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Comment by hnboredhn | Hacker News Reader

>But Mayor Femke Halsema complained last year that cruise tourists were let loose for a couple of hours, ate at international chains and had no time to visit a museum, consuming the city but doing little for it.

My guess is most of HN is relatively pro-market pro-business so this probably won't be controversial, but this seems like the type of thing that a government will regret in ten years. So many municipalities would kill for a large number of people to come in, pay locals and local taxes, and then leave without using any social services. I realize Amsterdam is very wealthy, but feel like we've seen countless times cities discouraging visitors and then surprised when tax revenues drop.

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Cruise ship tourism isn't necessarily type of tourism you want to encourage. Specially if you are already popular and well enough connected location for all strata.

The tourist arriving with ships already have paid for their board and food. So they are less likely to spend money in the city. And then it is possibly they go on tours run by the ship thus most money not going to locals.

In the end many cities in Europe especially don't need this type of tourism. They have enough organic self-grown much more profitable tourism already. Does not mean there isn't some places where local economy depends on it. And even then cruise companies are trying to capture also the gains there.

In addition cruises are often marketed to people looking to save money, so you have even less of a chance of them spending in a meaningful way, even beyond the rationale you've already laid out.

...while simultaneously driving out the type of visitor they do want to attract.

Why not just crank up the port fees for cruise ships enough to cover for this gap?

Although perhaps it would be effectively the same as outright banning the ships.

The port could be owned by the state or some private entity, not the city.

I think e.g. the Venice port is owned by the state.

Government can always add levies if it wants.

Because the knock on effects aren't just in the tourists not spending money, but clogging the streets (go to central Amsterdam on a Saturday evening sometime, it's insane) causing trouble, and even if there's money that's not going to the cooks, servers, museum docents etc.

There is likely still a price at which point the strain would be reduced enough that the taxes levied on those left would be worth it if e.g. used to improve local services or reduce local residential services fees or taxes.

But maybe it's not worth the hassle to figure out for some cities.

A government's primary purpose is to act on behalf of its constituents, and if these daytrippers are substantially detrimental to Amsterdam's livability, they should be discouraged from going there.

Or, to put it in more financial terms, the cost of compensating for the negative effects of these tourists might be much higher than the tax revenue they bring in.

I think the counter is that in almost every town locals hate tourists, but an average citizen hasn't thought through the consequences of not having the tax base support them.

As someone who currently lives in NYC it would be great for me if tourists stopped coming to the city and magically the level of restaurants, sanitation, and public transit didnt change at all.

I live in NYC too, but imagine if all of Manhattan was midtown. That's basically Amsterdam these days. The suburbs are fine, but it's a nightmare in the city center. Imagine Times Square but like 6x the size.

Sure, but cruse ship tourists bring in vastly less money so it’s not a constant benefit from a given level of harm.

The Dutch are quite pragmatic and they had years to think about this.

You can't compare Amsterdam tourists with "every town" tourists. Sorry that you have never visited but it is quite apparent if you have.

Amsterdam's old town is tiny if you compare it to NYC, if you have limited capacity it's also rational to prioritize tourists who are likely to spend more per capita (I'm not sure if this will necessarily be the long-term outcome of the band though).

> I realize Amsterdam is very wealthy, but feel like we've seen countless times cities discouraging visitors and then surprised when tax revenues drop.

Care to cite some examples? Because I certainly can't think of any.

Sure, tourism can be a double edged sword, but all the cities I can think of that want to limit tourism (e.g. Venice, Barcelona, etc.) don't appear to have had any negative effects from their campaigns to limit tourism. If anything, these cities are trying to keep the "soul" of their cities intact, to keep their appeal that attracted so many tourists in the first place.

Yeah I can't think of a single case where any city deliberately and successfully discouraged tourism to a significant extent.

It's possible to do by like, jacking up hotel taxes 100x, but nobody actually does that. Maybe some little town, I dunno.

Bhutan (the country) has done it by requiring tourists spend at least $250/day in the country and book through a tour operator. Post-covid they changed things to a flat $200/day tourism tax and eliminating all the other restrictions. They've mitigated a lot of the overtourism issues that have affected their neighbor countries.

