{"id":93854,"date":"2026-05-28T08:58:44","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T08:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/93854\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T08:58:44","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T08:58:44","slug":"amsterdam-fights-overtourism-go-see-rest-of-the-netherlands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/93854\/","title":{"rendered":"Amsterdam fights overtourism: Go see rest of the Netherlands"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Famous for its tolerance as much as its narrow houses and broad canals, Amsterdam is undergoing a radical change of attitude when it comes to the millions of tourists that flock to see it each year.\n <\/p>\n

\n Tolerance, it seems, has reached its limits in the Dutch capital, which is now actively urging visitors to head elsewhere as frustrated locals complain of feeling besieged by visitors using the city\u2019s bicycle-thronged streets as a travel<\/a> playground.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe pressure is very high,\u201d says Ellen van Loon, a partner at Dutch architectural firm OMA who is involved in adapting the city for the future. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to turn into a Venice. The problem we are currently facing is that Amsterdam is so loved by tourists, we just have so many coming to the city.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n While Van Loon acknowledges the positive aspects of tourism, which earns the Dutch economy around 82 billion euros<\/a> ($91.5 billion) a year, like many locals she\u2019s worried that soaring visitor numbers are destroying the soul of this vibrant cosmopolitan city.\n <\/p>\n

\n Like Venice and other destinations<\/a> across Europe, Amsterdam has become a byword for overtourism \u2013 a phenomenon closely linked to the rise in cheaper air travel that has seen visitors flood certain places, often spoiling the very spot they came to enjoy.\n <\/p>\n

\n While some cities are still formulating ways to cope, Amsterdam \u2013 where a decade-long surge in visitor numbers is forecast to continue, rising from 18 million in 2018 to 42 million in 2030, or more than 50 times the current population \u2013 has simply decided it\u2019s had enough.\n <\/p>\n

\"Bicycles<\/p>\n

Amsterdam music and freedom\n <\/p>\n

\"Bicycles<\/p>\n

Amsterdam music and freedom<\/p>\n

1:11<\/p>\n

\n Netherlands tourist officials recently took the bold decision<\/a> to stop advertising the country as a tourist destination. Their \u201cPerspective 2030<\/a>\u2033 report, published earlier this year, stated that the focus will now be on \u201cdestination management\u201d rather than \u201cdestination promotion.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The document also outlines the country\u2019s future strategy, acknowledging that Amsterdam\u2019s livability will be severely impacted by \u201cvisitor overload\u201d if action isn\u2019t taken.\n <\/p>\n

\n Solutions listed include working to dissuade groups of \u201cnuisance\u201d visitors by either limiting or completely shutting down \u201caccommodation and entertainment products\u201d aimed at them, as well as spreading visitors to other parts of the Netherlands.\n <\/p>\n

\n Some of these measures have already come into play.\n <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n Last year, the famous \u201cI amsterdam\u201d sign was removed from outside the Rijksmuseum<\/a>, the city\u2019s main art gallery, at the request of the city of Amsterdam, as it was \u201cdrawing too big of a crowd to an already limited space.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The two-meter high letters have been relocated to various \u201clesser-known neighborhoods\u201d in a bid to entice travelers away from the center of the city.\n <\/p>\n

\n Mass tourism has also impacted one of Amsterdam\u2019s other famous symbols, tulips.\n <\/p>\n

\n While today\u2019s billion dollar trade grew from tulip mania \u2013 the 17th century economic bubble, when bulbs sold for more than a year\u2019s wages \u2013 Dutch floral fervor hasn\u2019t waned.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cFlowers really belong to our culture, our heritage,\u201d says Florian Seyd, florist and co-founder of Wunderkammer<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIn the beginning tulips came from Turkey, and were grown mainly in palaces. Then a few bulbs came to Netherlands and started to multiply. I think that\u2019s when the big love from the Dutch for flowers started.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n While tulips aren\u2019t as hard to come by here nowadays, they remain enormously important to the country, with its bulb region of Bollenstreek, located just outside Amsterdam, drawing plenty of visitors during spring.\n <\/p>\n

\n But selfie-seeking tourists have been damaging fields, leading the tourist board to issue a \u201cdos and don\u2019ts\u201d guide<\/a> to taking photos next to them.\n <\/p>\n

