tourism

The number of foreign tourists staying overnight in the Netherlands continues to grow. Last year, a total of 20.1 million tourists from abroad spent at least one night in our country, a growth of 7 percent compared to the year before, ANP and De Telegraaf report based on figures from the Netherlands' office of tourism and congresses NBTC.

The increase is in line with expectations, NBTC director Jos Vranken said to ANP. NBTC expects that the number of tourists will increase to 30 million in the next decade. 

The number of hotels in and around Amsterdam continues to grow. Over the past five years, 7,700 hotel rooms were added within the city, an increase of 25 percent. In the region around the Dutch capital, the number of hotel rooms grew by 40 percent, the Volkskrant reports based on its own analysis of figures from Statistics Netherlands and Amsterdam's stats department IOS. 

The Volkskrant's figures exclude rooms rented through platforms like Airbnb. 

Holiday rentals are harming Amsterdam neighborhoods, according to the Amsterdam Court of Audit. Reports of nuisance caused by tourists are not handled, and landlords feel "hunted" by complaints from neighbors. This can lead to disagreeable living situations. The city is also at risk of losing millions of euros in unpaid fines for housing fraud, the Court of Audit concluded, NU.nl and Het Parool report. 

Last year Dutch municipalities collected an average of 494 kilograms of household waste per Netherlands inhabitant, Statistics Netherlands reported on Monday. Households in the very urban areas produced less waste for municipalities to collect than rural households, 419 kilograms and 582 kilograms per inhabitant respectively.

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.