The tourists are coming. Locals tremble. First came the pandemic, then you couldn’t travel. Then came the Russian attack on Ukraine, then many did not want to travel.
But this year – despite inflation and economic difficulties – the tourists are back in Europe’s cities.
And with that, the old conflicts with the locals bubble up again.
– Sometimes there is a tourist lying in front of the door, in his own vomit, Sascha Kok tells me when I meet her in her bookstore in central Amsterdam.
Although Amsterdam has introduced new rules to tame tourism, the streets of the Red Light District are absolutely packed. There are shards of glass on the ground and people are screaming and raging. It feels like Europe’s ground-zero for the conflict between residents and visitors.
A party-Disneyland
If you count the size of the population, Amsterdam receives the most tourists of all European capitals. You notice it immediately when you get off the train at the central station. Tourists, tourists, tourists.
Some are in the city to see the beautiful houses by the canals, or to visit the Anne Frank House or the Van Gogh Museum. But, many people come to Amsterdam for the same reason as Charlie from Kent in the UK – to party. He and a group of eight young men are in Amsterdam for a bachelor party.
– It’s not even ten in the morning and we’ve already drunk ten beers, he says happily.
He is also open that he is in Amsterdam for “weed and pussy.”
A bookstore in the Red Light District
The bookshop Kok is in the middle of the Red Light District but would fit in just as well in an alley in Cambridge. Sander and his sister Sascha run the shop that their grandmother and grandfather opened in 1946.
Antique books, including large bird books from Sweden that sell for 900 euros, lie in stacks.
Some things have become, they say. There are not as many hard drugs like heroin as before. But tourism has gotten worse, says Sascha.
– After the pandemic, there were even more partying tourists than before, but the other tourists still stay away, she says and sighs.
New rules
Amsterdam has now introduced new rules to tame partying in the inner city. You are no longer allowed to drink alcohol or smoke cannabis on the streets, and the city has put up signs everywhere reminding tourists that they can face hefty fines if they urinate freely outside.
The plan is also for prostitution to move out to an area on the outskirts of the city.
So far, Sascha has not noticed any major difference.
– As long as there are cheap flights and the tourists will come, she says.
Outside the store, the streets fill up again. The pub on the corner is already full. I wonder how many beers Charlie and his buddies have had by now.