Anne Gerard van Leeuwen, the Consul General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands with Henny Groenendijk, Media Relations Canada, Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions
AF/KL's Commercial Director
Femke Kroese
Anne Gerard van Leeuwen, the Consul General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands with Rosina Shiliwala, Director, North America, Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions
Loren Christie & Rosina Shiliwala
The crowd at the Consul General's house.
Open Jaw was recently invited to a reception at the beautiful Rosedale home of the Consul General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to commemorate the anniversary of WWII’s Operation Market Garden and the opening of the Liberation Route. Holland continues to find new ways to express their gratitude and celebrate their liberation which came at the great cost of allied forces, especially Canadians.
Joining Consul General Anne Gerard van Leeuwen were the well-known and loved Henny Groenendijk, media relations Canada, Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions; Femke Kroese, Air France / KLM's Commercial Director for Canada; Rosina Shiliwala, Director, North America, Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions and special guest Loren Christie, CTV Canada AM’s travel expert.
It was a real pleasure to be invited into someone’s home in this way, and over delicious appetizers and plentiful wine, we were reminded of Operation Market Garden. The heroic, yet unsuccessful, attempt by the allied forces to repel the German Army was largely fought from the air. At the time, it was the largest airborne operation ever ultimately failing to secure one last and strategic bridge on the Rhine… the bridge too far.
Following his recent trip to Holland, Loren Christie told us about having the opportunity to explore Europe’s new Liberation Route – a tourism initiative for which there’s an interactive App available for iPhone and Android. The app gives you direct access to the storylines, places of interest, historical events and biographies, photographs, audio stories and videos relating to Holland’s liberation.
The conversation wasn’t limited to talk about the historic battle, nor the new tourism route – but luckily for Air France / KLM’s Commercial Director, Femke Kroese, there weren’t too many people interested in talking about the AF strike. Don’t worry, there was one: I couldn’t resist grumbling a little about the difficulties and expense I’d had rebooking my clients 2 days earlier – to which Femke was gracious and empathetic.
Since I couldn’t imagine myself having 60 random strangers over on a Wednesday night, I asked the laid-back and friendly van Leeuwen how he felt about hosting all the time. In typical Dutch style, he was very matter of fact about it: “Oh, we wouldn’t do it if we didn’t LOVE to do it!” at which I looked skeptical – but he seemed genuine, so I probed further: had anyone ever done anything really terrible? Had they found people wandering around upstairs, uninvited? Dumplings in the potted plants? Wine spilled on the best cushions? Gum in the dog’s fur?
But no, apparently everyone – not just those of us in the travel industry – is on their best behaviour when they’re invited to the Consul General’s home!
