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Alpha Hotel
Amsterdam
In
1967 an approach was made to Strand Hotels
Ltd (at this time Strand Hotels Ltd was
not a wholly owned subsidiary of J. Lyons)
by General Kruls on behalf of the Dutch
airline KLM regarding a possible joint
venture of a new hotel in Amsterdam. It
was designed to take the large numbers of
people expected to use the new jumbo jets
then being designed. The cost of the
project did not appear in the J. Lyons
& Co accounts as it was the
responsibility of Strand Hotels Ltd.
However, in a report in the Lyons Mail
magazine reporting the opening, the
project cost was put at £3.5 million.
Obviously as a major shareholder in the
Strand company (and with common directors)
Lyons were really driving the boat. When
it opened in 1971 it was the biggest hotel
in the Netherlands.
Strand
Hotels, who were to run the hotel,
undertook a large recruitment campaign in
ten Dutch towns and cities to engage 450
staff for the hotel. They included
positions for receptionists, cashiers,
housekeepers, sommeliers, barmen, cooks,
maids, waiters, waitresses, and others.
Recruitment was also carried out in the UK
and Portugal. Over 21 British staff were
employed at the hotel. Training was
comprehensive some departmental managers
and supervisors went to London to gain
experience at Strand's West End hotels.
Training programmes were started 18 months
before the hotel opened. Eight volumes of
work methods were prepared containing over
1,000 pages. Staff completed their
practical training during a series of
dummy runs the week before the hotel
opened when more than 1,000 people were
invited to stay as non-paying guests and
were served over 3,000 meals. The Manager
of the hotel was Wim Mentink whose
daughter, G. M. A. Mentink, was on the
personnel side with Marlies Gottmer the
Dutch personnel officer. The most
attractive recruit was Marjo van Wijk who
was employed as the sales officer, she
left the Alpha in 1977. In 1975 Max
Wellink became Managing Director, a
position he still held at the time that
Novotel took over the Alpha.
Financing
of the project was advantageous, probably
through the involvement of KLM. The site
benefited from a long lease held by the
city of Amsterdam with a moderate ground
rent. The total cost of the project was
split three ways: a ten-year fixed-rate
first mortgage with the Dutch Coal Miners'
Pension Fund; a twenty-five-year
fixed-rate loan from the National
Investment Bank; and 75 per cent of equity
capital provided by Strand Hotels, 25 per
cent by KLM. Neither mortgager had rights
of recourse against Lyons in the event of
default by its subsidiary, Strand Hotels
Ltd. In December 1976 Strand Hotels Ltd
took over the 25 per cent of the share
capital that was in the hands of KLM (the
initiative came from KLM.) and thus became
the sole owner.
The
Dutch contractor and architect both had
considerable experience of designing and
building low-cost, high-rise domestic
accommodation, using a large degree of
prefabrication. The advantages were speed
and economy. Although never mentioned
officially, the design concept was
believed to have incorporated an
alternative residential use, should such a
need ever arise. The hotel building had
two wings, fourteen and sixteen floors
respectively, off a central core. At the
appropriate stage of construction, all the
side elevations, possibly up to 200 feet
high, were hoisted up off the ground and
locked into position in a matter of hours.
When the building was completed, the clean
external lines gave an effect of
horizontal stripes. It was named the Alpha
Hotel. Each twin-bedded room had an en
suite bathroom and a striking interior
design. The restaurant claimed to be one
of Amsterdam's top eating spots but the
publicity was more than generous, since
Amsterdam, with its myriad of excellent
small restaurants, is renowned for its
cosmopolitan cuisine. The design of the
hotel's Falstaff Restaurant took the theme
of old Elizabethan London. It was
decorated in rich colours of red, brown,
purple and blue, with oak tables and
chairs and a carpet displaying the emblem
of a large Tudor rose. Despite this
expensive décor the Falstaff
restaurant was not successful. It was a
typical hotel restaurant; too big and too
expensive. In addition, restaurant
customers frequently had to suffer from
organized tourist groups with their
singing, shouting and dress disrespect
which was not in keeping with the
'Falstaff' image. The exemplar of all this
was the Australian hockey team, and their
supporters, who once terrorized the Alpha,
breaking furniture, starting fires and
attacking other guests. They were finally
arrested by the police but the presence of
firefighters and law-keepers running all
over the place, with all the adverse
publicity that generated, did nothing to
promote the Alpha Hotel, or the Falstaff
Restaurant, to the well-mannered guests
they sought. Another annoying feature of
the restaurant, particularly for Dutch or
foreign visitors, was the need to place
orders in English as many of the staff
were English-speaking Irish girls who only
spoke that language.
It
is not surprising therefore that the
Fallstaff Restaurant was not profitable
The Finance manager, Freek Ruijgt, once
made the calculation, that each diner
served contributed 40 guilders to Alpha's
overall loss and he made a facetious
suggestion to management that any person
who intended to order a meal should be
offered 10 guilders to go away - in this
way mitigating the losses of the
restaurant. By contrast the coffee shop,
with a strictly Dutch Delft theme was
profitable but in 1976 this was
transformed into a Parisian Café.
The Alpha Hotel also incorporated a pub
called the Grenadier, named after the
Dutch as well as the British grenadiers.
The
Alpha Hotel was opened to the public on 5
April 1971 by HRH Prince Bernhard of the
Netherlands. After an initial rush of
interest, however, it failed to attract
enough tourists, who seemed to prefer the
traditional city centre hotels which were
close to Amsterdam's chief attractions;
the Alpha was 6 km from the city centre.
In addition, its main foyer was so vast
that it lacked warmth. For many years the
Alpha Hotel struggled to make profits, in
fact it never made a guilder profit during
the whole time that Lyons owned it and had
it not been able to cater for passengers
from cancelled fights from Schipol
Airport, losses would have been greater.
The hotel was sold to Novotel Nederland
B.V. on 2 January 1978 for £2
million. However, because London wanted to
take control in selling the Alpha Hotel
they ignored local advice concerning tax
implications. When the transfer was
completed the Dutch Inland Revenue claimed
2 million guilders and it took some fast
footwork by the local accountant to get
London off the hook.
Will
Nijsse
Peter Bird
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