Amsterdam for business travellers: Zuidas, the RAI and everything beyond them

Amsterdam keeps its offices well away from its postcards. A working week here is spent on the southern ring, in a conference hall on the Europaplein or in a converted timber dock on the IJ — and the driving between them is the part nobody plans for.

Visitors arrive expecting canals and find themselves on the A10. Amsterdam’s working life happens in a handful of districts on or just off the ring road, linked by tunnels, tram tracks and a metro line that runs only north to south. Which district your meetings are in decides where you should sleep and how early you should leave. Here is the city as our chauffeurs drive it on a working Tuesday.

Zuidas, the district that behaves like a second centre

Zuidas is the business district, built along the southern arc of the A10 between the Amstel and the road out to Schiphol. Its spine is Strawinskylaan, where the World Trade Center sits directly above Amsterdam Zuid station; Gustav Mahlerlaan and Claude Debussylaan carry most of the newer towers, the courts stand on Parnassusweg, and the whole district is still being rebuilt around the motorway and the station in a project that has been under way for years and will be for a few more. Expect closed lanes, moved entrances and a diversion that was not there last quarter.

Amsterdam Zuid is the most useful station in the city for a business traveller: trains to Schiphol take a matter of minutes, the north–south metro line runs from here to Centraal in a quarter of an hour, and the intercity services stop here rather than only at Centraal. For a car it is less generous. Kerb space along Strawinskylaan and Mahlerlaan is thin at the top of the hour, tram tracks and cycle lanes take up most of the width, and the sensible move is to agree a side street or a specific tower entrance in advance rather than circle the block.

The RAI, and the traffic an exhibition makes

RAI Amsterdam stands on the Europaplein, a kilometre east of Zuidas and directly off the southern ring, with its own railway station on one side and the Europaplein metro stop on the other. It is large enough that the door matters: the Europaplein entrance, the Elicium and Amtrium buildings and the hall entrances are a long walk apart with a stand kit in your hands.

On a big show day the Europaboulevard and the streets of the Rivierenbuurt behind it become one slow queue, and the car parks fill from the motorway exit inwards. The drivers who do this every week solve it the same way: agree a pickup point a few streets back from the entrance, and a time rather than a phone call. Chauffeur service for RAI events is mostly an exercise in choosing the right corner.

West and east: the other four addresses

Four more districts account for most of the rest of our corporate work.

• Sloterdijk — the office cluster around Amsterdam Sloterdijk station in the west, on the A10 and minutes from the port area at Westpoort. The station is an interchange with direct trains to both Schiphol and Centraal, and unlike Zuidas it has room to stop a car.
• Houthavens — the former timber docks on the IJ, west of Centraal, now offices, studios and flats. The Spaarndammertunnel links it to the ring; the streets inside are narrow and parking is scarce, so pickups happen at an agreed corner rather than a doorway.
• Amstel Business Park — the working strip along the Spaklerweg and Joan Muyskenweg, with the towers at Amstelplein beside Amstel station at its northern end. It is quick from the A10 south and quick onward to Utrecht.
• Amsterdam Science Park — the university science faculty, research institutes and a cluster of data centres in the Watergraafsmeer, with its own station and an easy run to the A10 east.

Where to stay, by district rather than by star

The common planning mistake is booking the hotel for the evening and the meetings for the morning. A canal-ring address is a fine place to spend a night and a slow place to leave at eight, because the streets around it are one-way, bridge-interrupted and often closed for works.

• Meetings at Zuidas or the RAI: stay in the south. Hotels around the towers and along the Europaboulevard put you a few minutes from the door and on the right side of the ring for the airport.
• A mixed week of meetings and dinners: Oud-Zuid and the museum quarter are quiet, handsome and roughly ten to fifteen minutes from both Zuidas and the centre outside rush hour.
• Conferences and city evenings together: the canal ring and the Oosterdok give you the city on foot, at the cost of slower kerbs in the morning.
• Early departures and a day in the west: the hotels around Sloterdijk and the IJ sit on the motorway side of town, which is where you want to be at six in the morning.

Getting between them

The ring is almost always the answer. Crossing the city centre looks shorter on a map and is slower in every hour of daylight: thirty-kilometre-an-hour limits, bridges, loading bays, cyclists with right of way and tram tracks that narrow the road. The A10 and its spurs take you around the outside at a steady speed, and the three tunnels — the IJtunnel to Noord, the Piet Heintunnel to the eastern docklands, the Coentunnel on the western ring — do the rest.

Between Zuidas and the RAI is a few minutes at any hour. Zuidas to the centre is usually a quarter of an hour, more between half past four and half past six. Sloterdijk, Science Park and Amstel Business Park all sit on the ring, so the drive between any two of them depends less on distance than on which stretch of the A10 is busy. On a day with appointments across those districts, a car parked nearby beats a car summoned each time — which is what hourly hire is for.

Schiphol, and how much time to allow

Zuidas is the closest business district to the airport: on a clear road it is a short run down the A10 south and along the A4, and even in traffic it rarely feels far. From the centre allow twenty-five to thirty-five minutes; from Science Park or the eastern docks add ten to that; from Sloterdijk the A10 west and the A4 make it comparable to the centre. Those are driving times, not the time to leave — for a departure we ask you to book the pickup at least three hours before the flight.

Prices in that direction do not move with the traffic. Schiphol to any address in Amsterdam is fixed per car and per class — €80 to the airport and €90 from it in Business Class, taxes included — with flight tracking, a chauffeur inside arrivals holding a name sign, and the first sixty minutes after landing free. A delayed flight changes the pickup time and nothing else.

How a working day usually runs

1. Arrival at Schiphol: the flight is tracked, the chauffeur meets the guest in the hall and the car goes straight to the hotel at a price agreed before departure.
2. Meeting day: hourly hire, minimum two hours, forty kilometres included per hour, starting and ending in the same city — the right shape for a Zuidas-to-RAI-to-centre loop with waiting in between.
3. Guests arriving separately: each booking carries its own updates to the booker — confirmed, chauffeur en route, guest on board, safely arrived — so an assistant does not have to chase anyone.
4. Departure: a pickup three hours before the flight, with the departure hall confirmed from the flight number before the car moves.

None of this is complicated, but it does reward being decided in advance. Amsterdam is a small city with a well-defended centre; the working parts of it are all within half an hour of each other, provided you go around rather than through. Our chauffeur service in Amsterdam exists largely to take that decision off your morning.

Questions, answered

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