Red light district tours to be banned in Amsterdam

Friday, March 29, 2019

From 2020  Amsterdam will ban all tours of its red light district along with capping the number of people allowed on guided tours of the city’s medieval centre at 15 per group.

The Netherlands capital encompasses the red light district and the ban will be effective on January next year including pub crawls and guided walks.

Udo Kock, the deputy mayor said that they did not considered tourists leering at sex workers as appropriate.

So, they were banning tours that would take visitors along sex workers’ windows to prevent overcrowding in the red-light district and it is not respectful to sex workers.

Oudekerksplein, the hub of the red light district was visited by more than 1,000 organized groups each week. It saw a peak of 28 tours an hour in early evening.

However, a majority of the prostitutes that the non-stop guided tours were hurting their business.

According to the officials, guides outside the red light district should  now have permits, there will be a ban on free tours and the practice of touting for punters will also be prohibited.

Amsterdam had banned beer bikes in 2017 in the city centre and in an effort to reverse ‘Disneyfication’ of the Dutch capital a coalition of the city’s main political parties announced plans to address the impact of mass tourism on the city.

Further ideas are inclusive of cracking down on boozy boat trips, diverting cruise ships from docking in the city centre and banning Airbnb short-term rentals located in the city’s busiest areas.

Amsterdam has just 850,000 residents in 2019 the tourist number had hit 19 million in 2018 and  the growing issue of overtourism was a concern.

In an endeavor to raise $105 m a year by 2022, the existing tourist tax has risne from 4 and 6 per cent to 7 per cent.

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