Solution for Overtourism

Helen Coffey writes on Independent about some cities suffering from too many tourists visiting their cities and attractions at the same time, which leads to huge traffic in attractions and popular places. She writes that Amsterdam has come up with a new innovative and creative solution, which uses technology, because they do not want to restrict tourists to come to Amsterdam. This is something that is very important to consider due to the growing number of tourists in many cities. It looks good for the visitors if a city considers these issues and wants to make a positive impact on tourists. In the worst situations a tourist might turn away when he or she sees a super long queue or a huge crowd of people in the attraction that he or she wants to visit.

According to Coffey, the tourists can get an Amsterdam’s City Card, which has a chip inside, and the card allows tourists to visit multiple attractions in the city and even use public transport. At the same time, one can see where they are moving and what they are doing at what time.  This way the team that is working with the tourism in Amsterdam, can for example suggest tourists to go to another attraction instead of the one that has a lot of people already. This is good for the city but also for the tourist because they do not have to wait that much to get to the attraction. Coffey also writes about another thing that Amsterdam is doing; they have an app called “Discover the City”, which warns tourists if some attractions or places are more crowded than the others. This can save both time and nerves of the tourists.

We think that this is the future in tourism. People want that they can travel as easy as possible and that they do not have to waste their time in waiting. Of course, there are always huge amounts of tourists in big cities, and you can never avoid other tourists, but this is one solution at least for now to make their visit more pleasant. This is good also for the ones who take care of these attractions because they do not have to handle that many tourists at the same. We think Amsterdam’s solution to overcrowded city is way better than for example restraining visitors, which some cities are using, and the city of Amsterdam is clearly thinking ahead creating a creative, innovative solution for the problem.

Kaisa & Paiju