There is a positive response to the official announcement that there will be a Van der Valk Hotel in Alkmaar, but it also raises questions. Is there still room in Alkmaar for a new hotel – and wouldn’t it have been better to build houses in that location?
To immediately start with the housing shortage; Although Alkmaar will also be building a lot of new houses in the coming years to combat the housing shortage, the location where the Van der Valk Hotel will be located is not a suitable place for this. Alderman Pieter Dijkman tells NH Nieuws.
“The city council has decided that a hotel may be built here; housing on that spot is not possible here within the current agreements,” said the alderman.
Then the question of whether a hotel in Alkmaar is still desirable: “Definitely”, says Dijkman. “In 2020, the trade organization Koninklijke Horeca Nederland conducted research into how much space there is in Alkmaar for hotels, and this proved economically feasible.”
Welcomed guests
A Van der Valk Hotel in the city is also ‘very desirable’ for Ger Welbers of Alkmaar Marketing. “We are happy with it,” he says. “Van der Valk has a wonderful hotel concept and attracts a target group that we would like to see in the region.”
According to Welbers, this target group consists of ‘people who go out together, cycling and discover culture’. “That is a very nice match. We are getting a new pearl in Alkmaar.”
Welbers thinks it could also be a boost for the rest of the region. “It is of course very attractive. We have city, beach and countryside. Especially after corona we notice that a lot of people prefer to go on holiday closer to home. That group of visitors is growing, I am happy that the hotel offer is growing with it.”
On the map
Finally, competitor Richard Nan of Hotel Zuiderduin from Egmond aan Zee also looks positively at the new development: “Of course it may be the case that groups sometimes book a meeting room with Van der Valk instead of with us,” he begins, “but if you broaden it, I think it’s an enrichment rather than a threat.”
He continues: “Van der Valk has a certain name; I can imagine that they put Alkmaar and the region on the map with people who would otherwise not come. We all benefit from that.”