Heinrich Schöneseifen was born in Bonn in 1952. After training and starting out as a newspaper journalist, he moved to an editorial post at Südwestfunk broadcasting station in 1978. Then he went on to establish the regional office of today's Südwestrundfunk (SWR) in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler in 1988. A Rhinelander through and through, since that date he has continued to contribute information and reports about his home region to all the SWR channels.
"I'm not a specialist journalist," he explains, "I'm interested in everything. I'm a 'professional dilettante'". Heinrich Schöneseifen regards himself as an all-round journalist whose job is to interpret events meaningfully for his listeners by fleshing out the background and filling in the context.
With great expertise he packages the facts in entertaining ways, providing people with information that is short, sweet and easy to understand. Heinrich Schöneseifen's three-minute piece about the Royal Spas, for which he won the award, is one example. Using Bad Neuenahr as an illustration, he succinctly presents the exclusive association's aims and principles: the same royal splendours once enjoyed by the aristocracy on their annual visit to the spa can now be enjoyed by the guests of today. His report features Rainer Mertel, Bad Neuenahr spa director and Royal Spas chairman, and Princess Gabriele of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, patron of the association.
"I was fascinated by the Royal Spas' open elitism and their concentration on an upper-class clientele", confesses Heinrich Schöneseifen. What was frowned upon as politically incorrect only a few years ago is now, he says, a successful marketing strategy.
However, as Rainer Mertel is quick to point out, the "elite" tag applies not only to the clients but also to the quality of the spas' services. "Guests vote with their feet," he says. "Satisfied customers come back for more, to have their expectations exceeded again and again."
This has enabled the eight current members of Royal Spas to acquire a distinctive profile among Europe's approximately 1,000 spas. Each Royal Spa has aristocratic associations and a history of welcoming royal visitors, although grand credentials are not the only requirement for members of this select club of wellness providers. There is also a strict catalogue of rules specifying the criteria against which each Royal Spa has to be assessed. These include health and fitness facilities with state-of-the-art equipment, an elegant ambience, faultless service, sophisticated thermal facilities, a programme of treatments based on local therapeutic resources and, naturally, impeccably trained staff.
But even the Royal Spas are aware that exceptional quality counts for nothing if people don't hear about it - which is why they are indebted to knowledgeable journalists whose high-standard reporting is an invaluable communication tool. Journalists are often shown behind the scenes at the Royal Spas, in order to encourage excellence in press coverage. Since 2003 their work has also been recognised through the Royal Spas Award, which this year went to a radio journalist for the first time.
The award is presented at the ITB in Berlin in the presence of Count Wolff Metternich, a loyal patron of Bad Neuenahr.
Those interested will find information, publicity material and further details on the “Royal Spas Award 2008” at the press office of the “Royal Spas of Europe”,
Kurgartenstr. 1, D-53474 Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler Tel.:+49(0)2641 801-219
e-mail: press@royal-spas.net
or at www.press.royal-spas.net on the Internet
Further information:
www.royal-spas.net
Kurgartenstr. 1
D-53474 Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler
Tel. : +49 (0) 26 41 - 801-153
Fax : +49 (0) 26 41 - 801-198
e-mail: press@royal-spas.net
http://www.press.royal-spas.net