Five or six minutes. That’s how long it took for all seventeen rooms of city hotel Boerland to be sold out before April 26. “On the one hand I expected it, but that all seventeen rooms were gone so quickly is very fast, that’s right,” says a surprised Aycan Yeter, the manager of the hotel. “I think it’s very nice that the King and Queen want to visit our beautiful city, so we like to see them on our terrace for a cup of coffee.”
Five or six minutes is fast, but Henk-Jan Klinkhamer’s hotel was sold out before. A day before the announcement, the NOS booked every available room at Fletcher Hotel ByZoo. “We had a strong suspicion that something about King’s Day would take place here. We were pleasantly surprised, but well, we never expected this in Emmen.”
A tour of websites and booking pages shows that not all hotels in Emmen are fully booked at the moment.
The two hotel entrepreneurs see an opportunity for Emmen in King’s Day. “Not only for King’s Day, but also for afterwards,” Klinkhamer confirms. “Because we are going to present Emmen very nicely, which hopefully will make the Dutchman decide to visit this city in the future.” Aycan Yeter helps her colleague. “Emmen is not really known as a beautiful city in the Netherlands. So we are very happy that we get the chance to show how beautiful our Emmen is.”
City center manager Laurens Meijer can already see how Emmen will turn out. “For me it would start on the Raadhuisplein, where you can probably think of something with the water that is there. Then walking towards the old center where activities can be organized. And then slowly walking towards all the greenery in our center with the narrower streets and the activities that can be there.”
“We see it as an opportunity. Those TV moments are rather scarce, that you are in the picture for so long. The fact that you can show it in this way is certainly an opportunity as Emmen is.”