#Snibbitzoektinspiratie “Christmas Town Valkenburg”
Valkenburg as a visitor magnet during the extended Christmas season
Every year from November to early January, Valkenburg aan de Geul transforms into Christmas Town Valkenburg. What began as a small-scale winter initiative has grown into a major Christmas destination with a recognizable profile. Its strength lies not only in programming and logistics, but especially in the way existing areas—particularly the underground marl caves—are decorated and used as a backdrop for the Christmas experience.
This raises two questions. How does a relatively small town succeed in combining experience with manageable routing and crowd flows? And how is a sober, rugged environment transformed into an atmospheric Christmas landscape that attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors annually? …read more
#Snibbitzoektinspiratie “Gems”
Why my mind never stands still
I regularly visit places that immediately get my mind racing. Sometimes I plan such a visit very deliberately; other times it happens spontaneously. Especially on vacation, my husband and children know the drill by now: “Mom needs to check something out.” And there I am again, in the middle of a path, behind a corner, or on my knees for a detail that immediately triggers me…read more
#Snibbitzoektinspiratie visit SETT 2025
The Journey to Montpellier: A strategic look at experience, positioning, and design
A creative mind never stands still. But truly new insight sometimes only emerges when you deliberately take a step back. That’s exactly what I did last November, along with a group of about thirty entrepreneurs, during an inspiration trip to Montpellier. An initiative by HISWA-RECRON and Richard Otten to investigate: How do French holiday parks create their own identity? What makes them stand out? And how does experience translate into higher ratings and occupancy? So, it wasn’t a vacation, even though it sometimes felt like one. It was primarily research: seeing how choices, behavior, and visual language come together in the total guest experience… read more