GO HERE NOW - Amsterdam's New Era

A more cautious attitude toward tourism meets a progressive rethink of the canal city’s complex past

- Sarah Rappaport

It’s pre-dawn on a flight to Amsterdam, and a group of men on a bachelor party are pounding beers, dressed in costumes as Bavarian barmaids and talking loudly about visiting the red-light district without their partners knowing. This isn’t the vision of Amsterdam that city officials want.

During the pandemic, Amsterdam was able to see what the city looked like without tourists of this ilk, and it doesn’t want to go back. Some city officials have proposed a “discouragement” ad campaign for international visitors with plans to “go wild” in the city. Other ideas: earlier closing times for bars and clubs; an extended ban on group tours; further Airbnb restrictions as well as a tightening of river cruises, sea cruise ships, and budget flights; and marijuana smoke-free zones, linked to an existing alcohol ban in the city center. They still want tourists, but for the culture, not just the cannabis coffee shops.

“What we do not welcome is people who come here on a vacation from morals. They express a form of behavior they would not express at home,” Mayor Femke Halsema told Bloomberg CityLab last July. “It’s a place where you should go if you’re looking for beautiful museums, or to see the underground culture, or if you want to attend our [gay] Pride.”

According to Onderzoek en Statistiek (the city’s research and statistics department), more than 18 million tourists will arrive in 2023, a limit at which the city council is required to intervene under a June 2021 ordinance called Amsterdam Tourism in Balance. In 2019, 22 million visitors came to Amsterdam, the population of which is less than 900,000.