Born in 1957 and thru his father a direct/first line descendent of Martien & Riet van der Valk who founded the van der Valk consortium in the 1930’s. In 1960 they build up a chain of 12 restaurants close or nearby main highways in The Netherlands. In 1971 the first hotel was added to the group and presently the family owned group consists out of 70+ hotels located in The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, The Netherlands Antilles and the U.S.A. Each company/hotel within the group is individually owned and since the mid-90’s work together in Marketing-field and try to create and use synergy opportunities within the group (see www.valk.nl).

Martien W.A. van der Valk was trained within the group and managed several companies for the family ranging from restaurants and food production/processing companies (French fries, snacks and fish). In between he established a financial company that captured credit card transactions and developed a group credit card (see www.valkcard.nl).

In 1994 he was assigned to reorganize a fish processing plant in Chili and from there he moved to Bonaire in 1995 where he started up the latest purchase at that time of Plaza Resort Bonaire and Port Bonaire Resort.

Starting from 1995 he set-up, developed and put both resorts in the market making it a leading player not only in the Bonairean tourism industry as well as in the Antillean market. As an initiator of the weekly charter flights out of Belgium he gained profound knowledge and experience within the airline industry. This was acknowledged by e.g. Air Jamaica and again Martien’s role was vital in setting up the Air Jamaica flights to/from Bonaire giving Bonaire a more reliable airlift

In 2000 Martien co-founded the Bonaire Hospitality Group (see www.bonairehospitality.com) in an effort to streamline the product- and destination marketing efforts. In its five year existence the Bonaire Hospitality Group has become an important “think-tank” where Government, distribution channels and airlines get feedback from.

Since 2006 Martien is also President of the “Recompression Foundation” an organization that manages and operates the recompression tank on Bonaire.