Last weekend, Els Iping caught a group of male tourists ripping out the shrub in front of her house in the centre of Amsterdam. They were wearing pink dresses and they were very drunk. “These kind of things happen all the time,” she says matter-of-factly. “It’s worse when they throw up in your plant boxes, because you can’t rinse it away– you have to scoop it out.”
Over the last 10 years, Iping – a 64-year-old, stylishly dressed consultant – has witnessed her picturesque neighbourhood change due to an unparalleled growth in the number of visitors. “Every day throngs of tourists pass by my window. The weekend now starts on Thursday afternoon; the screaming and shouting of tourists boozing it up is deafening. And the rubbish they leave behind!”
As she speaks, as though on cue, a group of 30 tourists gathers in front of her window to listen to the lengthy spiel of their tour guide.
“The atmosphere in the neighbourhood is very different now,” Iping continues. “Shops for local people have been replaced by shops that cater solely to tourists. It makes you feel like a visitor in your own neighbourhood. Even the tourists have started to complain now – because all they get to see is other tourists.”
Amsterdam is by no means the only European city where locals suffer from growing numbers of visitors. This summer, residents of Venice and Barcelona fiercely protested against the negative impact of mass tourism on local life. Many popular tourist cities are seriously trying to tackle the problem, but the Dutch capital is establishing itself as a forerunner among them.
Lately Amsterdam has introduced a series of measures to fight the detrimental effects of mass tourism, starting with a crackdown on Airbnb rentals that do not adhere to the rules around how many days a unit can be let each year. It also placed a moratorium on new hotels, increased the tax on tourists’ rooms and – just last month – banned any more shops targeting tourists in the historic centre.
To a certain extent, the problem is of the city’s own making. During the global financial crisis of 2008, Amsterdam decided to heavily invest in tourism in an effort to recover.
“The crisis dealt a serious blow to our financial sector and we saw tourism as our life buoy,” says Sebastiaan Meijer, the council’s spokesperson for economic affairs. “For years we have actively stimulated property developers to build hotels in the city, and our marketing organisation travelled around the world promoting Amsterdam as a tourist destination.”
It worked – perhaps too well. In about 10 years, the number of hotel guests in Amsterdam increased by 61%. The total number of visitors took a leap from 11m in 2005 to almost 18m in 2016.
That’s a lot for a city of 850,000 residents with an historic 17th-century centre. Many streets and alleyways are simply too narrow to allow large crowds of people to pass. The growth is expected to continue to 23m visitors in 2030, according to Meijer. “We now realise we need to get a grip on this,” he says. “Amsterdam wants to be a hospitable city, but mass tourism has too many drawbacks.”
Els Iping considers that an understatement. “I am glad they realise something needs to be done, but to be quite honest: they are a little late. I miss a sound vision for the city’s future. The measures they are taking now are mainly in reaction to residents’ complaints.”
Walking through the crowded streets of her neighbourhood, she points out all the tourist shops that had once catered to locals. “The chemist, the fishmonger, the hairdresser and the shoe shop have all disappeared, replaced by shops that sell ice cream, souvenirs and cannabis seeds,” she says. “What used to be our local cheese shop is now called The Cheese Experience. The shop assistants speak English and they only sell one type of prepackaged cheese. No sane Amsterdammer would ever buy a piece of cheese there.”
On one small street, six Argentinian steakhouses have sprung up. Growing tourism has effectively changed neighbourhoods, says Iping, with most landlords opting to rent out their properties to tourism service providers.
“It’s become difficult for GPs and physiotherapists to find practice space around here; as a result, facilities for local people are disappearing,” she explains. “But compared to other people I still call myself lucky. At least I know my neighbours.” One of her friends lives on a street where virtually all the apartments are rented out to tourists.
It has had a real impact on social coherence, she says. Residents tend to take care of their neighbourhoods, “whereas tourists are mainly interested in having a good time.”
Bert Nap, a 59-year-old French teacher and writer, has seen this enacted around the small, picturesque square, close to the red light district, where he has lived for more than 40 years. “The problem is that Amsterdam has always advertised itself as a city where everything is possible,” he says. “That’s why many tourists indulge in wild partying. They do things here they wouldn’t dream of doing at home.”
In the past tourism in the city observed seasons, he remembers. “You had busy times, but there were quiet times too. Nowadays it’s always crowded. When I go outside, I cannot keep my normal pace, I have to adapt to the slow stroll of the tourist masses in the street.
“I have nothing against guided tours through my neighbourhood. But it’s a different thing when 40 people block the entrance to your house while listening to a guide who’s giving a loud, 20-minute performance that looks more like a stand-up comedy act than a guided tour.”
He says his neighbourhood’s identity has been lost among the masses. “For me a line was crossed when a Venetian gondola appeared in the canals. That’s when we realised the tourist industry was definitely taking over.”
Els Iping singles out, as a particular low point, the introduction of the bierfiets: a vehicle which is both a bicycle for about 12 people and a beer bar. “Many tourists seem to see Amsterdam as a kind of theme park,” she says. “The racket produced by a passing bierfiets is unbelievable.” (Thanks to the concerted resistance of local people, the bierfiets is now banned.)
Sebastiaan Meijer says the council is hoping to come up with more ways to influence the behaviour of tourists. “For a long time our marketing policy was simply aimed at making people come to Amsterdam. Now we are want to spread a new message: ‘come to Amsterdam, but please behave’.”
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