On-Air will be a new iconic building in Amsterdam
29-4-2015
Real estate developer COD, architecture, urbanism, and cultural analysis agency OMA / Rem Koolhaas, the NH Hotel Group and sustainable developer ‘Being Development’ have joined forces and came up with the ‘On-Air’ building as new icon for Amsterdam. It was the winning concept of the tender the municipality of Amsterdam and the RAI Convention Centre issued for the location in the south of the city.
About the alliance
COD developed two hotels in Amsterdam in 2015, Motel One at the Europa Boulevard (320 rooms) and Generator (168 rooms) at the Mauritskade. The recent projects of the OMA agency include the new headquarters for G-Star in Amsterdam (2014) and the towers of The Rotterdam (2013). The NH Hotel Group will implement the nhow-label at ‘On-Air’ with 650 rooms hotel. Being Development is a young and innovative company that develops the sustainable real estate from the end user’s perspective.
On-Air
The On-Air hotel is designed by OMA / Rem Koolhaas. It will include a restaurant, a TV studio, a spa / gym, shops and a sculpture garden. The sustainability ambition for the building will be ‘BREEAM outstanding’ and it will be carbon neutral. With 650 rooms nhow Amsterdam RAI will be the largest hotel of the Benelux. The start of the construction of this 91 meter high hotel is planned for midst 2016. The location is triangle bounded by the Europa Boulevard, the A10 and the Amsterdam RAI Convention Centre.
Prestigious landmark
The municipality of Amsterdam aims for a larger and more varied hotel offer and better spreading across the city. The new hotel and its facilities can be of great value to the city at this location on the south side of the city and the surrounding business district.
Corporation between KLM and SpecialBite
23-4-2015
Good news for the wine lovers. It’s possible to order the wines KLM serves in the World Businessclass. It has been a wish of KLM to make the wines they serve in the sky available for wine lovers on the ground as well. This is made possible by the new collaboration between KLM and SpecialBite.
Dutch chefs
KLM serves menus by Dutch top chefs in the World Businessclass. Sergio Herman, Richard Ekkebus, Mario Ridder and Jonnie Boer already took care of the air catering of the business class. The meals are accompanied with matching wines selected by wine connoisseurs.
Wines
In the month April the wines Brazin (USA), Aaldering-Stellenbosch (South Africa) , Gros-Tollot (South France) Villebois – Loire (France), Cono Sur (Chile) and Nicolas Feuillate (France) are served in the World Businessclass. These are the wines you can order in the webshop as well.
Smart hospitality: BarDoggy unlocks ‘the Internet of Things’ for the hospitality industry
21-4-2015
BarDoggy creates an infrastructure for smart internet in catering establishments. The company places bluetooth sensors that are linked to the Internet (also called iBeacons) in restaurants and bars.
Bardoggy started with connecting the first five catering establishments with iBeacons on 1 March 2015 linking the catering business and the app. Meanwhile, more than 20 establishments have an active link with the Bluetooth sensors. Creator Tim de Kraker focuses on making smart hospitality concepts. After a conversation with an entrepreneur of a local bar Tim de Kraker thought that it would be enormously expensive to create an app for just one pub. Why not create one app for all the pubs which will add value to the user as well?
The app is launched for Android and iOS this year , and there already are a total of more than 50.000 downloads and 20.000 profile pages of entrepreneurs. With their business plan they were able to pick up € 350.000 for the development of their platform and the support of a community to use the services. The app is aimed at young people and now has 100.000 users.
Smart hospitality
BarDoggy makes hospitality smart and automates a part of the hospitality. There is a connection between all hospitality locations using one central platform to connect to the host. Users have one personal profile and only have to register once to be able to enjoy benefits at all internationally connected SmartBars. (A SmartBar is a hospitality venue with one or more sensors).
