by The tourist authority in Amsterdam has been accused of hypocrisy and lazy stereotyping in its latest campaign to stop groups of British stags visiting the city.
The new campaign, which is released on a website called “Amsterdam Rules” and is currently only shown to visitors from the UK, aims to “dissuade a specific type of tourist from coming to Amsterdam”, according to the Municipality Amsterdam.
The first question asks: “Why do you want to visit Amsterdam?” If you choose “Stag Party” the survey reads: “That will be a problem, it is forbidden to organize stag parties in Amsterdam.”
When questioned by The Telegraph, a spokesperson for the Municipality of Amsterdam clarified that British stag groups are not prohibited from organizing trips to Amsterdam. Only certain organized tours (such as pub crawls) of a certain size are prohibited in certain parts of the city.
“Guided tours with more than 15 participants are not allowed. Trips past sex workers’ windows are also prohibited. The rules apply to all guided tours, including organized stag dos,” said the spokesperson.
Amsterdam has been cracking down on British stag groups in recent years, and in 2023 the “Fan Away” campaign was launched. The so-called “digital deterrence campaign” included a series of videos aimed at British men between the ages of 18 and 34, which showed nonstop tourists getting into trouble with the law.
Some stag tour operators in Britain pushed back against the campaign. Jon Stainer, creative director at UK stag planners StagWeb, says: “We respect that any destination should try to discourage anti-social behaviour, but targeting stag parties specifically is lazy stereotyping.
“We send thousands of oxen to Amsterdam every year and most of them are responsible people looking for a good time, who pump a lot of money into the local economy.
“The city has the right to ‘clean up its act’, but it is a bit hypocritical to take advantage of the reputation of being a party destination for years and then criticize those who go.”
The latest paid campaign will target Brits using Google search terms such as “Amsterdam coffee shop”, “Amsterdam red light district” and “Amsterdam stag do”. After rolling out to UK tourists, the €125,000 (£105,000) campaign will be shown to potential visitors from Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
The survey asks whether you intend to drink or smoke cannabis in public (prohibited), sleep in your car (prohibited), whether you intend to take a walk in a pub or a guided tour of sex worker windows ( no longer allowed), stay out. late (bars close at 2:00) and whether you hope to buy cocaine from a street vendor (which is illegal). If you take a wrong turn during the survey, the final page reads: “Too bad… Given your preferences, Amsterdam may not offer the experience you want.”
Local resident Callum Booth questions whether the survey will have any impact. “Like the Stay Out campaign, the Amsterdam rules quiz is another ineffective way to deal with the city’s serious over-tourism problem,” he says. The Municipality of Amsterdam says that “the Stay Away campaign has not yet [had] an overall discouraging effect on the target group’s choice of Amsterdam as a party destination”.
Booth adds: “Anyone planning to come to the city for a stag do won’t have to worry about such activities being ‘banned’, much less spend time doing quizzes on line to find out. Surely there are better ways to discourage problem visitors than this?”
Catherine Marie, tourism brand strategy expert at The Plot Thickens, points out that the majority of the target group are Gen Z (between 18 and 27 years old), who are very different to millennials in terms of their expectations and spending habits .
“The British booze culture that I grew up with from the 2000s to the 2010s has faded a bit, as has the label ‘Brits abroad’ – it’s still there, but not as loud,” a says Marie.
“I think Amsterdam could achieve a much stronger result by appealing to this generation for many other reasons [see] the views. Consider how cities such as Berlin, Copenhagen, Split and Edinburgh have achieved this. Yes, Amsterdam was more of a challenge but I think there were other ways to approach this.”
Amsterdam is not alone in seeking a different kind of tourism. Lanzarote last year announced a campaign for higher-cost tourists, while Mallorca has introduced rules cracking down on unruly tourist behaviour. Travel PR expert Phil Bloomfield says we can expect to see more campaigns like this. “I believe this, and similar advertisements pivoting towards ‘better’ visitors from places in Spain and Turkey, will become more common in the coming years,” he says.
“In terms of this particular campaign, my view is that it is done with a certain amount of intelligence and humility for the destination. I think the tone acknowledges that the liberalism that made Amsterdam so popular in the first place is an albatross around its neck, and they are now holding up their hands and trying – not unreasonably – to move on from past time.
“How it lands with particular visitor cohorts is another matter – I can already hear the anger brewing – but any destination should have the right to put its residents first. “
