Ron Kaufman is one of the world’s leading motivational keynote speakers on the topics of achieving service excellence, increasing customer satisfaction, retaining loyal customers, and building sustainable service cultures. Rated one of the “Top 25 Who’s Hot” speakers by Speaker magazine, Ron presents powerful insights and global best practices from working with clients in every industry and on every continent for more than thirty years. His energetic keynote speeches have inspired millions, frequently earning standing ovations from audiences of all ages. In 2018, GlobalGurus rated Ron the #1 customer service guru in the world. Ron travels worldwide to speak at company meetings, industry conferences, and association events throughout the year.

Ron is author of the New York Times and USA Today bestseller, “Uplifting Service! The Proven Path to Delighting Your Customers, Colleagues and Everyone Else You Meet” and 14 other books on service, business and inspiration. He is the founder of Uplifting Service, a global education and consulting company that enables leaders and organizations to build sustainable cultures that win the hearts and minds of customers, colleagues, and partners.

Amsterdam, the capital city of Holland, is world-famous for its intricate canal system (boasting with more canals than Venice and more bridges than Paris), narrow houses with gabled facades, and enormous number of bicycles (close to one million). It has 750,000 inhabitants, many of them multilingual and over 7,000 historical monuments. From its very beginning, Amsterdam was a major commercial hub, highly cosmopolitan and tolerant to people from different cultures. Nowadays, it remains one of the main commercial and financial centers in Europe, hosting the headquarters of various multinational companies such as Philips, ING, Netflix, TomTom and Akzo Nobel. The city is also renowned for its artistic heritage, its Museum District housing the Van Gogh Museum, the Rijksmuseum (containing a large number of artworks by Rembrandt and Vermeer), and the Stedelijk Museum, with its impressive collection of modern and contemporary art. Amsterdam was ranked the 2nd best city to live in by the Economist Intelligence Unit, the 12th best city in terms of environment and infrastructure by Mercier, and the 3rd in innovation in 2thinknow’s Innovations Cities Index. Some of the city’s most famous past residents include Anne Frank, the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, and the painters Vincent van Gogh and Rembrandt van Rijn.

Amsterdam as a Conference Destination

Amsterdam is an important conference destination, hosting annually a large number of international conventions, events and (trade) fairs. Some of its most famous events focused on technological innovations include the Women in Tech Regatta, the Blockchain Expo Europe, and the Artificial Intelligence Conference and Exhibition. Moreover, since Amsterdam is a major academic and research city, several academic conferences also take place here, such as the International Academic Multi-Disciplinary Research Conference and the Europerio Congress on Research and Development. Other important events include the Woman Now! conference on gender equality, the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center Summit, and Visit the Global Village, which is part of the International AIDS Conference.

Amsterdam Food Options for Conference Delegates

There are a large number of excellent restaurants you can choose from in Amsterdam, offering you a fantastic selection of dishes from all over the world. Good places where you can sample local, Dutch cuisine include De Silveren Spiegel (Phone: +31 20 624 6589) and the PIQNIQ (Phone: +31 20 320 3669). Amateurs of upscale French cuisine will not be disappointed by what restaurants such as Vinkeles (Phone: +31 20 530 2010), La Rive (Phone: +31 20 520 3264) or Zaza’s (Phone: +31 20 673 6333) have to offer, whereas fans of Asian dishes can select between the Japanese Teppanyaki Restaurant Sazanka (Phone: +31 20 678 7450) and the Indonesian Blue Pepper Restaurant and Candlelight Cruises (Phone: +31 20 489 7039).

Amsterdam Attractions for Convention Attendees

There are various highly interesting tourist attractions you can visit after your conference in Amsterdam. Some of the most important ones include: the Vondelpark, an enormous park established in the 19th century, featuring ponds, playgrounds and an open-air theatre; the Van Gogh Museum, with over 600 works by the famous painter, and the Rijksmuseum with more than a million sculptures and paintings dating back to 13th century; the Royal Palace of Amsterdam, a highly ornate Golden Age palace; the Science Center NEMO, a boat-like museum featuring a large variety of science exhibits, shows and experiments; and the Anne Frank House, probably the most important memorial place to the Holocaust from Holland.

Conference Center Venues

Amsterdam, Holland has a large number of great conference centers and facilities, such as:

Beurs van Berlage (Location: Damrak Avenue)
De Rode Hoed, (Location: Keizersgracht)
Mövenpick Hotel Amsterdam (Piet Heinkade Street)
Okura Hotel Amsterdam (Location: Ferdinand Bol Street)
Radison Blu Hotel (Location: Rusland Street)
RAI Amsterdam Convention Center (Location: Europaplein Square)