Karoline Wiegerink
Karoline Wiegerink (PhD, MSc) is Professor of City Hospitality at Hotelschool The Hague and Director of PvKO, the Dutch community for Customer Centricity Professionals. She works at the intersection of academia, industry and societal impact, with a passion for how hospitality can strengthen cities, neighbourhoods and local communities.
Her current work centres on creating value through hospitality experiences—for visitors, organisations, residents and the wider hospitality ecosystem. She explores how hospitality contributes to liveability and lovability in urban environments, and how meaningful encounters can support more balanced, inclusive and regenerative destinations. Key themes in her research and teaching include residents’ benefit (bewonersprofijt), hospitable communities, value creation across the hospitality ecosystem, and the Regenerative Hospitality Experience.
A key contribution to the field is the City Hospitality Experience Model, which she developed as a foundation for advancing research, education and professional practice in this domain.
Karoline collaborates closely with students, research colleagues and academic fellows, and works in co-creation with national and international partners such as NBTC, Kennisnetwerk Destinatie NL, CELTH, ENSUT and the European City Destination Alliance. Together with these partners she develops applied insights, tools and frameworks that help cities and organisations design more human-centred, ethical and future-proof hospitality experiences.
‘I am deeply committed to hospitality and customer centricity, and to the value they create. Putting the guest, customer, passenger, tourist, patient or student — simply the human — at the heart of any organisation truly makes the difference. It is the host’s personal touch that matters most: sincere attention, genuine interest and an open attitude. These qualities pay off, especially in a high-tech world.
I’ve experienced this throughout my professional journey — as a researcher, consultant, keynote speaker, teacher, hospitality maker and CX community manager — and, of course, every day as a consumer myself.’