Month: August 2020

TripAdvisor is one of the world's leading web sites for travelers. You will find all kinds of information about destinations. It also collects millions of travellers' reviews of hotels, restaurants, attractions, sights, etc. every year. Based on this feedback from real travellers, rankings are made annually. If one wants to mean something in the tourism sector one tries to get to the top of these rankings.

We are therefore pleased to inform our readers that Hostellerie Mont Kemmel **** has once again won a so-called Travellers' Choice Award for 2020. This is already happening for the 7th year in a row, it can be said every year since the hotel/restaurant has been taken over by Kristine and Philippe. Thank you, dear guests!

Such an award means that Hostellerie Mont Kemmel **** is one of the best 10% of the country. Of course, we can only be very happy with this. It rewards the numerous efforts of our team of employees for our guests day after day. By the way, did you know that about 87% of all our guests give us either a "very good" or an "excellent" when they judge their stay with us? At the time, we wanted to come home every day as students with such a report, didn't we ? 😉

Hot off the press: due to the current corona measures and the entry of the Renties Ypres Rally 2020 in the WRC World Championship, the rally will be moved to a new date: 18-22 November 2020. More info on https://www.ypresrally.com/nl/.

Since a large part of our rooms has already been discussed for the organizers of this rally, the number of rooms still available is rather limited. If you would like oneroom, please contact us as soon as possible. E-mail to info@montkemmel.be or use the contact form of our hotel. You can also book directly via our secure and economical reservation module.

In the meantime, we are again about 10 days further since our last report regarding the coronavirus in our region. The alert threshold has already been exceeded in some 211 Belgian municipalities. We are pleased that we can still report that in both the districts of Heuvelland, Ypres, Lo-Reninge, Alveringem, etc. no infections have been reported in the past week: we are coronavirus free! This is a great reassurance for our hotel and restaurant guests. In the surrounding, contiguous zones there is also very little contamination (e.g. Poperinge: only one). So it's still good in this beautiful region of the Belgenland that is the Westhoek! And we try to keep it that way, all together. Right ? 😉

Would you like to look it up for your municipality ? Then go to the website of "The Latest News" .

We hope we can report again in our next bulletin that Ypres and Heuvelland have remained corona-free! 😉.

Whew, the month of July is over. And what month was that? A wonderful month! But also a difficult one in terms of organization. The action of Tourism Flanders in June 2020 said: "We missed you.“. Well, we're glad you actually returned en masse in July 2020. Thank you very much. 😉

We would like to thank the many hundreds of guests we have welcomed. We are also very happy to note that the vast majority (say more than 95%) of our dear guests understand the difficult situation in which they and we find ourselves: the coronavirus (and sometimes also the high temperatures) indeed demands the utmost from all of us. We have a clear corona policy (read more about this at our COVID-19 page) and we're trying to make the best of it. Is not always easy, but we do our best. We are glad that a lot of guests are going to our hotel/restaurant exactly because of this policy. 😉

At least Corona has played tricks on us as well. So we started a new team for the restaurant & kitchen. Most of the reactions about the preparations of our Chef, Frédéric Lamquet, are very positive. There are always, how could it be otherwise (but fortunately it's about a very small minority), also less positive about the restaurant. It's mainly about the longer waiting times. We are working on this. A new team in the hall means that it takes some time for everyone to get used to each other. Furthermore, a number of things that are corona related also require more time. Example from the kitchen: have you been standing behind "the stew" with a mask for hours ? Another example from the room: have you ever thought about the consequences of sitting first at table A, then table B, then not being satisfied and finally going to table C? Yes, that table A and table B - in the middle of the service - have to be disinfected immediately (because they were touched by guests!), the Head Waiter table planning in extremis has to be adjusted, and so on. For us, however, it is very clear: we are not at any time going to weaken the measures in force: the health of our guests and staff comes first. And yes, we have already had to ask the police to intervene and file a complaint. We too have limits to our patience. We do everything we can to ensure safety. That's plain and clear language for everyone. Apologies for everything and more we don't accept (any longer). We too wish to be treated with respect. 😉

In any case: be convinced that all matters reported by the guests and employees are discussed internally by the management, are well followed up and where possible and necessary, the organization is adjusted. As it should be. Keep on giving us your feedback, both at the reception and directly to our other employees. During your stay we can still do something about it, afterwards it is difficult.

We're ready for August. Don't wait too long with reservations because apparently the demand is bigger than the supply at the moment. We try to answer as many questions as possible but we can't do the impossible. Full is full! And just to be clear: booking for the restaurant also means that you have to show up. Keep in mind that the number of seats in the restaurant is already limited anyway, but when people find it necessary not to come to the restaurant or try to get rid of it with a fallacy: these are things that can't be done at all! Like recently: the soup that the guest had received as a snack was "crazy" according to the guest. It was a perfectly made gourmet soup enriched with a drop of delicious olive oil. But according to the lady in question, "who had worked in the catering industry" (sic!), also reason enough to cancel the entire reservation. There was also the example of the gentleman who complained that he had not received "his sabayon". However, it had been clearly said that it was an ice-cooled sabayon, not the warm sabayon you see everywhere. That gourmet preparation did get it. But bon, another reason to complain (and even give a 1/5 on "TripAdvisor").

We know our duties, but also our rights. We ask everyone to be reasonable. And luckily enough, in most cases that is the case, practice! 😉 We do know what we are doing. If there is something wrong, come along and we'll ALWAYS see what's possible. There is a reason why we score an average of about 9/10 on the criterion "staff" in the reviews.

Therefore: a heartfelt thank-you to all our guests who came to visit us in July and showed respect and understanding for our situation. See you soon! And of course also a heartfelt thank-you to our staff for their efforts in these difficult times to give a correct service.

Philippe & Kristine