15 million tourists enter Netherlands; Chinese visits up 21 percent

A massive 14.9 million international tourists visited the Netherlands last year, an increase of 7 percent compared to 2014, according to an estimate by NBTC Holland Marketing. The nearly 15 million visitors spent approximately 37.2 million nights in the Netherlands. About 80 percent of the international tourists came from within Europe. As in previous years, most came from Germany with more than 4.2 million German visitors to the Netherlands, an increase of 10 percent. Belgium came in second place with nearly 2 million visitors, plus 8 percent, and Britain came in third with 1.9 million visitors, up 5 percent. The country that showed the largest visitor growth was China. The number of Chinese visitors increased by 21 percent to 300 and thousand. There were also more than a million American tourists visiting our country, an increase of three percent. The number of Russian visitors decreased by 20 percent. According to NBTC, this is primarily due to the geopolitical tensions. The number of Japanese visitors also fell, by 15 percent to about 125 thousand. NBTC attributes this to the terrorist attacks and threat thereof in Europe and Japanese travelers being extra careful of such risks. For next year NBTC expects international tourist numbers to grow by about 3 percent to 15.3 million. "In the interests of our economy the NBTC is extremely pleased with another good year in terms of visitors and their spending", said Jos Vranken, CEO of NBTC. "In the past years Netherlands again won market share compared to our Northwest-European competitors. Inbound tourism is - despite the current volatility and uncertainty - a growth market. Our strategy for the coming years is aimed at, together with partners, guiding growth, stimulating distribution in time and space, contributing the the strengthening of the regional economy."