Cruise ships avoid Amsterdam over tourism tax

Cruise ship company MSC Cruises will no longer stop in Amsterdam from next year, due to the new tourist tax of 8 euros per day for passengers for whom the Dutch capital is a stopover. The company does not want to recover these costs from its customers, NH Nieuws reports.

The cruise ships will instead stop in other Dutch cities, from where passengers can travel to Amsterdam by bus. Rotterdam is one of these cities, a spokesperson for MSC Cruises said to the broadcaster. This involves a total of seven cruise ships in 2019 and 11 in 2020. Each ship carries about 2,500 passengers, who spend up to two days in the Netherlands.

MSC Cruises director Erik Schuffel wants to send a signal to the Amsterdam government with this decision, according to NH Nieuws.

Amsterdam plans to move the Passenger Terminal to the west of the city. The municipality hopes that this will prompt tourists to also visit the area around Amsterdam, instead of automatically going to Amsterdam city center in droves.

According to Schuffel, his cruise ships bring a different type of tourist to the Dutch capital. "We bring the quality tourist to the city", he said to Het Parool. "No suitcases, no people pissing in alleys or at most buying from a pizza point."