\n In addition, signs emblazoned with the slogan, \u201cEnjoy the flowers, respect our pride,\u201d have been erected around fields in the region to deter visitors from trampling tulips while posing for pictures.\n <\/p>\n

\n Some farmers have even opted to fence in their fields to protect them.\n <\/p>\n

\"Tours<\/p>\n

\n Measures have also been taken to discourage travelers from visiting some of Amsterdam\u2019s seedier tourist hotspots.\n <\/p>\n

\n Earlier this year, the city government announced it will end tours of the Red Light District<\/a> in central Amsterdam, citing concerns that sex workers are being treated as a tourist attraction.\n <\/p>\n

\n The ban will come into effect on January 1, 2020, in order to give the existing tour companies a chance to wind down business.\n <\/p>\n

\n This move comes after new shops aimed at tourists were banned in the city, along with Airbnb short-term rentals in busy areas.\n <\/p>\n

\n While Amsterdam\u2019s popularity can be attributed to many factors, one of the main reasons tourists are so attracted to the city is undoubtedly due to its freedom and liberalism.\n <\/p>\n

\n For instance, prostitution has been legal in the Netherlands since 2000.\n <\/p>\n

\n The practice was \u201ctolerated\u201d for years before this, thus beginning a culture of accepting the illegal \u2013 known as \u201cGedogen.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Tulips<\/p>\n

\"Tulips<\/p>\n

\n While this Dutch term is untranslatable, it essentially means to look the other way. The \u201cGedogen\u201d approach has also been applied to cannabis use in the Netherlands since 1976.\n <\/p>\n

\n While the drug is still technically illegal in the country, authorities choose to openly ignore it, refraining to prosecute anyone in possession of less than five grams for personal use.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Netherlands was also the first country in the world to legalize same sex marriage in 2001, with the first legal same sex wedding taking place in its capital city that same year.\n <\/p>\n

\n But although Amsterdam is celebrated for its freedom today, it hasn\u2019t always been a place of tolerance.\n <\/p>\n

\n Perhaps ironically, one of the city\u2019s most highly regarded sites serves as a harsh reminder of this.\n <\/p>\n

\n Anne Frank House, a unique testimony of the German-born teenager\u2019s life under Nazi occupation, is its third most popular museum after the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum.\n <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n One of Amsterdam\u2019s most famous residents, Anne died in a concentration camp in 1945 at the age of 15.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe pride ourselves on being a city which is tolerant. A city where people can be themselves, which is true,\u201d says museum director Ronald Leopold, one of the guardians of Anne\u2019s diary and legacy.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cBut we also have these dark pages, and these are probably the darkest.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n According to Leopald, around half of the 1.3 million people who visit the Anne Frank House each year are under the age of 30.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI think it\u2019s increasingly important to learn about what happened here during World War II and the Holocaust,\u201d he adds.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis is a wonderful point of entry for many young people to learn about that history.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s also very important to think and reflect on how this could have happened and what it says about us in 2019. What it says about the communities we live in and our responsibility to them.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n By the time Anne Frank\u2019s father Otto, the only member of the family to survive the Holocaust, published her diary in 1947, the war had left Amsterdam forever altered.\n <\/p>\n

\n Now, over 70 years later the city is going through a much less welcome change.\n <\/p>\n

\n But will the measures being put in place to curb mass tourism be enough to save it from being wrecked by its own success?\n <\/p>\n

\n Like many other locals, architect Van Loon fears that Amsterdam, which came in 23rd place on Euromonitor International\u2019s report on the Top 100 City Destinations in 2018, is dangerously close to losing its unique allure forever.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe reason tourists come here is because there\u2019s something in the character of Amsterdam they love,\u201d she explains.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cBut at a certain point, when the amount of tourists is increasing and increasing, they actually kill what they loved in the first place.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Famous for its tolerance as much as its narrow houses and broad canals, Amsterdam is undergoing a radical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[101],"tags":[199,49046,32693,71,200,1411,14457,22314],"class_list":["post-93854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-amsterdam","tag-amsterdam","tag-amsterdam-travel-guide","tag-continents-and-regions","tag-europe","tag-netherlands","tag-tourism","tag-travel-and-tourism","tag-western-europe"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116651380660337755","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}