Hotelschool The Hague: the Dutch hotel school, explained

A student who wants a European hotel school outside Switzerland usually arrives at Hotelschool The Hague. It is a public Dutch institution, it teaches in English, its graduates are hired by the same groups that recruit from Lausanne, and in 2026 it is the highest ranked hotel school on the QS list that is neither Swiss nor American. This page sets out what it is, how the degree is built, who it suits, what the record says about outcomes, what the Dutch hoteliers I interviewed say about their own beginnings, and where the other Dutch options stand. Fees, deadlines and intake numbers are on the school’s site.

What the school is

Hotelschool The Hague describes itself as a hospitality business school, and according to its about page it was founded and funded in 1929 by the hospitality industry as a place for the industry to share skills and knowledge. It has two campuses, in The Hague, at Scheveningen near the sea, and in Amsterdam. Its Wikipedia entry calls it one of the oldest independent hotel schools in the world; EHL dates from 1893 and Cornell’s school from 1922, so it belongs to the second generation.

It is a public Dutch institution, which matters in two ways. The degrees are accredited by NVAO, the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders, which is the body that accredits every Dutch university and university of applied sciences. And the school sits inside the Dutch public system rather than the private Swiss one, which is the first thing most families comparing the two notice; the current fees are on its site. The school’s 2015/2016 factsheet and its Wikipedia entry both record that in its NVAO assessment the bachelor scored “excellent” on 11 of 16 quality dimensions; Wikipedia dates that assessment to 2012. The school’s site has a rankings and accreditation page with the current status.

Its about page lists an Industry Advisory Board for 2026 drawn from Marriott, Hyatt, Hilton, Wyndham, Sofitel Legend The Grand Amsterdam and others; these are advisers, not confirmed employers, but they show who the school talks to.

Programs and how they are taught

The about page lists five programs: a four year Bachelor of Arts in Hospitality Management, a Fast Track bachelor, a 13 month MBA in International Hospitality Management, a Master in Leading Hotel Transformation and a Professional Doctorate in Leisure, Tourism and Hospitality. Wikipedia describes the Fast Track as replacing the first two years with a four week summer program for students who already hold a hospitality qualification, which makes it the route for a graduate of a hotel school diploma or a Dutch vocational program who wants the bachelor. Everything is taught in English, for Dutch and international students alike.

The bachelor is built around three practical elements. The first is the Skotel. The school’s small scale education framework describes a training hotel on each campus, with 21 rooms in The Hague and 20 in Amsterdam, which paying guests book directly or through Booking.com and Expedia. First year students share a room in the Skotel’s residential units at both campuses, and the school calls living there an integral part of the education, aimed at personal development and intercultural competence. The hotel rooms are also used for practical courses in the first two years. A student’s first year is spent inside a hotel that other people are paying to stay in.

The second is the restaurants. The same framework names Le Début, a fine dining restaurant on each campus where students work in both the kitchen and the dining room; Mangerie in Amsterdam and the Foodcourt in The Hague, which are large lunch and dinner restaurants; and the bars Zinq in The Hague and Saveurs in Amsterdam. Second and third year students lead international teams of first years in them.

The third is the internships. The factsheet says the bachelor includes two international internships, one in Europe and one at an organization of the student’s choice anywhere in the world. Neither it nor Wikipedia gives the lengths, which are on the school’s site. The factsheet describes the teaching as case and project based, in small teams mixing disciplines and nationalities.

Who it is for and how to get in

The school suits a student who wants the structure of a classical hotel school, with a training hotel, compulsory practice and compulsory internships, inside a public European system rather than a private one. It is less suited to a student who wants a large general university around them; this is a specialist school of a few thousand students, and the about page’s self description as Europe’s leading hospitality university is the school’s own claim, not a ranking.

Admission requirements for Dutch and international applicants depend on the applicant’s school system and are on the school’s site. The factsheet records students from more than 50 nationalities in 2015/2016; current numbers are on the site.

Alumni and outcomes

The factsheet names the employers the school was prepared to put in print: Hilton Worldwide, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, Marriott International, Accor, NH Hotels and Hyatt among hotel groups; ING and ABN AMRO among banks; KLM and Booking.com in travel; Heineken, Unilever and Accenture outside hospitality. The spread is the point: a meaningful share of graduates go to companies that do not run hotels. The factsheet lists alumni chapters in Bangkok, Berlin, Dubai, London, Shanghai, Singapore, Washington and São Paulo, among others.

On rankings, the school’s own announcement records that it is 7th in the world in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026 for Hospitality and Leisure Management, up from 9th in 2025, with an academic reputation score of 80.4 and an employer reputation score of 85.4. The five schools above it are Swiss and the sixth is UNLV. It does not appear in CEOWORLD magazine’s 2026 list, a survey of graduates, employers and recruiters that leans toward American departments, nor in the research based ShanghaiRanking table. QS rests on reputation surveys and citations and does not measure teaching; what the 7th place tells a student is that academics and employers who were asked named this school more often than any other outside Switzerland and Las Vegas.

What the hoteliers in my books say

None of the general managers I interviewed names Hotelschool The Hague as his or her school. Two of them are Dutch, and what they say about their own starts is the honest connection. Alexander van Gastel, then general manager of Pulitzer Amsterdam, grew up in a family of teachers in Asten in the south of the Netherlands, and his first hotel job came at sixteen, serving breakfast on Saturday mornings in a twelve room hotel. He does not name his school, but he describes what he did while he was in it.