Wow, thanks for posting that. Your comment led me to read that Bhutan banned mountaineering in 2003 out of respect for local beliefs. I think that's pretty cool given how rare I think it is for local and national governments to take an approach that aligns with the will of most of their people as opposed to "do what makes the most money, consequences be damned".

Amsterdam doesn't seem to be discouraging ordinary tourists; this appears to be targeted exclusively at cruise ships.

Over 5 million tourists visit Amsterdam a year[1]; only a small fraction of that probably come from cruise ships. If banning those ships improves local quality of life and the tourist experience for non-cruise tourists, then it's probably a net win in terms of tax revenues (besides everything else).

[1]: https://amsterdam.org/en/facts-and-figures.php

Kind of... https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/29/world/europe/amsterdam-uk...

Not just cruise ships, though. British stag nights were also notorious for the excessive nuisance they created. Amsterdam is getting pickier about its tourists, and also about its tourism industry. A lot of shops that were aimed just at tourists have also been closed, or are at least harder to open. They want shops that (also) serve the locals.

People were complaining that the city had turned into a theme park, and that's not fun for the people living there, but ultimately also less attractive to many tourists, who prefer a vibrant, living city, and want to taste the local atmosphere.

> So many municipalities would kill for a large number of people to come in, pay locals and local taxes, and then leave without using any social services.

This is in opposition to your quote. Mayor Halsema said the tourists are at international chains, you're talking about paying locals. Money spent at these chains isn't contributing to the local economy as much as actually spending money at local shops is.

Locals still work at international chains and they pay taxes though.

It’s not as much as local businesses but it’s more than nothing, unless the mayors claim is that those international businesses are negative impacts on the economy, in which case why not ban them rather than the cruise ships?

I’d guess the cruise ships are just an easy scapegoat because they are considered unfashionable.

Or because they’re the only vector by which tourists interact with Amsterdam in a <24hr span?

Thousand and thousands of people arriving, confused and not necessarily having been excited about Amsterdam in particular, and then leaving within 8 hours?

Seems believable that cruise tourists are unlike any other type.

I live in a town that has cruise ships come in (in New Zealand) and it seems they often have activities planned as they hop on tour buses, minivans etc and go off to do things for the day.

I imagine the same would apply to ppl arriving in Amsterdam - being aware of activities to do in the city.

They are unlike other tourists, but I wouldn't jump to assuming that's a bad thing.

This kind of thinking gutted small towns across America. Main Street businesses folded and were boarded up, replaced by mcdonalds and shartmart. Economic death for the town.

I think what I’m suggesting is that if you think McDonalds and Walmart are a net negative (I’m sympathetic) you just ban those businesses. Not some derivative customer base.

Their passengers don’t pay hotels, often eat most of their meals on board, inject far less into the economy than someone staying in a hotel but still take up valuable resources of the city.

> This seems like the type of thing that a government will regret in ten years

Then in ten years, they can reassess and easily re-open the dock. I don't think you're right, but there isn't really a big risk here even if you are right. Even if the dock gets repurposed to something else, if this somehow devastates the city's economy, it is easy to reverse.

People will still want to come to Amsterdam, even more so if they weren't able to stop there on a cruise. The only thing that can really stop tourists from coming to Amsterdam is if its reputation somehow falls below its historical postcard allure and libertine reputation. The main threat to that is the city becoming so packed with rowdy tourists, although even still the hotels and hostels will all be full, just not able to charge $100/night for a hostel bed or $300/night for a tiny bedroom like they can now. But if you're right and the city reverses course, I am sure that the cruise ships will be fighting each other for a spot.

So many municipalities would kill for a large number of people to come in, pay locals and local taxes, and then leave without using any social services.

A cruise ship can be a giant loophole that leaves all externalities to others. Even AirBNB model leaves more money to locals.

Tourists - fortunately - don't get to vote in the municipality elections. Not that Halsema would care because we don't vote for mayors in NL. But she got this one right. I'd be even happier if they jacked up the landing taxes for Schiphol to 10x of what they are today.

