A'dam mayor wants to "cautiously and carefully" spread tourism throughout NL

Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema wants tourism to restart "cautiously and carefully" and in such a way that tourists are also attracted to less crowded areas of the Netherlands, she said on Op1. She is worried that a sudden flood of tourists will mean a second wave of coronavirus infections. "We don't want Amsterdam to be hit again," she said, NU.nl and AT5 report.

"If the budget flights start again, [a new coronavirus wave] is a risk," Halsema said. "Everyone knows the image of the Red Light District, where you can walk over heads."

The Amsterdam mayor wants to talk to hotel owners about the cautious restart of tourism. She understands that hotels are hit hard by the coronavirus measures. "It is horrifying for them that tourism cannot get going right away. That's why you have to have a conversation with hotel owners, how do you do that carefully? We really want to get it going, but if it happens too quickly, we could have a backlash."

Halsema thinks that many entrepreneurs don't want everything to immediately be as crowded as before the coronavirus. "I think that the hotel owners and catering owners actually agree with me. Because they don't want that economic setback in the long term either," she said.