ABSTRACT
Today the position of Amsterdam as a global city exceeds what could be expected on the basis of the size of the city or the country. In the GaWC (Globalization and World Cities) ranking, Amsterdam is an ‘alpha city’, in the league of cities like Madrid, Frankfurt, Moscow and San Francisco. This position is due to a combination of factors, one being global connectivity because of the success of Schiphol airport and KLM in developing a hub airport with a central position in the global airline networks (Loughborough University, 2010).
