Passion for cycling, golf, and Spain

When he's not focusing on accounting, Frank Plijnaar (1952) enjoys staying active. He regularly gets on his racing bike, plays tennis, swims, and skis. A few years ago, he discovered a new love for a sport: golf.

His daughter Danielle suggested he just give it a try. He admits he was quite skeptical about the sport beforehand. “I always saw golf as marbles for the elderly, but now I'm elderly myself,” Plijnaar laughs. His first encounter with the golf course was surprisingly enjoyable. “A very challenging sport that requires a lot of concentration. You’re in a beautiful environment and cover a fair distance. It gives an enormous thrill when you hit that ball well. But I'm not good at it at all, mind you.

He prefers golfing in sunny Spain, where he has a house on the Costa Brava. “In Spain, the weather is almost always nice, which encourages you to be active every day. People live much more outdoors there. Cycling is also much safer there. We live near a nature reserve, where it is wonderfully quiet and where there are several golf courses. We golf three times a week and end up in the most beautiful places in the middle of nature with ancient churches. The rules in Spain are not nearly as strict as in the Netherlands. There, you can play on all courses without a license. I always play better in Spain. Maybe it has to do with the light. Or with concentration. In the Netherlands, my thoughts might wander to work more quickly.” Plijnaar does not aspire to be a member of a golf club. “Golf is said to be the ideal sport for networking, but I don't need a golf club for that. I golf with family and friends. I especially like that my wife also enjoys the sport, so we can do it together. Improving my handicap is not important to me. I write down the points, and if I took 80 strokes and my wife 60, then I lost. I don't like people who are very fanatical about it, especially not at our age. I also don't care for people who boast, which I associated with golf. But that turned out to be not so bad in Spain.”

Joint Strength
He feels completely at home in the northeast of Spain, where he spends about four months a year. What appeals to him about the region? “Well, almost everything: the food, the culture, the sports, and we have a very nice house in a lovely location. I also find the people in that region very nice. Before we bought a house, we first looked around in the south. But there we noticed that we were never properly received anywhere. When we drove north, the nature became greener, the surroundings more beautiful, and the people friendlier.” Plijnaar would like to spend a few more months in Spain in the future, but he will not settle there permanently. “Our social life takes place in the Netherlands, and we certainly don't want to let that go. You see that people who have been away for a long time lose their contacts here. And of course, I still have my work.”

He works an average of about 15 hours a week. All the financial matters of the hotel go through him. For example, Plijnaar provides the financial frameworks when an investment decision needs to be made. In his role, he often consults with his daughter, who is the general manager at Mitland. He thought he had experienced everything over the years. And then came COVID-19. “But we got through that too. We don't complain, but at those moments, we put our shoulders to the wheel together. I'm proud of that. When we want to achieve something, a certain drive is unleashed, and you see all the brothers heading in a certain direction. Every brother does what he has to do and what he is good at. We have a lot of respect for each other's work. From that joint strength, something very beautiful emerges. That dynamic process always continues. When you're done at the front of the hotel, you can start again at the back. It never stops.”

Birthday with Brothers
The four brothers have now entered a different phase of life. “We all work a little less. The children do it, and we have taken on a more advisory role. We have a bit more time to enjoy the beautiful things in life, and there are plenty of those. Making beautiful trips, for example.” For his sixtieth birthday, he invited his brothers to celebrate the party in Spain. He announced that day that this would become a tradition. And so it happened. “To this day, my brothers faithfully come to Spain every year for my birthday. It turns out we have a tremendous amount of fun together, we're always in stitches laughing. One brother sets it up, and the other heads it in. That atmosphere also radiates throughout the entire company, I think. Guests often remark that everyone is cheerful in the hotel.”