MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Netherlands suffering of over-tourism: time for destination management instead of destination promotion

Dutch Tourism will stop promoting Netherlands as a holiday destination because its main attractions, canals, tulips, and windmills, are becoming overcrowded (Robin Utrecht/AFP/Getty Images)

Netherland Tourism, Spanish Tourism, Hawaii Tourism has a common problem. Over-tourism! The world loves windmills, Amsterdam and tulips- but there is more to the Netherlands.

The Dutch Tourism board will stop promoting the Netherlands as a holiday destination because its main attractions – the canals, tulips, and windmills – are becoming extremely overcrowded.

In the future, the NBTC will focus on trying to attract visitors to Holland to other parts of the country by putting the spotlight on other areas.

The change of re-position is part of the organization’s strategy for the period up to 2030. ‘To control visitor flow and leverage the opportunities that tourism brings with it, we must act now. Instead of destination promotion, it is now time for destination management,’ the NBTC report said.

‘Many other regions should also profit from the expected growth in tourism and we will stimulate new offerings. The NBTC will become much more of a data and expertise centre,’ a spokeswoman told a local newspaper.

The organization expects at least 29 million tourists will visit the Netherlands every year by 2030, compared with 19 million in 2018. Last year it developed the HollandCity trying to promote regions outside the usual hotspots of Amsterdam. It included fishing villages and the bulb fields.

HollandCity strategy which involves promoting the Netherlands as a single metropolis with lots of districts, such as Lake District Friesland and Design District Eindhoven.