Home   >   Front Page   >   Featured Articles   >   Hotel con Corazón Expands

Hotel con Corazón Expands

Hotel con Corazón expands with three new branches

~ Dutch concept ‘hotel with a heart’ spreads its wings to Cambodia, Nicaragua and Suriname ~

Amsterdam, February 12, 2014 – Three entrepreneurial couples are launching today, on Valentine’s Day, their crowdfunding campaigns. They have the ambition to open ‘hotels with a heart’ in Cambodia, Nicaragua and Suriname, under the banner of the organization Hotel con Corazón.

Hotel con Corazón has existed for over five years now. In 2008 Marcel Zuidhof and Onno Oostveen built a hotel in Nicaragua, from which the entire profit is invested in education. Earlier this year the organization already announced the international expansion of the ‘hotel with a heart’ concept, and in January 2014 Erica Donkers and Saskia Fiselier launched their fundraising campaign for a Hotel con Corazón in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Hotel con Corazón has the ambition to open ten new hotels in ten years.

Cambodia

Eva de Hartog (34) and Gijs Heuvingh (35) from Amsterdam strongly believe that Hotel con Corazón is a valuable addition for tourists in Cambodia and for the local population. They have a lot of experience in Cambodia and already support the underprivileged Cambodian youth through the Foundation Chance2Study.

Nicaragua (Léon)

John Zwiers (41) and Rens Kalsbeek (42) from Groningen ran a B&B and lunch cafe in an old mill in Groningen. They have lived in León for the past six months and found that there is much work to be done in the field of education. Together with Lucy Drost (32, also living in Léon), they want to open a second Hotel con Corazón in Nicaragua.

Suriname (Paramaribo)

Jessica Augustin (40) and Stanley Wassenaar (42) from Amsterdam have been thinking for some time about sustainable business abroad. Stanley grew up partly in Suriname and had a café in Amsterdam for several years. With a Hotel con Corazón in Paramaribo they want to ensure that more children get good education and therefore better prospects.

Fundraising

To get the projects started the entrepreneurs need an investment. Therefore they are launching a fundraising campaign. Every entrepreneurial couple aims to acquire 20 percent of the initial capital of around 1 million euros through the sale of social shares and donations. People can contribute in different ways: offering a loan, giving a donation, or becoming a social shareholder of the new hotel.

To celebrate the launch of the crowdfunding campaigns, the Pinterest-page Share Your Heart has been set up; as many pictures of hearts from all over the world will be collected here.

More information can be found at:

http://www.hotelconcorazon.com/foundation/expansion/

On Friday February 14 detailed information about the new locations was published at the above site.

Geertje     [email protected]