Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Golden Tulip Hotels - End is Nigh?


I see that Golden Tulip Hotel chain, which has 780 hotels outside the Netherlands, is in severe financial trouble and has asked for bankruptcy protection. I remember in the 80's when KLM was running it - and expanded the chain of Dutch hotels worldwide. I stayed in one in Colombo, Sri Lanka and was impressed.

But then I stayed at one in Accra, Ghana and swore never to bother again. I think the staff had started to believe their own publicity brochures and were totally trapped in their daily routine. The prices were way over the top - and I noticed the KLM crew from the plane were staying in another hotel (novatel) downtown. I will never forget the business centre which had a terribly slow web connection and charged people 15 dollars an hour for the use of a tiny meeting room. That made it the most expensive real estate in the whole of Accra. We went outside to a coffee bar further into town for our meeting.

So may be, just maybe, this is a case of the clients voting with their credit cards.

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