Over 46 million tourists stayed in Netherlands accommodations

Last year 46.3 million people spent the night in accommodations in the Netherlands, an increase of 5 percent compared to 2018. The number of overnight stays increased by 7 percent to 124 million nights spent, Statistics Netherlands reported on Thursday. Both the number of Dutch and foreign tourists who spent the night in registered accommodations increased, by 3 percent and 8 percent respectively.

Of the four large cities, Amsterdam accommodated the most tourists by far. Over 9 million tourists spent at least one night in Amsterdam last year, an increase of 9 percent compared to 2018. The vast majority of tourists who visited Amsterdam came from outside the Netherlands.

The Netherlands' other large cities accommodated fewer tourists - 1.2 million in Rotterdam, 1 million in The Hague, and 451 thousand in Utrecht. In these cities the numbers of foreign and domestic tourists were about equal in 2019. The number of tourists who visited Utrecht increased by 2.3 percent. Rotterdam and The Hague saw their tourist numbers decrease, by 4 percent and 4.1 percent respectively.

As Amsterdam's home province, it is no surprise that Noord-Holland accommodated the most tourists last year at around 15 million. Flevoland was the province where the smallest number of tourists stayed, at almost 700 thousand. Noord-Holland and Noord-Brabant saw the biggest increase in number of of tourists, plus 10.1 and 9.6 percent respectively. Tourist numbers decreased in Groningen (-3.4%), Friesland (-2.2%), Flevoland (-5 percent), and Overijssel (-1.1 percent).

The number of nights spent increased in almost all types of accommodations, with only group accommodations seeing a decrease.