I still think the solution lies in either curbing Airbnb, or banning it.

They tried before and failed, I hope they try again.

Having visited Amsterdam over the last 14 years semi-regularly for work, one of the things that struck me is after AirBnB took off, things quickly got worse there.. Even in off-peak seasons it's just a nightmare downtown.

Yes, it stopped being funny long ago. Lots of former rental properties have been converted to short stay hotels. And plenty of the owners are living abroad so Amsterdam is hollowed out from two directions at once like this (space wise and finance wise).

There is no affordable space in the inner city anymore. Nothing. When I grew up tourism wasn't a thing, now it looks as though the whole city has essentially been given over to it with everything else secondary. Really happy to see Halsema make some sensible moves to curb this. But it's lots too late and probably way too little.

I agree it's bad. However. Two of her initiatives I disagree with.

Moving the red light district into a building isn't going to end well. Right now it's out in the open, it's easy to see and monitor... Putting it somewhere kind of out of sight isn't the way.. I do understand that the cops are stretched thin between lots of places. But there has to be a better way.

Closing the weed shops is also not going to end well.

Both these things, the sex tourism and the weed tourism have one thing in common. Tourism.

Limit that.

Also once your neighbouring countries legalize weed you'll find the tourism for that spreads out.

Yes, agreed on the RLD, not sure about the weed shops, that will at least break the connection with tourism though locally it will just go underground.

Weed shops always were legally grey for several reasons.

But I'd rather have them limit the tourism first, that would automatically reduce prostitution and drug sales to the point that those industries would likely shrink with some reduced crime as a side benefit.

Potentially.

When there's a will there's a way. I think what will end up happening is that locals will just buy the drugs, and then sell to the tourists.

Pushing something underground or away, or making it illegal etc... It never works, it only makes it worse.

The war on drugs has lost, and if anything I hope that it's shown us that with both drugs and sex work, you can never stop it, so the goal should be harm reduction.

That said.. I do like the idea of taxing flights into Schiphol. Especially those from England.

Every single time I go, it feels like the English are just the worst offenders.

Venice did the same, some time ago. No one wants these "tourists"...

I recall a big reason for that was because bigger ships like cruise liners damage and destroy the seabed which worsens Venice's flooding problems.

Ever been to Amsterdam? It is extremely busy. Getting rid of cruise ships will do little to affect that.

>a large number of people to come in, pay locals and local taxes, and then leave without using any social services

Sounds like you're describing Downtown SF. I imagine right now many in the city wish the area had been less reliant on people coming in from elsewhere.

Amsterdam is already crowded with visitors.

You want to discourage lower value visitors after a certain point. Cruise passengers would spend far less than land visitors in Amsterdam.

Nobody wants this type of tourism, pollution and massive groups of people wandering around with little economic impact.

Barcelona is trying to limit them also [1]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/09/a-plague-of-lo...

There is an active effort to spread the tourism to other municipalities. Amsterdam is a world famous brand that attracts lots of tourists, so the Dutch tourist industry has been branding other parts of the country with it too.

For example, Zandvoort (which is not Amsterdam, and separated from it by another city, Haarlem) gets branded Amsterdam Beach. The most egregious example I've seen was the Frisian lakes, which is great for sailing and other activities on and around water, got called the Amsterdam Lake District, despite being in a completely different province and on the opposite side of the IJsselmeer.

But if that helps tourists to visit some other parts of the country instead of just drinking themselves senseless in Amsterdam, I guess that's good. Though the branding really rubs me the wrong way.

Ultimately, it's hard to tell. SF spent many years decrying tech, tourists, and folks coming in to work across the bridges. Now that's mostly all gone and the city is shite but few in the city associate the two, expecting similar services with vastly less revenue.

The tourists in Amsterdam are so bad it suppresses residents and businesses in a similar though obviously not identical way to the street residents of San Francisco.

There will still be plenty of Contikis dropping off tourists to go do the same thing without the environmental impact of cruise ships

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