Tulips from Amsterdam? A blooming scam, says probe
TOURISTS are being ripped off at Amsterdam’s famous flower market, with just one per cent of all bulbs sold at the floating bazaar ever producing a blossom, investigators said on Tuesday.
A probe commissioned by t he Dutch capita l’s municipalit y and tulip growers a lso fou nd t hat of ten on ly one f lower resembled the pictures on t he packag i ng a nd t hat there were fewer bulbs than advertised.
“The probe showed that there is chronic deception of consumers” at the sale of tulip bulbs at the flower market, the Royal General Bulb Growers’ Association (KAVB) said.
“Millions of tourists and daytrippers are being duped,” KAVB chairman Rene le Clercq said in a statement.
Amsterdam and t he K AV B have now referred t he matter t o t h e D u t c h c on s u mer watchdog.
The Amsterdam flower market is one of the city’s most famous landmarks and dates from around 1862, when flower sellers sailed their barges up the Amstel River and moored them in the “Singel” to sell their goods.
Its fame inspired the popular song Tulips from Amsterdam, best known for a 1958 version by British entertainer Max Bygraves.
Today the market comprises of a number of fixed barges with little greenhouses on top. Vendors not only sell tulip bulbs but also narcissus, snowd rops, c a r nat ion s, v iolet s, peonies and orchids.
But of 1,363 bulbs bought from the Singel and then planted, j ust 14 actually bloomed, the investigation said.
Investigators found a similar problem along the so-called “flower bulb boulevard” in Lisse, a bulb-field town south of Amsterdam where the famous Keukenhof gardens are also situated.
Si nce f i rst i mported f rom t he Ot toma n E mpi re 40 0 y e a r s a g o, t u l i p s “h a v e become our national symbol and the bulb industr y a main player i n t he Dutch economy”, said Le Clercq.
But the “deception about the tulip bulbs is a problem that has been existing for the past 20 years”, he added.
‘Bad bulbs’
The victims are often tourists, KAVB director Andre Hoogendijk said.
“A tourist who buys a bad bulb is not likely to come back,” he told Amsterdam’s local AT5 news channel.
Vendors at the market told AT5 that complaints were known.
“T here a re i ndeed st a l l s here t hat sell r ubbish. That is to ever yone’s disadva ntage, because it portrays the whole f lower market in a bad light,” one u n i dent i f i e d v e ndor said.
But a spokesperson for the City of Amsterdam said that all vendors were being investigated “and that the results are shocking”.
“So to say that it is only a few stalls is not true,” the spokesperson said in an email.
The probe took place earlier in the year during springtime, the spokesperson said.
“The i s s ue i s that you shouldn’t even sell tulip bulbs during the spring. No decent florist shop in Holland does that.”
Tulip bulbs should only be sold between August and December and planted before the start of the (northern hemisphere) winter, in order for the flowers to bloom in spring.