Can Amsterdam fight overtourism?

The coalition agreement for the new Municipal government in Amsterdam has set out plans to‘fight overtourism’. The basic weapon to be employed is raising the tourist tax, already the highest in the world, to dizzying new heights. The tax on tourist accommodation will be increased from the current 12.5% of the room rate to 16% in 2027, and then by a further 1% every year until it reaches 20%, ‘so that visitors contribute more to the city’.

Other measures to try and curtail the growth of tourism include more taxes on the activities of day visitors, closing the passenger terminal for cruise ships in the city and stopping tourist promotion.

These extensive measures against tourism are set out in a policy document called ‘Your city is my city: Our Amsterdam’. Our Amsterdam deliberately signals an inclusive city, in contrast to the egotistical stance of the previous marketing slogan ‘I Amsterdam’ (coincidentally the ad agency responsible for this campaign just went bankrupt).  

Interestingly, tourists in particular are singled out in the new policy as a group that does not belong to the city, unlike ‘people who were born here’, care workers, teachers,  entrepreneurs, refugees, artists, cleaners, volunteers and young people. This marks an interesting shift in the positioning of tourists, who in the past might have been seen as ‘temporary citizens’ to a limited role as consumers of the city. Financialising tourism, like any policy measure, has both intended and unintended consequences. The intended consequence might be limiting tourists numbers (although a recent report suggested the tourist tax would have to be tripled to achieve this), but one unintended consequence is turn tourists into a milk cow for the Municipality. The new coalition agreement will push the tax rate on tourist accommodation to over 40%, if we include the recent hike in Value Added Tax as well. Tourists will start making an even bigger contribution to Municipal and national tax budgets. This could very well produce a contradiction between the aim of reducing tourist numbers and the temptation to try and increase tourism to balance pressured public finances.

It will probably also change the mentality of the tourists themselves, who might come to realise their increasingly important role in bankrolling the city. Like many other groups who have been repurposed from citizens to consumers, they might also start demanding more for the taxes they pay. This effect of neo-liberal policies has already been felt in education, where students now feel they can be more demanding because of higher tuition fees. Similarly, tourists might start expecting the city to provide them with more and better services for the money they are generating. Of course, one of the reasons for taxing tourists is that they are less likely to complain than other city users, but it may well have a negative impact on their behaviour – shifting them from supposedly responsible ‘temporary citizens’ to entitled ‘city sponsors’.

From temporary citizen to temporary consumer?

The city itself may also come to view tourists simply as a source of income, or a financial instrument. If tourism becomes an unmissable part of the municipal budget, it will be increasingly hard to implement measures to limit tourism. In the future, the temptation may be to stimulate tourism growth again.

From I Amsterdam to My Amsterdam?

In the meantime, for the tourists, the change in the slogan for Amsterdam might become a shift from  ‘I Amsterdam’ (the Performing City) to ‘We Amsterdam’ (The Sharing City) to ‘My Amsterdam’ (The Selfish City).

To be continued….