We are very proud to announce that we won 3 Traveler’s Choice Hotel Awards 2012 on Tripadvisor. We were rated nr. 5 Best Bargain, nr. 24 Trendiest and nr. 25 Best Service in Central America! 

We owe this to our guests who have given us great reviews on the independent online travel community Tripadvisor. The Traveler’s Choice Hotel Awards give an overview of the top 25 best rated hotels in the region in several categories, as rated by millions of travelers that shared their experience on the Tripadvisor web pages. We are very grateful to each one of you! Needless to say we will continue providing our guests with our high standard quality and service throughout 2012 – and beyond.

Check out the Traveler’s Choice Award pages on Tripadvisor here.

Joost (43) and Geertje (42) will take over the management tasks from Hans and Monique van Hal in April 2012. Before they do, let’s get to know them a little better and talk a about their plans with the hotel and the educational program.

Congratulations on your appointment! Can you tell us about yourselves?
“We currently live in the Dutch city of Nijmegen and will travel to Granada in March. After two months of studying Spanish and getting used to the hotel we will take over the management of the hotel and the educational program from Hans and Monique van Hal.”

What will you bring to the hotel?
“Joost has a lot of working experience as interim manager in the energy industry; Geertje is a freelance developer of educational material for television. So we both have our specialization: Joost will use his experience as a financial manager in the hotel management and Geertje can leverage her educational skills in the educational program. We are really looking forward to our new jobs.”

Ideally, what would you want to achieve?
“We expect to stay in Granada for 1,5 to 2 years. Our goal is to make ourselves redundant before the end of this period, both in the hotel and in the educational projects. By teaching the staff to operate more independently of management, we aim to increase the ‘couleur locale’ of the hotel. Now, strategical decisions such as the customer focus and the optimal furnishing of the restaurant are often in the hands of management.

It concerns a postion for 24 hours a week for the Hotel con Corazón education program in Las Lagunas.

More info: check out the job description.

We have been working hard this year on improving the educational program and hotel operations in Nicaragua. Here’s a short overview of our activities so far.

Homework coaching
Together with NGO Pro Mosaico we have added homework coaching and English classes to the program for our 4th and 5th grade students. Extending our focus to the students in upper grades is part of the Corazon strategy to accompany children until the end of their educational career. In co-operation with Hotel con Corazon and a local contractor, a few of our members have donated toilet and washing facilities to both schools so children can enjoy streaming water and proper facilities now.

A la carte
The restaurant has been renewed to an a la carte restaurant with typical Nica cuisine and an international twist that has proven to be successful so far. Travel agency Tree House Travels has been fully integrated into the hotel and the two local guides offer tours to experience the ‘real’ Nica way of living, i.e. join a forester during the Mombacho tour, join a local fisherman or join a workshop Nicaraguan cooking.

3rd Star
Hotel con Corazon continues to be well received by guests and travel organizations and we are very proud we received the 3rd star of INTUR, Instituto Nicaraguense de Turismo this year.

Last Saturday October 15th our normally tranquil hotel was converted into a true party location, with 600 balloons in red and white, selfmade decorations and party lighting. From 8.30 pm in the evening until 2 am in the morning we held a big celebration party for our third anniversary. Our restaurant was converted into a dance hall and MC Mooz played the best sounds in town that night. All our hotel guests joined the party (we even had a 78 year old Costa Rican señora dancing) and they were pleasantly surprised by the great atmosphere. We had around 250 other guests visiting; a mix of Nicaraguans and expats, volunteers and tourists. Ages ranged between 18 and 78.

Hotel con Corazón’s tour guide Franklin brought two friends along and they threw an amazing fire show in front of the hotel. When the music stopped at 2 am the dance floor was still packed with people.

On October 14th Hotel con Corazón was honoured with a visit of the children of our education projects to celebrate the third anniversary of the hotel.
A bus picked the children up at their school and brought them to the hotel. After a brief welcome we started with several games and creative activities: football, running, skill games, handcrafts (every child made his own mask), swimming and lastly dancing games.

No party is complete without a piñata, so we joined all groups and danced to the piñata, a huge multi-colored star. After a lot of fun we ended the party with hamburgers, French fries and lemonade.

Besides extra help from the volunteers of Futbol sin Fronteras and our tutor staff, all hotel employees where present to help out when and where needed.

In 2010, we extended our tutoring pilot scheme initiated in 2009. Hotel performance exceeded expectations with an overall occupancy rate of 60%. This was also the year of personnel changes in Nicaragua with Hans and Monique taking over the management of the hotel.

The Corazón education pilot scheme continued in two schools in Las Lagunas and we started providing homework support to the older pupils plus English classes to the more advanced. Overall, we ended the year with supporting 98 children through our program! On TripAdvisor we managed to maintain our top position as most popular hotel in the country. More importantly, our staff continuously received outstanding reviews for their hospitality.

Download the Hotel con Corazon Annual Report 2010

During this first Empowerment International Challenge, the participants cycled more than 600km around Lake Cocibolca (also known as Lake Nicaragua) raising more than 9,000 USD. In addition, all the bikes were donated afterwards to the new local cycle team, which has been set up amongst the young people in neighbourhoods where Empowerment International works. The kids are already training for next year’s challenge

Hotel con Corazón was one of the sponsors and contributed with a BBQ for the participants and organization in our hotel. One of our staff, Nelo Alquilar, performed with his band ‘Ola Eterna’ and contributed to a good party!

Read more about next year’s Empowerment Challenge.