City Safari provides custom made encounters with the daily life of the city. In Rotterdam, Utrecht and Amsterdam over three hundred hosts invite you into their homes and workshops, institutions and places of worship, shops and clubs. Doors that remain closed for others, are opened by City Safari to satisfy your curiosity. A typical City Safari program lasts five hours and contains three encounters. Without a guide, but with a clear itinerary, groups of four to six visitors immerse themselves in the city for an experience that is fun and educational. Parties of four and up to two hundred get their instructions together, split up in groups and hit the city to reassemble at the last item and share their experience.

I developed the concept of City Safari in 1996 and Marjolijn Masselink turned it into a profitable enterprise in Rotterdam. She fell for the challenge of becoming a full time politician 2006 and I took over the management. City Safari was hit hard during the crisis as most of the clients were companies and institutions that obviously cut their budgets for outings, teambuilding and education. I have used that slow period to set up a formula for international expansion. Check www.citysafari.nl. 

VVD is the liberal party of the Netherlands and currently the biggest in parliament and the leading party in government. The party committee for Foreign Affairs, Development Co-operation and International Trade provides policy support for the members of parliament, the senate and the European parliament. From December 2007 till November 2012 I served as secretary of the committee and am now a member specializing in the trend of peoples and tribes to strive for self determination which is the main source of tensions and violent conflicts around the world today. Good foreign policy is managing the inevitable.

I’m good at predicting what works and what doesn’t in a very complex environment like a big city where success or failure depends on the millions of individual decisions taken every day by the people on street level in the urban area. In the fields of tourism, culture and urban development I have a good track record. As a consultant I provide ‘urban solutions’ and as a producer, I sometimes implement them as well. I made proposals for revitalising problematic areas in the city, for stimulating tourism en I produced successful festivals, events and exhibitions.