Back in 2023, in response to a growing number of young male British tourists partying, getting drunk and generally behaving badly, the city of Amsterdam launched a “digital discouragement” campaign aimed at suggesting that these visitors would not be welcome and should skip their trips. At the time, the campaign was widely shared, and many criticized it for unfairly targeting one stereotype of British traveler. Others suggested the real problem was over tourism, which was being fueled by the city’s famous coffee shop culture and red-light district.
Nearly a year later, the early results of the campaign came back and it seemed that indeed this campaign did result in a 22% reduction in British travelers to the city—though the city’s simultaneous flight restrictions and cap on inbound flights to Schiphol airport were probably a bigger factor. The example is one that is being closely watched by many other cities who are also dealing with angry locals who feel their city is getting overrun with tourists who treat it poorly and generally turn a beautiful place into an overly Instagrammed circus of contrived snapshots.
What do you think about these sorts of discouragement campaigns? Are they a natural response from frustrated locals or an overreaction to the problem of over tourism?
