Page 64 - The Dutch Caribbean Isles

he chain was founded by Martein and facility was rennovated and all of the rooms
T Rie van der Valk in 1939 when they
opened their first hotel/restaurant. After
World War II the Van der Valks and their 11
children expanded the chain with a number
of hotels and restaurants. The expansion
was continued by their grandchildren and
great-grandchildren. In 1982 Toos van der
Valk, the wife of company head Gerrit van
der Valk was kidnapped by Italian crimi-
nals and held captive for 21 days. After a
ransom of 13 million guilders was paid she
was released.TheaterHotel De Oranjerie in
Roermond, the Netherlands
I n 1994 Gerrit van der Valk was arrested
for tax evasion after it was found out that Buddy Dive, recoginoized consistently as a Top
some workers were paid in cash but he
was not much later released. The case was
eventually settled for 213 million guilders.
Gerrit van der Valk died in 2009. Since 2000
the chain is a franchise enterprise, but with
the stipulation that every franchise holder
must be a descendant of Martien van der
Valk. Under the supervision of Frank Dubble-
man, former manager of The Plaza Bonaire, the
He gave us a detailed tour of the facility and a
were stripped down to the block walls and
completely re-done. This is a massive resort, and
the opulance is immediately recongizable when
you drive up to the grand entry. This resort was
deisgned and intended to be a higher level expe-
rience and luxury.
U nfortunately, the resort rain into disrepair
and got to the point the Van Der Valk family
would not longer fly their flag at the resort. There model. We were not able to pull together the
is gossip on the island that the resort fell into
disrepair while being managed by Martein Van
Der Valk (the nefew of patriarch Van Der Valk) and
that resulted in a great amount of friction in the
Van Der Valk family. I would take the gossip with
a gran of sale. Martein Van Der Valk subsequently
purchased a property on the island that is now
5 rated dive reosrt in the world and in many
surveys rated Number 1. While spending months
revewing the shuttered Azul Bonaire and prepar-
ing a 900 page analysis that was presented to
Hilton Grand Vacations and AIB Bank on Aruba, I
was fortunate enough to meet with Frank Dub-
bleman, the then manager of The Plaza Bonair.
walk through of the rennovations being done to
the resort.
A s part of our discussions my law office
wrote a report on The Plaza Bonaire Beach
Resort for potential invesotrs that discussed the
required rennovations to the resort, that a new
fleet of rental trucks had to be purchased and
the resort should be moved to a “flat-rate” pricing
investment gorup to try and purchase the resort
but the Plaza Bonaire did implement many of the
subjects we discussed; including re-opening the
small casino, buying a new fleet of rental trucks
and moving to a flat rate pricing. The Plaza
Bonaire has many advantages over the other
resorts. First there is a full beach and harbour.
The have a dock that leads to their house reef
that is not crowded. I always dive the Plaza
Bonaire’s house reef when I go back to Bonaire.
They have multiple restaurants and you can do a
dive, shower off and have lunch by the pool. The
beach is fantastic.