Pulse May 2016 | Page 18

MEMBER PROFILE SANADOME HOTEL & SPA NIJMEGEN Standing Out in a Crowded Market BY ANDREW DEWSON I t’s a perpetual business dilemma— how to stand out against the competition. A difficult and important enough dilemma if your business location is far from the madding crowd. But what if your business location is in one of the most densely populated nations on earth? For Sanadome Hotel & Spa, based in Nijmegen in the Netherlands, which has an estimated 16.9 million population as of November 2015, 16 PULSE ■ May 2016 the answer is in providing outstanding service and adapting to the needs of modern spa guests. Visitors flock to the Netherlands for many reasons. It is a nation with a unique artistic and architectural heritage, the home country of Van Gogh, Vermeer and Van Dyke, while its distinct cultural identity includes the famous tulip fields and windmills. It has also been a global center of commerce and discovery since the middle ages—when its spa culture first began to take root. Spa Tradition Nijmegen’s spa tradition may in fact be much older. It is the oldest city in the Netherlands, founded by Roman soldiers approximately 2,000 years ago as a strategic military outpost to combat Germanic tribes. The Romans loved their baths and massages.