Netherlands even more popular with foreign tourists

The number of people staying over night in Dutch overnight accommodation increased last year for the fifth year in a row, mostly due to an increasing number of foreign tourists visiting the Netherlands. The number of Dutch guests increased too, but less strongly. This is according to the Trend Report on Tourism, Recreation and Leisure, released by Statistics Netherlands, NRIT Media, NBTC Holland Marketing and CELTH on Tuesday. The number of tourists who stayed overnight in the Netherlands increased by 5.3 percent to 35.9 million last year. This increase is largely attributable to more foreign tourists staying in the Netherlands - a total of 14 million last year, an increase of 8.9 percent compared to 2013. The number of Dutch guests, including people staying domestic for vacation and Dutch people living overseas and coming back for a visit, increased by 3.1 percent. Foreigners spent 34,424,000 nights in Dutch overnight accommodation in 2014, out of the total of 99,750,000 nights spent in Dutch accommodation. Tourist spending in the Dutch economy increased by 4.1 percent to 68.3 billion euros. The tourism sector accounts for 3.7 percent of the gross domestic product. The sector also accounted for 6.2 percent of the jobs in the Netherlands last year, with a total of 606 thousand jobs. Germany, Belgium and the United Kingdom together accounted for 54 percent of all the foreign tourists who visited the Netherlands last year. Nearly 20 percent of the foreign tourists came from outside Europe, most of them from America and Asia.