About us

Welcome to the “About Us” page of Giving Back to the Community. Here, you will discover how we aim to create meaningful connections between hotels and local communities. We hope you feel inspired to engage with our ideas, share your feedback, and explore how hospitality spaces can become more inclusive and meaningful for residents.

Our story

We are fourth-year students at Hotelschool The Hague, currently completing our graduation research in collaboration with Buurthotel. Our work explores how hospitality can move beyond serving guests to actively contributing to the social and cultural life of local neighbourhoods.

Our shared focus is on how hotels can become meaningful community anchors — spaces that foster connection, inclusion, and everyday encounters between residents and hospitality providers.

Our projects

Alyssa Penso explores how Buurthotel and its partner hotels can better represent and engage Amsterdam’s culturally diverse neighbourhoods by developing accessible cultural programming and neighbourhood-focused digital tools. Her project centres on a digital prototype for the Buurthotel platform that showcases community-driven cultural events hosted in the neighbourhood, helping residents discover, participate in, and feel welcome at locally rooted hospitality experiences.

Anne-Fleur Troost explores how hotels can become active neighbourhood connectors through a co-created Community Event Framework developed for Buurthotel partners. Her research focuses on designing and testing low-threshold community events that bring residents, hotel staff, and local caterers and creatives together in shared hospitality spaces. By turning hotel venues into welcoming neighbourhood meeting places, the framework shows how community-driven events can strengthen social connection, belonging, and mutual trust between hotels and local residents.

Our approach

This blog serves as a shared research platform where we connect academic insights, hospitality practice, and community perspectives. Our aim is to contribute practical, research-based ideas that support Buurthotel and the wider hospitality sector in building stronger, more inclusive relationships with the neighbourhoods in which they operate.

“Giving Back to the Community” stands apart from other community-based hospitality blogs because it goes beyond inspiration or storytelling. It is grounded in real research, real neighbourhoods, and real-world interventions.

“Giving Back to the Community: built on real research, real neighbourhoods, and real-world interventions.”

The team of 'Giving back to the community'