“During my studies, I worked at a golf club just over the German border. I was still a student at the time, but worked very closely together with the owner and restaurant manager. They taught me everything I needed to know about running a restaurant, from early morning shift until night.” Alexander van Gastel, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)

Torsten van Dullemen, then general manager of The Landmark Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong and now of Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park in London, grew up in Maassluis and learned the business in a local bistro and then a one star Michelin restaurant before any classroom.

“My first job was in a local bistro, where I helped in every way. If they needed me to peel potatoes, I peeled potatoes. If they needed me to clean the basement, I cleaned the basement.” Torsten van Dullemen, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)

Tom Roelens, then general manager of Four Seasons Resort Lanaʻi and now chief operating officer of Wynn Al Marjan Island, is Belgian rather than Dutch and started in kitchens at fourteen. He remembers the family reaction to the school decision.

“When I first announced at a very young age that I wanted to go to hotel school, eyebrows raised, but once my parents saw my passion for hospitality and for being of service, they allowed me to flourish.” Tom Roelens, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)

What the three have in common is that the education happened in a restaurant or a hotel alongside the schooling. Hotelschool The Hague’s design, with the Skotel in the first year, the restaurants throughout and two internships abroad, makes that overlap compulsory rather than lucky.

The other Dutch options

Three other Dutch universities of applied sciences teach hotel management in English, all under NVAO. None has Hotelschool The Hague’s ranking position, but each is a serious alternative.

NHL Stenden Hotel Management School, Leeuwarden. According to the school’s factsheet, it runs its own four star Stenden Hotel, builds 20 weeks of practice into the bachelor and ends it with a ten month paid management internship, drawing on more than 600 internship companies in more than 40 countries. It holds NVAO accreditation, Institute of Hospitality accreditation and membership of THE-ICE. Its distinctive feature is the Grand Tour, which lets students take modules at the university’s sites in Bali, Qatar, South Africa and Thailand, as its locations page describes. It also offers a dual master in International Hospitality and Service Management validated with the University of Derby. The hotel and the long final internship make it the closest in structure to The Hague.

Breda University of Applied Sciences, Hotel Management. Breda’s program manual describes a four year BA in Hotel Management dating from 2001, taught in English, with a student run training facility that includes a reception, a food court, a restaurant, a kitchen and a food lab, and double degree variants. Breda is 35th in the QS 2026 subject table, the only Dutch school on that list other than The Hague. The manual does not quantify placements.

Saxion Hospitality Business School, Apeldoorn. Saxion’s Bachelor Hotel Management is a four year, 240 credit BA in Hospitality Management with Dutch and English variants, according to the NVAO assessment report that produced a positive panel advice in April 2025. The program includes a management internship minor. Saxion is 36th on CEOWORLD’s 2026 list, the only Dutch school on it.

How to decide

Visit both of The Hague’s campuses if you can, because Scheveningen and Amsterdam are different places to spend four years. Ask the school what share of graduates go into hotel operations as against the banks and consultancies on its employer list. Ask how long the internships are and where last year’s students did them. And ask to see the Skotel rooms you would be living in.

Then read Chapter 2 of The Luxury of Attention, on the apprenticeship. Van Gastel’s golf club and van Dullemen’s bistro are the apprenticeships described there, and the chapter’s argument is that every leader in the book passed through years of that kind, with or without a degree. A hotel school can arrange the first of those years; finding the owner and restaurant manager who taught van Gastel everything is the student’s own work. The Luxury of Attention (2026), Chapter 2

Sources

Questions people also ask

What is Hotelschool The Hague?

A Dutch hospitality business school founded and funded by the hotel industry in 1929, with campuses in The Hague and Amsterdam. It teaches a four year bachelor in hospitality management in English, a Fast Track bachelor for students with prior hospitality qualifications, a 13 month MBA in International Hospitality Management, a master in Leading Hotel Transformation and a professional doctorate. It is a public institution accredited by NVAO, the accreditation body for the Netherlands and Flanders.

Where does Hotelschool The Hague rank?

7th in the world in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026 for Hospitality and Leisure Management, up from 9th in 2025, with an academic reputation score of 80.4 and an employer reputation score of 85.4. It is the highest ranked school on that list outside Switzerland and the United States. It does not appear in CEOWORLD’s 2026 list or in the ShanghaiRanking research table.

What is the Skotel?

The school’s own training hotel, with 21 rooms in The Hague and 20 in Amsterdam, which paying guests can book directly or through Booking.com and Expedia. First year students share a room in the Skotel’s residential units at both campuses, and the school describes living there as an integral part of the curriculum. Students also run Le Début, a fine dining restaurant on each campus, and larger restaurants and bars.

Does Hotelschool The Hague require internships?

Yes. The bachelor includes two international internships, one in Europe and one at an organization of the student’s choice anywhere in the world, according to the school’s factsheet. The school’s site carries the current structure and lengths. Hotel groups it has named as employers include Hilton, Marriott, Accor, Hyatt and NH Hotels, alongside KLM, Booking.com, Heineken, Unilever and Accenture.

What are the alternatives to Hotelschool The Hague in the Netherlands?

Three other public universities of applied sciences teach hotel management in English: NHL Stenden in Leeuwarden, which has its own four star Stenden Hotel and a ten month paid management internship in the final year; Breda University of Applied Sciences, whose Hotel Management program dates from 2001 and ranks 35th on QS 2026; and Saxion in Apeldoorn, which received a positive NVAO panel advice in 2025 and ranks 36th on CEOWORLD’s 2026 list.