Dutch tourist attractions overcrowded with tourists

Friday, March 9, 2018

The major attractions of Netherlands are increasingly being thronged with international travellers as per the Dutch tourism office NBTC.

The hotspots bear the brunt of traffic jams that leads to several problems and crowds for tourists.

Last year the Netherlands had 17.6 million foreign tourists marking a rise of 11% increase as compared to the year before. This year NBTC expects over 18.5 million international travellers rising to more than 20 million by 2020.

Over the last two years the NBTC had been utilizing the ‘HollandCity strategy’ that promotes the Netherlands as one large metropolis of nature, cities and rural areas with short traversing distances between them.

Jos Vranken who is the CEO of NBTC mentioned that a few popular locations in and around Rotterdam, Utrecht and Amsterdam are being overcrowded with tourists.

This applies to villages including Volendam and Kinderdijk.

Increasingly it leads to inconvenience for residents. The gap between the Randstad and remaining part of the Netherlands is actually threatening to rise.

He feels that much more needs to be accomplished to spread tourists more evenly across the country. He calls for a fresh investment agenda and opportunities for regions to develop good tourism products that meet the requirements of tourists.

A national fund is essential in cooperation with all parties involved.

It is important to better manage and control the tourist flows. Due to the growing economy and reasonable airline tickets, border crossing tourism is rising everywhere.

The recreation and catering sectors are content with it but then the harmful side effects also keep on rising.

Mona Keijzer who is the State Secretary of Economic Affairs and climate had sent a letter to parliament stating that the government is planning an ‘active spreading policy’ so that tourists not only throng the main attractions, as per the reports of regional news agency.

The main intention is to tempt tourists to go on lesser-known places in the country.

Keijmer said that such spreading of tourists is not only important make sure that the quality of life for residents of big cities, especially Amsterdam but also so that more provinces can benefit economically from the crowds of tourists.

Tourism creates as much as 641 thousand jobs in the Netherlands.

Courtesy: https://nltimes.nl/2018/03/08/dutch-attractions-overcrowded-tourists

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