Once a user of the platform comes within 50 meters of a sensor, he is recognized and greeted by the hospitality venue with the possibility to offer nice advantages. The possibilities and interaction are numerous. The longer the guest uses the platform the more insight in his profiles is built. Insight on the number of times and duration of the visits and the type of hospitality venues frequented. There are connections established with other social media for acquaintances from other networks can easily find each other. It’s one of the most comprehensive entertainment platforms of Europe. With the app, young people in the target group of 18 to 30 of ages weekly find fun parties, score cheap drinks and will easily see where friends are within the connected SmartBars after the next update.
On 16 April, BarDoggy won a prestigious pitch contest organized by McKenzie Pitch Partners in New York, as best concept and pitch. The jury consisted of four global business leaders including the President Americas Global Corporate Payments of American Express and the Canadian CEO of FedEx. At present, there are ongoing discussions with investors for a new capital injection of 3 to 5 million to roll out BarDoggy. Spain, Portugal and America seem to get more concrete for international expansion.
Crowdsourced campaign by Grolsch
17-4-2015
This May Grolsch exists 400 years. To celebrate it, Grolsch organizes a crowdsourced campaign. The beer brewery is going to make an anniversary video and asks everyone from 18 years and older to upload a video of the ‘popping’ of a Grolsch bottle.
Crowdsourced video
We have seen a similar crowdsourced campaign in a different branch. New Balance asks their customers to make videos while running and upload it to the website Together We Run.
Participate in the Grolsch campaign
To participate in the campaign, you’ll need a swingtop bottle to pop. According to Grolsch, it will sound better if the bottle is at room temperature.
A video of popping a swingtop isn’t enough for the lead role in the anniversary video. A unique location is needed as well. The more unique your location is, the better your chances are to win a role in the video.
Grolsch advises to keep your phone horizontal. This makes the image better viewable and prevents the Vertical Video Syndrome (VVS).
In the hospitality industry, you can use the camera’s on the smartphones for your benefits as well. Organize for example an event with hundreds of livestreams from the phones of your guests through Periscope.
Easter campaign in Brielle
16-4-2015
We can’t say it often enough: if you do a sales promotion, point it at your potential visitor. After Easter we read about the promotional action of Sven Schreuder for his Brasserie Hotel ‘De Nymph’. Inspiration for Easter next year but in the way he implemented it could work for other campaigns as well.
Fans could hunt for giant Easter eggs in Brielle
Sven hid 10 giant chocolate eggs on Easter Sunday. He did this in Brielle, the town where his brasserie and hotel is located. From 8 o’clock in the morning enthusiasts could try to find the hidden eggs. Last year, participants tried to follow Sven while he was hiding the eggs. So this year he went out extra early! As from 8 o’clock he gave hints on his Facebook page.
The finder of the giant chocolate egg could of course keep it, all finders could get a free ice cream in his ice cream parlor ‘De Koele Kever’ (The Cool Beetle). In addition as an extra incentive Sven hid in one of the eggs a free night at his hotel ‘De Nymph’. A great Easter action and an example of how you can implement a local promotion: local press was involved (the newspaper ‘AD Voorne Putten’ paid attention to the promotion before Easter) and the fact that Sven also used social media to give hints and placed pictures of the ‘finders’ on Facebook. Next to the annual celebration of the Brielle capture by the Sea Beggars on 1 April 1572, the city now has a new tradition.
A Food Boat instead of a Food Truck
14-4-2015
Pizza Pi, a pizza delivery boat, is sailing the Caribean Sea and delivers pizzas at the Christmas Cove on the Great St. James Island.
Pizza Pi – the first pizza delivery boat
The Pizza delivery boat of Pizza Pi is an initiative by Sasha and Tara Bouis. They bring the trend of food trucks, which are becoming pretty common nowadays, to a new level. They converted their house boat into a fully operational pizza bakery boat in two years. Sascha and Tara have visited the Pizza School of New York and now they make their own pizzas, including gluten-free pizzas aboard their ship.
A food boat in the Netherlands?
Although we lack the Caribean sun, we can have great summers and we have a lot of water and water enthusiasts as well! It’s a great idea for Italian restaurants to start delivering pizzas by boat! Maybe one of the restaurants located at the lakes in the West and North of The Netherlands already does this…. We’d love to hear it!
