Spreading tourism proceeds with difficulty

7 February 2009

Residents of the inner city have sort of had it with the tourists. The municipality wants to spread tourism over the districts, but implementation is sluggish. Marketing, new museums and an amphibian connection with Noord should change this.

The municipality will invest almost 2 million euro in these measures, according to a policy paper to be discussed by the council on Wednesday. The paper states that there is support for tourism among Amsterdammers, but that this is declining especially in the inner city. Tourists too increasingly complain about the city being crowded.

Since 2002, the municipality has a policy to spread tourism, but implementation is sluggish. For example, the paper concludes that “in terms of policy, the Eastern inner city is set to increase tourism, but touristic development has not really gotten off the ground because the neighbourhood is little known and because of the limited availability of suitable and available hotel locations”.

The districts Oud-Zuid (de Pijp) and Oud-West have developed policies to attract tourists, but they have failed to implement the proposed measures.

The municipality now wants to focus on marketing a number of districts. Oost should present itself as green museum quarter; Noord as creative city; Westerpark as ‘Kulturbrauerei’, the eastern docklands as ‘Amsterdam Docklands’, de Pijp as ‘Quartier Latin’ and Oud-West as ‘Notting Hill’. The city intends to invite journalists over and write to city guides.

New museums are to make the districts more attractive. Noord will get the Film Museum, the eastern inner city a children’s department of the Resistance Museum and in Westerpark, an Amsterdam School Museum will open after 2014, when the current school leaves het Schip (photo).

The municipality will further subsidise the construction of a ramp in order to facilitate the operation of an amphibian bus connection with Noord by the company Splashtours.

Photo: Rory Hyde

Source: nua | Categories: Geen