guidance

International, industry experienced lecturers with strong academic credentials

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Contact Address: Hotelschool The Hague Campus The Hague Brusselselaan 2 2587 AH The Hague The Netherlands

Hotelschool The Hague Campus Amsterdam Jan Evertsenstraat 171 1057 BW Amsterdam The Netherlands

Email: smc@hotelschool.nl Telephone: +31 88 028 18 00 Website: www.hotelschool.nl Blog: blog.hotelschool.nl Webshop: www.hotelschoolwebshop.nl Facebook: facebook.com/HotelschoolTH Instagram: instagram.com/hotelschoolthehague

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