Or, to put it in more financial terms, the cost of compensating for the negative effects of these tourists might be much higher than the tax revenue they bring in.
As someone who currently lives in NYC it would be great for me if tourists stopped coming to the city and magically the level of restaurants, sanitation, and public transit didnt change at all.
When’s the last time you went to Bubba Gump or Hard Rock Cafe? That’s the kind of crap most tourism usually supports. There is almost zero overlap between the restaurants locals go to and the ones the tourists do because locals usually can’t be assed to wait for a table. To them it’s not a special occasion like a vacation, just another day.
I’ve found this to be an almost universal rule east of the Mississippi (on the other hand Californians have a weird fetish for waiting in line an hour to sit at a brunch place with less than a dozen tables).
This is in opposition to your quote. Mayor Halsema said the tourists are at international chains, you're talking about paying locals. Money spent at these chains isn't contributing to the local economy as much as actually spending money at local shops is.
It’s not as much as local businesses but it’s more than nothing, unless the mayors claim is that those international businesses are negative impacts on the economy, in which case why not ban them rather than the cruise ships?
I’d guess the cruise ships are just an easy scapegoat because they are considered unfashionable.
Thousand and thousands of people arriving, confused and not necessarily having been excited about Amsterdam in particular, and then leaving within 8 hours?
Seems believable that cruise tourists are unlike any other type.
I imagine the same would apply to ppl arriving in Amsterdam - being aware of activities to do in the city.
They are unlike other tourists, but I wouldn't jump to assuming that's a bad thing.
Care to cite some examples? Because I certainly can't think of any.
Sure, tourism can be a double edged sword, but all the cities I can think of that want to limit tourism (e.g. Venice, Barcelona, etc.) don't appear to have had any negative effects from their campaigns to limit tourism. If anything, these cities are trying to keep the "soul" of their cities intact, to keep their appeal that attracted so many tourists in the first place.
It's possible to do by like, jacking up hotel taxes 100x, but nobody actually does that. Maybe some little town, I dunno.
Sounds like you're describing Downtown SF. I imagine right now many in the city wish the area had been less reliant on people coming in from elsewhere.
They tried before and failed, I hope they try again.
Having visited Amsterdam over the last 14 years semi-regularly for work, one of the things that struck me is after AirBnB took off, things quickly got worse there.. Even in off-peak seasons it's just a nightmare downtown.
There is no affordable space in the inner city anymore. Nothing. When I grew up tourism wasn't a thing, now it looks as though the whole city has essentially been given over to it with everything else secondary. Really happy to see Halsema make some sensible moves to curb this. But it's lots too late and probably way too little.
Moving the red light district into a building isn't going to end well. Right now it's out in the open, it's easy to see and monitor... Putting it somewhere kind of out of sight isn't the way.. I do understand that the cops are stretched thin between lots of places. But there has to be a better way.
Closing the weed shops is also not going to end well.
Both these things, the sex tourism and the weed tourism have one thing in common. Tourism.
Limit that.
Also once your neighbouring countries legalize weed you'll find the tourism for that spreads out.
Weed shops always were legally grey for several reasons.
But I'd rather have them limit the tourism first, that would automatically reduce prostitution and drug sales to the point that those industries would likely shrink with some reduced crime as a side benefit.
When there's a will there's a way. I think what will end up happening is that locals will just buy the drugs, and then sell to the tourists.
Pushing something underground or away, or making it illegal etc... It never works, it only makes it worse.
The war on drugs has lost, and if anything I hope that it's shown us that with both drugs and sex work, you can never stop it, so the goal should be harm reduction.
That said.. I do like the idea of taxing flights into Schiphol. Especially those from England.
Every single time I go, it feels like the English are just the worst offenders.
The tourist arriving with ships already have paid for their board and food. So they are less likely to spend money in the city. And then it is possibly they go on tours run by the ship thus most money not going to locals.
In the end many cities in Europe especially don't need this type of tourism. They have enough organic self-grown much more profitable tourism already. Does not mean there isn't some places where local economy depends on it. And even then cruise companies are trying to capture also the gains there.
Although perhaps it would be effectively the same as outright banning the ships.
But maybe it's not worth the hassle to figure out for some cities.
I think e.g. the Venice port is owned by the state.
Over 5 million tourists visit Amsterdam a year[1]; only a small fraction of that probably come from cruise ships. If banning those ships improves local quality of life and the tourist experience for non-cruise tourists, then it's probably a net win in terms of tax revenues (besides everything else).
People were complaining that the city had turned into a theme park, and that's not fun for the people living there, but ultimately also less attractive to many tourists, who prefer a vibrant, living city, and want to taste the local atmosphere.
A cruise ship can be a giant loophole that leaves all externalities to others. Even AirBNB model leaves more money to locals.
You want to discourage lower value visitors after a certain point. Cruise passengers would spend far less than land visitors in Amsterdam.
Then in ten years, they can reassess and easily re-open the dock. I don't think you're right, but there isn't really a big risk here even if you are right. Even if the dock gets repurposed to something else, if this somehow devastates the city's economy, it is easy to reverse.
People will still want to come to Amsterdam, even more so if they weren't able to stop there on a cruise. The only thing that can really stop tourists from coming to Amsterdam is if its reputation somehow falls below its historical postcard allure and libertine reputation. The main threat to that is the city becoming so packed with rowdy tourists, although even still the hotels and hostels will all be full, just not able to charge $100/night for a hostel bed or $300/night for a tiny bedroom like they can now. But if you're right and the city reverses course, I am sure that the cruise ships will be fighting each other for a spot.
Barcelona is trying to limit them also [1]
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/09/a-plague-of-lo...
For example, Zandvoort (which is not Amsterdam, and separated from it by another city, Haarlem) gets branded Amsterdam Beach. The most egregious example I've seen was the Frisian lakes, which is great for sailing and other activities on and around water, got called the Amsterdam Lake District, despite being in a completely different province and on the opposite side of the IJsselmeer.
But if that helps tourists to visit some other parts of the country instead of just drinking themselves senseless in Amsterdam, I guess that's good. Though the branding really rubs me the wrong way.
My guess is most of HN is relatively pro-market pro-business so this probably won't be controversial, but this seems like the type of thing that a government will regret in ten years. So many municipalities would kill for a large number of people to come in, pay locals and local taxes, and then leave without using any social services. I realize Amsterdam is very wealthy, but feel like we've seen countless times cities discouraging visitors and then surprised when tax revenues drop.