Amsterdam is sick of ‘party tourists’. It should
take drastic measures to stop them
Renate van der Zee
The city has had enough of stag parties and red-light
gawpers. But it will take more than an online quiz to curb over-tourism
Wed 15 May
2024 08.00 CEST
An online
quiz is the latest strategy with which Amsterdam hopes to deter nuisance
tourists. The quiz is called Amsterdam Rules, and is meant to appear in search
results about the city. It asks for the reasons why you desire to visit the
Dutch capital. If you respond: for a stag party, a pub crawl or to smoke
marijuana in public, you’ll be told that you will be disappointed, because it’s
no longer allowed.
The quiz is
just one in a long series of experiments with which Amsterdam has tried to
reduce the disruption caused by the hordes of tourists who come to the city to
party wildly.
This has
included not only advertisements directed at potential tourists, but also
concrete policy measures within the city. Advancing the closing times of bars
in the red light district, for instance, has slightly improved things for
residents. Others, such as the ban on smoking marijuana in public, are hard to
enforce. And still others, such as restricting opening times for window
brothels, were quickly reversed.
As it
stands, none of Amsterdam’s strategies have led to a real solution to the
problem. The raw numbers tell the real story: the number of tourists continues
to rise. In 2023, overnight stays increased by 21% to 9m. This brings Amsterdam
back to pre-pandemic levels, while the city expects visitor numbers to reach
record highs in the coming years.
The big
question now is: how much more is this relatively small city of 900,000
residents able to take? The narrow streets, alleyways and bridges in the
fragile, historic 17th-century centre were simply never designed to allow large
crowds of people to pass – even if they all behaved themselves. The everyday
residents of the red light district feel crowded out by the throngs of tourists
who sometimes even prevent them from reaching their homes.
These
residents scoff at the online quiz. Their fate is comparable to that of the
Venetians who recently protested against the introduction of an entrance fee to
the city of €5 for day trippers – another attempt to curb overtourism. They
feel that it reduces the city to a theme park, and will not improve their
day-to-day living conditions.
Two years
ago there was talk of adding access gates and entrance fees for the red light
district. That plan was quickly abandoned: there are simply too many alleys
that lead to the window brothels, and again, it explicitly presents the
neighbourhood as a tourist park.
This
situation is not limited to Amsterdam and Venice. Across Europe, policymakers
acknowledge that the number of tourists in many popular destinations is
untenable, but cannot seem to address the root of the problem.
The local
politician Sofyan Mbarki believes the major problem is Amsterdam’s image as a
place where anything goes. With the quiz, he hopes to change the way visitors
think about the city. But the truth is that a problematic image can’t be
changed overnight. You will actually have to adjust reality too.
The mayor
of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema, is aware of this. Five years ago, she boldly
proposed closing the window brothels in the red light district – an audacious
move considering that many local people still considered window prostitution an
integral part of the city’s folklore. Gradually, more people are realising that
what goes on in the red light district has nothing to do with folklore.
Halsema has
often faced fierce opposition. Interestingly, it was leftwing parties
(including her own GreenLeft party) that resisted her plans. In 2021 she
proposed another measure with substance: allowing only Dutch residents into
coffee shops. Once again, the left resisted.
Meanwhile,
activists who fought overtourism for years have left the arena out of sheer
frustration. They feel they are no match for the powerful lobby groups of
entrepreneurs, who earn such high profits in the red light district that they
can easily fund campaigns against unfavourable proposals from the mayor. In
contrast, residents are fragmented into various small action groups with very
little funding. Often they focus on the specific problems in their part of the
neighbourhood, instead of the wider issue.
Whether
it’s Venice, Amsterdam or any other European city reeling from overtourism, one
thing has become crystal clear: when faced with a dramatic problem, dramatic
measures are needed. While Amsterdam’s conversation is often focused on the red
light district and a certain kind of tourist, it simply isn’t enough to try to
diminish the nuisance caused by one group: the overall volume of tourists needs
to be addressed.
This means
deciding what a sustainable level of tourism really is – one that allows both
visitors and local people to enjoy a city. To reach this, governments could
significantly limit the flights and cruise ships that come to a city and the
area around it. To curb overtourism in Amsterdam, downsizing Schiphol airport
would be a great move – as it would simultaneously benefit the environment.
While such plans were once on the table, the Dutch government regrettably put
them on hold earlier this year.
Implementing
drastic measures requires courage. It requires courage to put a long-term
vision for a livable city ahead of short-term economic interests. And it
requires courage to face the wrath of the tourism sector, which wields an
extremely strong lobby and only wants one thing: more tourism.
Renate van der Zee is a Dutch writer and
journalist
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