Booking.com officially opens new Campus in the heart of Amsterdam

On 28 June 2023, Booking.com celebrated the official opening of its new Campus in the centre of Amsterdam. The online travel platform's new international headquarters was officially opened by Micky Adriaansens, Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate, and Arjan Dijk, Director and Senior Vice President of Booking.com. The new Campus with a total area of 65,000 square metres at the end of Oosterdokseiland, east of Central Station, is now home to all of Booking.com's more than 6,500 employees in Amsterdam with more than 3,100 offices.

Booking.com is actively concerned with the health of its staff by offering city passes to the gym and a ping-pong table and bouldering wall in the Campus. The travel platform also encourages its staff to use the stairs in the new headquarters.

First of all, the state-of-the-art SMART building uses sensors to function as an ecosystem, e.g. by automatically controlling lighting and temperature based on occupancy and usage. In addition, the Campus is built to the BREEAM Excellent standard. Other features of the building include: 

• More sustainable materials have been used everywhere and much of the furniture has been reused from former offices of the company in Amsterdam.  
• There are 832 solar panels on the roof and all heating and cooling is calculated by advanced CHP technology where both hot and cold air is stored deep underground. This can be recovered in summer and winter, requiring no gas.
• There are more than 11,000 plants scattered throughout the building, including seven trees. There is also an underground car park with space for more than 2,500 bicycles, giving employees the option of travelling to work with the least possible impact on the climate. 

The design and layout of the new campus are continuously optimised to support the flexibility of hybrid working. This includes a focus on understanding how employees balance their time between home and office, and looking at the different work activities being carried out. The Booking.com Campus already has 28 communal break-out spaces, focus booths, and areas to meet different cognitive needs, such as for employees who are more sensitive to light or noise.

Glenn Fogel, President and CEO of Booking.com: "We are grateful that all our employees in Amsterdam are back together in one building. I look forward to seeing how this will bring us even closer together and accelerate our efforts to make travel easier and smoother for everyone.'' 

"We are delighted to have moved to this sustainable and inclusive building, which also happens to be right in the heart of Amsterdam state, the city we have been able to call home for more than 25 years," said Arjan Dijk, Director and Senior Vice President of Booking.com.

Community and impact

To contribute to making the Oosterdokseiland an even more dynamic part of the city, while creating opportunities for communities that often face difficulties in gaining equal access to the labour market, Booking.com also announced that it will partner with Refugee Company and Techgrounds to bring about the plans for the 1,500-square-metre public space on the ground floor of the building.

Through A Beautiful Mess's hospitality concept, Refugee Company fulfils its mission to help people with a refugee background develop new skills, gain experience and start building a professional network in the Netherlands. They do this through unique learning and work programmes. Later this year, A Beautiful Mess will open a new restaurant of almost 900 m2 on the ground floor of the Booking.com Campus, where the focus is on flavours and recipes from the Middle East and Africa, and where the menu is inspired by the cultural background of the chefs working in the kitchen.

The restaurant will create new employment opportunities for participants in the programmes of Refugee Company and will be fully open to the public. There will be room for 120 guests in the restaurant, additional meeting rooms for workshops, and an event space for activities for people from the community. 

"The opportunity given to us by Booking.com gives us the chance to be able to scale up our operations and increase our impact, and has a great impact on our organisation and the people we help," said Fleur Bakker, Director of Refugee Company.

Techgrounds Foundation is a social impact organisation with a specific focus on supporting women and people from culturally diverse backgrounds. Techgrounds' goal is to address the current mismatch in the tech labour market. Building on its existing relationship with Booking.com, Techgrounds will create a comprehensive programme of workshops, hackathons and mentoring opportunities in the new public area of the Campus. In this way, they aim to connect hidden talent from Amsterdam's diverse neighbourhoods with the many opportunities in the wider Dutch tech ecosystem.  

"We have enjoyed working with the Booking.com team for many years and are very excited about the new opportunities that will arise from having access to these kinds of venues at such an influential tech company," said Ruben Nieuwenhuis, Founder of Techgrounds.