(The Hague) Amsterdam has announced a new online campaign aimed at attracting tourists other than the Dutch capital’s young party-goers and conceded that a previous initiative in March had not had the desired effect.
Through online videos, the city will ask tourists from next year to consider it with a “new look”, focused on its cultural wealth rather than on its Red Light District, its bars and its coffeeshops, very popular in the occasion of bachelor parties.
“In recent years, Amsterdam has acquired the image of a city where “anything goes” for many people here and abroad,” the municipality said in a statement released on Tuesday.
She denounced “transgressive” visitors seeking only “sensations and vulgar entertainment,” she added.
“They don’t pay attention to beauty and friendliness, artistic and cultural offerings” or exciting events and pleasant neighborhoods, she notes.
Titled “Renew Your Look,” the campaign will tell stories of “real Amsterdammers” to show a different side of Amsterdam. It will be launched next year.
“The campaign is not intended to attract more visitors to the city,” the municipality clarified.
“We hope to attract a different type of visitor,” she added.
A campaign started in March that initially focused on young Britons, then other men aged 18 to 35 in the Netherlands and the rest of the EU, has failed to have the desired effects , according to a letter from Mayor Femke Halsema to the city council.
“The campaign approach partly adjusts the city’s image, but does not yet lead to a direct reduction in the city’s attractiveness for party tourists from the UK,” she said. deplored.
Amsterdam also banned smoking cannabis on the streets of the Red Light District, a move coupled with tighter restrictions on alcohol and an earlier weekend closure of cafes, bars, restaurants and brothels.
Authorities are also considering moving sex workers to an “erotic center” in the suburbs. But the project sparked an outcry from sex workers in particular.
