tourism

Millions of tourists visit the Netherlands every year and this number only continues to grow. The government must do more to address the problems caused by tourism and reduce its strain on popular Dutch destinations, a majority of the parties in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, said to NOS op 3.

Over the past years much effort went into luring tourists to Haarlem, but many Haarlem residents now find it the city too crowded.  The municipality therefore want to slow down tourism, in an effort to prevent Haarlem becoming as crowded as Amsterdam, NH Nieuws reports.

A temporary lookout tower and a lift to take people to it are planned for the Dom Tower in Utrecht. The managers of the tower hope that this will still attract tourists to the Dom Tower now that it is being renovated. "At a height of 95 meters there will be a kind of crow's nest which you can get to with the elevator", manager Jaap van Engelenburg said to RTV Utrecht.

Hotels in Amsterdam had a strong start this year. In the first four months of 2019 there were 12.5 percent more overnight hotel stays in the Dutch capital than in the same period last year, De Telegraaf reports based on figures from ABN Amro's economic bureau.

After nine years in operation, the Amsterdam Underground tour - started by the De Regenboog Groep, an NGO that works with homeless people - will now be in the hands of the formerly homeless guides who have lived the experiences the tour aims to illuminate to tourists. De Regenboog made the decision to form a cooperative for the four current volunteers to own the business and have full control of their narratives.

Amsterdam and nine other European tourist cities want more support from the European Union in their fight against tourist rental through online platforms like Airbnb. They issued a joint statement in response to a ruling by the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice stating that Airbnb is an informal service provider and therefore needs to take little to no responsibility for complying with holiday rental rules, NOS reports.

The Hague is working on luring smaller, luxury cruise ships with wealthy tourists to the city. With special tours, the city wants to get tourists excited about coming to visit. According to Economy alderman Richard de Mos, tourism is an important pillar of the city's economy and one in ten residents earns money from it, NOS reports.

The public transit strike left train stations throughout the Netherlands largely deserted on Tuesday morning. People gathered in the stations were largely tourists who did not know about the strike.

Tourists Rachel, Angie, and Acqua were caught by surprise when they arrived at Amsterdam Central Station. They have a hotel booked in Rotterdam. A volunteer from Red Cross explained the strike to them.

Flower park Keukenhof in Lisse closed its doors for the year this weekend. In the 60 days it was open this year, the Netherlands' biggest flower park attracted a record number of 1.5 million visitors, almost double the 800 thousand tickets the park sold in 2013, the Telegraaf reports.

The municipality of Amsterdam is investigating whether a partial alcohol ban is possible on the water in the city. That would mean that it will no longer be allowed to drink alcohol on boats in certain parts of the city, RTL Nieuws reports.

After years of growth, the use of Airbnb in Amsterdam fell for the first time last year, according to real estate adviser Colliers based on figures from research agency AirDNA. Airbnb itself has not yet released figures for 2018, NOS reports.

The number of Airbnb overnight stays in Amsterdam fell by 5 percent to 1.98 million last year, according to Colliers. The number of accommodations decreased by 8.3 percent t 25,380. Airbnb's market share compared to hotels and other accommodation providers decreased from 11.6 percent in 2017 to 10.4 percent in 2018.