39 - Hotelschool The Hague

39
october FebruArY october 2010 2008 home previous / next
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take me to the Hilton, now
finally in the Hague!
Remember the Hilton promotion campaign (around the end of the last century) with the ‘Take me to the
Hilton’ posters? Well, you could do that in every major destination – but in The Hague (our seat of the
government and host to the Court of Her Majesty the Queen) you just couldn’t.
Until recently that is! The Summer of 2010 brought great weather for the beach pavilions, but also, on
the 2 nd of July, the first day of five-star international hospitality at the new Hilton the Hague.
Two months later Cluster General Manager Jan van der Putten (1983) sits in the lobby and explains why
guests already feel so much ‘at home’ in the new Hilton.
“We try to create, within the crew, an atmosphere of mutual respect and friendliness, and guests notice
that immediately. Team members should feel happy and appreciated – that also helps to retain our
bubbly and extravert colleagues for a long time and reduce turn-over”.
“Having said that, team members are the most important thing, but the interior decorator and architect
also contributed in a major way in creating our atmosphere with lots of ‘couleur locale’.
Jan opened three hotels for Hilton, coincidentally one of each hotel category: a resort (in Malaysia) a
top-of-the-bill airport hotel (Copenhagen) and now a downtown hotel, ‘embedded’ in the local scene.
Of course, with all his experience, Jan also has a major piece of advice for the ‘rookies’ in hotel
Grand Cafe Pearl
management:
“Our business is really
not complicated, so
I always say ‘Keep it
Simple’. And remember:
service first, the process
next” (the last one is
really food for thought,
ed.)
“Everybody familiar
with the local industry
knows that a preopening
is always a
very hard job where
everybody is a ‘jack of
all trades’ and does
whatever work needs to
be done. And all of the
above in a hurry, because the deadline that looms in the distance comes closer every day. Even though
all hotel openings are different, you will always have a healthy amount of challenges” says Jan.
“Simple hardware things like cold water from the hot taps and vice versa (Copenhagen) or fire alarms
with a life of their own (The Hague) keep the boredom away”.
We all remember that Conrad Hilton (in less complicated times) had three priorities: location, location
and location. Of course, at Zeestraat next to Panorama Mesdag, Hilton The Hague would have obtained
his approval immediately.
For today’s other priority – great team members – Jan wanted a good combination of Hilton people and
colleagues with a local background. “That way, knowledge of the brand standards, general Hilton knowhow
plus a feeling for the local market is all assured”.
Back in time. May 16, 2006 was the date of the contract signing ceremony between Dutch investors and
Hilton. In his speech Wolfgang Neumann (at that time President Europe for Hilton) also said that “finally
the best hotel chain in the world has come to the city of the best Hotelschool in the world”.
That was of course very nice of Wolfgang, but little could he know at that moment that the management
team that later opened the hotel would
be almost completely ex-Hotelschool The
Hague.
Karin van den Berg, Hotel Manager, just
wanted to ‘get away’ and see the world
when she was in her last year at the school
(1997). First stop was Phuket in Thailand
(through alumnus Rutger Verschuren, now
GM for Starwood in Libya).
Then two years at the impressive Peninsula
in Beijing (now managed by alumnus Hans
Hordijk, 1989).
After that it was ‘living out of the
Samsonite’ for some time, installing Fidelio
for Hilton. Opportunity gave her a role in
The Mesdag Ballroom