Hop Theory creates beer bags
14-4-2015
Hop Theory, beer enhancing sachets, is a new product that aims to enhance a regular beer with a sachet that works in a similar way as tea bags. The sachets are filled with a number of different ingredients like hops, fruit peels and coriander seeds, all natural flavors. The ‘beer bag’ enables you to customize your favorite beer.
Beer bags instead of tea bags
Hop Theory, has a patent pending for their beer infusion method. The sachet is a soilon woven mesh filter derived from corn starch, thus 100% biodegradable. The ingredients are sourced and manufactured within the U.S. Each ingredient is prepared in a certain manner (dried and/or ground) to improve flavor and the rate of dispersion. All ‘beer bags’ are wrapped individually to preserve their contents.
The company behind the idea of these beerbags, Hop Theory, is currently seeking funding at Kickstarter. They’re looking for 25.000 dollar and with still 25 days to go and more than half of the amount pledged, this shouldn’t be a problem.
Beam: The smart projector that fits in any light socket
7-4-2015
Beam can turn any flat surface into a big screen. It is a powerful projector equipped with a smart computer, all inside a beautifully designed casing.
Beam is already funded on Kickstarter
You can play games, watch movies or share content from your smartphone or tablet. You can also watch TV on your bedroom ceiling or project recipes on your kitchen wall. Next to that, Beam can assist you in your daily activities, like waking up in the morning with the latest news and your agenda or showing you your social updates when you come home. Beam is easy to set up and control with the Apple or Android app. You can screw it into any light socket or use the included power cable to place it on any flat surface.
With Beam the makers have created an easy to use ‘internet of things’-device that can entertain and assist you throughout the day. The patent for the technology inside Beam is pending. The fundraising went amazing, they raised more money than expected.
Inspiration
If you watch the video above you can easily imagine the use of the Beam in restaurants or hotels. Imagine your specialties of the day projected on the walls or a wall of pictures in your hotel lobby, presenting your menu, pictures of your wellness center or digital paintings. Or what do you think about presenting the kitchen crew while working on the plates of your guests? In a bar Beam could be used to project games on the tables.
Alternative for candles on the table: wine bottle with the Bottlelight
7-4-2015
The Bottlelight is a simple wine cork that has been hollowed out to place a mini USB powered light within it.
All you have to do, is to charge the lights and place it within a used wine bottle (or another alternative bottle). The white light of the LED creates a little lamp, the color is adjusted by the color of the bottle. The lamps will shine up to three hours on a full charge. Created by Suck UK.
Beer cocktail by Mongozo
2-4-2015
Mongoza introduced various beer cocktails last year’s April. Now the spring has arrived, it’s time to bring the beer cocktail back. You can make such a cocktail easily with the beers from Mongozo.
Mongozo has created five different recipes of beer cocktails. The cocktail choices are; Mongozo Banana, Mongozo June Bug, Mongozo Mango, Mongozo in the mix and Mongozo Orange Samba.
The beer cocktail is very popular in America recently and a surprising alternative, just like with a spoonful of jam
Recipes
- This is what you need to make a Mongozo Banana; 30 ml Tequila, 30ml of lime juice (1/2 lime), 20 ml of sugar syrup and top this all off with Mongozo Banana.
- To make the Mongozo June Bug you need 30ml of rum, 15ml of melon liquor, Mongozo Cocos and Mongozos Banana.
- The ingredients of the Mongozo Mango consists of 2 wedges of orange, 2 teaspoons of cane sugar, 30ml gin, 1/2 of a flesh passion fruit and top off with the Mongozo mango.
- The Mongozo in the mix is made with Mongoza Coconut and rum, Mongozo Mango and rum or Mongozo Banana and rum.
- To make the Mongozo Orange Samba you need 2 wedges of lime, 2 spoons of sugar cane, 20ml of Cachaça rum, Mongozo Banana and Mongozo Mango.
