City Hospitality
Hospitality is the art to give people the feeling that they are welcome. In this context, City Hospitality has become of increasing importance to our economic and social environment.
The principle is that a happy visitor stays longer, spends more and returns more. A hospitable city is not important just for tourists or day visitors; a high degree of hospitality will also have a positive influence on the quality of life for residents and the business climate for companies and employees.
A strong hospitality experience leads to a strong emotional connection. In this theory, enthusiastic visitors will become super promoters. City residents become top ambassadors and companies will become valuable assets.
Components of City Hospitality are:
- The welcoming product of the city
- The welcoming atmosphere in the city
- The welcoming behaviour of people in the city
- How these factors are experienced by residents, companies and visitors.
Read more about City Hospitality
Read the brochure here:
About us
As the Hospitality Research Center of Hotelschool The Hague it is our mission to create value for cities and cities’ stakeholders through implementation of hospitality philosophy and concepts, which help cities to make the difference for their inhabitants, businesses and visitors. We want to be internationally recognised and acknowledged as Centre of Expertise in the field of City Hospitality Excellence.
The passion of the hotel school is to contribute to the increase of city hospitality experience throughout the world. The Chair’s ambition is to be internationally recognised as knowledge centre of city hospitality excellence: through applied academic and demand oriented research, sharing knowledge, guiding implementation of hospitality concepts and programmes, consultancy and training. We want to generate spin off for the hotel and hospitality management Bachelor and Master education and to be a partner in related (academic) peer discussions on city hospitality.
How Hospitable is your City?
Read the booklet:
Our Activities
Our lines of activities in the field of hospitality research and knowledge exchange can be categorised as follows:
- Delivering City hospitality research and policy toolkit, that is leading for market and applied academics
- Contributing to the implementation of city hospitality – the managerial approach of city hospitality performance: Strategy, concepts, tools, workshops, e-learning
- Being actively involved in internal and external education regarding city hospitality and be connected to other HTH research activities enduringly: Lycar projects, Wild card projects, Guest lectures and workshops Exploring & Structuring
Projects
Ambassade van Den Haag
- The Ambassade van Den Haag selects and trains volunteers to serve as a city host during the World Championship Hockey 2014. The city hosts will give a hospitable welcome for the guests arriving in the Hague.
Denk Tank – Stichting Marketing Scheveningen
- The Chair has set up a team of students who will come up with creative solutions to improve the hospitality of Scheveningen.
The results can be read here (in Dutch): Denk Tank project
City Hospitality Toolkit
- The City Hospitality Chair is developing a universally applicable toolkit, for municipalities that are focussing on improving the hospitality of the city. Read all about it here. (Dutch)
Research
Read more about our different research projects:
- How Hospitable is Holland? ‘Holland’s hospitality from a foreign visitor’s point of view’. Written by Hotelschool The Hague student Josje van der Wielen. Co-authors: Karoline Wiegerink and Evelien Jonker. NBTC Marketing has done a large research into the Netherlands as a popular tourist destination. The research was performed in 13 different countries.
- Wow Workshop is a workshop explaining how to integrate factors of "wow" in order to increase the attractiveness of the city.
- Pilot project at the Hotelschool the Hague. Report about the customer journey at the Parent's Day. Written by Karoline Wiegerink, Drs. Jan Huizing and Rafaela Rotermund, which is part of an EU-project.
- EU-project is a case study of applied research projects on mobile ethnography for tourism destinations.
- "Hospitality in The Hague," a report written by students of the Hotelschool the Hague, describing the journey of three types of visitors.
- "Making the difference in city hospitality" a report on May-symposium, written by a Hotelschool the Hague Master student.
Download the different papers below:
Faculty
Karoline Wiegerink (The Netherlands)
Karoline Wiegerink PhD MSc holds the Municipality of The Hague Chair in City Hospitality and City Marketing at Hotelschool The Hague. During her professional career she has always combined academic and practical work. As an economist and marketer she gained special experience in the field of live communication and event marketing. During several years in the late nineties she was a director at Erasmus Centre of Event Marketing (ECBM) and a lecturer at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. There she received her Ph.D. degree in Business Economics with a thesis about professional trade show visitors.
Between 2007 and 2009 she worked as a part-time assistant professor at Nyenrode Business University, where she was responsible for the research programme of the Chair Event Marketing & Communication. Until very recently she combined her work at the hotel school with an associate partnership at Holland Consulting Group (HCG) in Amsterdam, where she was a consultant in the field of marketing management, business planning & implementation, and various marketing accountability topics for companies in fields including the professional service industry, the communication industry and the hospitality sector.
After having left HCG she has carried out consultancy and training activities at a freelance basis for the hotel school Training & Consultancy, among others she was responsible for the design and accreditation of the New Master in Hospitality Management Programme of the hotel school, to be started in February 2014.
Jan Huizing (The Netherlands)
Jan Huizing MSc is a Senior Lecturer in Strategy Management & Marketing and a Research Fellow at Hotelschool The Hague. He received his Masters degree in Business Administration from Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (NL). He has taken an active role in the development and implementation of the new curriculum; and in Hotelschool’s strategy development process. With a team of students he initiated Hotelschool’s first SlowFood conference ever. Before joining Hotelschool The Hague Mr. Huizing held senior marketing and management positions in leading service and knowledge companies.
He was a Project manager at Foundation JCI Water Toolkit and a Manager Expertise Centre at ADP Nederland BV. As a marketing coordinator at ANWB (a leading provider of services in the areas of recreation, tourism and mobility) he helped the company to move towards a stronger commercial and customer-centred business orientation. His motivation is to create a dialogue and valuable interaction with customers and other stakeholders. Mr Huizing is honorary member of Junior Chamber International, a leading global network of young professionals and active citizens.
His research interest includes strategic management, change processes, marketing, service design, city hospitality and customer journey experience.
Partners
Municipality of The Hague
The Hague is the third largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 500,000 (2011). It is a city of international importance with many faces, home to many different cultures. Once little more than a country house near a pond, The Hague has developed into a city of international character and importance, a neverending story: a little bit of history is added every day.
en.denhaag.nl
Den Haag Marketing is the umbrella marketing and promotion organisation for The Hague and its two beach resorts Scheveningen and Kijkduin. They play an important role in the (national and international) promotion of The Hague as a destination for business visitors and tourists.
www.denhaagmarketing.com
House of Hospitality is a collaborative community of The Hague stakeholders who co-create top city hospitality. The ambition is twofold:
- Each visitor to The Hague experiences top hospitality
- Every encounter in The Hague is a hospitable encounter
The community is on the base of ‘invite only’ and connects passionate ‘hospitality makers’, people for whom hospitality is crucial in their day to day activities and who want to make a difference with hospitality. Students also have access to the House of Hospitality, not only to learn and gain experience, but also to bring new ideas and collaborate.
