'TIME TO EXPERIMENT'
► Amsterdam says 'stay home' to partiers and pot smokers
Artist and tour guide Louke Spigt makes ends meet by offering tours to some of the millions of foreign visitors who pour into the Dutch capital Amsterdam each year seeking culture, cannabis and excitement.
But even she has misgivings about their return after the Dutch government started lifting most lockdown restrictions in April, opening the door again to mass tourism in one of the world’s mostvisited cities.
“The problems are the uncontrollable groups of drinking Brits, the low-budget tourists who throw all their waste on the streets,” said the blue-haired Spigt, 53. “We want other [kinds of] tourists.”
As Amsterdam emerges from heavy pandemic restrictions, it faces a balancing act – how to revive the tourism trade that underpins nearly a tenth of the city’s economy while making sure it does not dominate at the expense of residents.
To do that, the city is looking to urgently shed its “anything goes” image – based on its tolerance of cannabis and sex work in the famous Red Light District – and focus on bringing in visitors who would rather indulge in its cultural and historical
offerings.
“Amsterdam is in a lucky position where it could really use the pandemic to try some new things,” said Ko Koens, professor of new urban tourism at Inholland University of Applied Sciences.
Unlike some other holiday hot spots, the city has a wide range of industries, which means it can afford to curb damaging tourism, he said. “This is the time to experiment,” Koens added. Amsterdam’s hotel stays nose-dived by 68 percent amid the global pandemic last year, according to data from the municipality.
Dutch bank ABN Amro expects visitor numbers to remain comparatively low this year, with a loss in revenue of about 8 billion euros ($9.5 billion) to the city and its businesses.
About 11 percent of Amsterdam’s workforce is employed in the tourism sector, and many are looking forward to being able to return to their jobs after 15 months of repeated lockdowns.
“It feels great. Finally, after a long period I’m back on the water. It’s my passion,” said luxury canal boat skipper Joost Barendsen.
Others living in Amsterdam’s city center are less happy.
Marlies Weyergang, 61, said she is dreading the return of rowdy tourists to the picturesque central Nieuwmarkt district, home to a growing number of holiday rentals. “We have seen so many Airbnbs appear in our area. As residents they don’t bring us any benefits,” Weyergang said.
‘Better balance’
Amsterdam had about 20 million foreign visitors in 2019 and its center usually hosts five tourists for every permanent resident, according to government statistics.
Residents argue the city is a victim of its own success, with those visitors bringing litter and noise as well as skyrocketing rents due to the boom in holiday rentals that have priced out many locals.
In June, Amsterdam’s City Hall launched a 100,000 euro publicity campaign focused on food, museums and nature to draw culturally minded tourists over those coming on drunken stag parties or drug-fuelled adventures.
“If tourists only want to smoke weed, drink too much alcohol and visit the Red Light District, please stay home,” Amsterdam’s deputy mayor, Victor Everhardt, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by email. “We have not been able to steal great ideas from other cities – they are now looking at us on how we are dealing with tourism.” Even before the pandemic, authorities had been working to tackle anti-social
behavior by visitors and
he city more livable for nent residents. ecent years, the municias banned new hotels uvenir shops, and forbididay rentals in certain terdam’s left-leaning mayor, or, Halsema, has also made proposan tourists from buying weed eed and to he Red Light District from the city centre w “erotic center” on the outskirts. changes have drawn criticism from some s, such as sex workers in the Red Light union, who have warned the plans will hem “less visible” and therefore more vulto human trafficking. e also question whether the efforts to dispel behavior are workable. drunk tourists will always be here. They ready here in the 17th century when sailors tting drunk in the same bars. It’s part terdam’s society,” said Berber Hidma, a old tour guide. the plans have been generally welcomed by ts. urists shouldn’t think that just because you oke a joint here you can do whatever you aid Willem Bosse, 55, an IT consultant who home in central Amsterdam is within two s of 10 coffee shops – most of them selling is – but no butcher or bakery. residents, we always have to adapt to accomate the tourists. There needs to be a better ance,” he said.
Positive impact
Businesses are also taking action to encourage more positive tourism.
For the past two years, walking w tour company Tours To That Matter has been offering offer visitors opportunities to explore explo Amsterdam through themes such su as colonization, gentrification or sustainability. It also takes tourists to sites outside of the city centre, for example to the Bijlmer area, one of Amsterdam’s poorest and most diverse districts.
“We ... focus on positive impact to make sure the locals want to have the tourists,” said co-founder Anouschka Trauschke. “We train locals, like artists or former homeless people ... to become tour guides and to share their stories.”
Zoku, an Amsterdam-based company offering hybrid home, office and hotel accommodation, has designed its rental lofts to allow tourists and residents to mingle in common spaces. Locals and visitors regularly share organized dinners at long, wooden dining tables in its restaurant.
Zoku has expanded into Copenhagen and Vienna, two cities also grappling with the challenge of accommodating tourists without hurting residents.
“If you want people to behave like guests you also need to treat them like guests and not commodities,” said Koens.
“We should look much more at the societal value tourism can bring than the economic profits – that’s the switch we need to make.”