A floating not-for-profit hotel is continuing its journey and comes to London in Newham's Royal Docks...

The Good Hotel was once a floating jail, built to house illegal immigrants. It has now become something else entirely with social enterprise at its heart as well as a not-for-profit company. The 148-room hotel, built on a large floating platform, opened in Amsterdam in June 2015 as a pop-up social enterprise project and amongst its aims - is to give opportunities to local people who have struggled to find employment and are receiving welfare support. 

Facilities of The Good Hotel (which will stay for five years), include the Living Room, serving food and drink (using local produce from fair-trade suppliers), with free WiFi and working space, a rooftop garden (inspired by New York's High Line) with a cafe and terrace, meeting rooms, spa, and a gym with classes. Like in Amsterdam, the hotel will use local produce and work with businesses in the neighbourhood.

The Good Hotel, launched by founder and chief executive Marten Dresen in 2012, has an ethos of re-investing its profits into the business, its staff and into local causes through training the long-term unemployed with the aim of employing them, and by partnering with local NGOs. The company, which offers “premium hospitality with a cause” is also planning to launch a 30-bedroom hotel in the UNESCO world heritage site of Antigua in Guatemala this October, as well as launching a hotel in a converted industrial warehouse in Amsterdam next year. There are also plans for a further eight hotels worldwide, either involving converted buildings or floating ventures.

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Hospitality with a cause