Boozy tourists on cheap breaks with Ryanair and AirBnB are ruining historic European cities like Amsterdam
Party-loving holidaymakers in places like Prague, Barcelona and Amsterdam put locals off living in city centres
PARTY-LOVING tourists on bargain mini-breaks are ruining some of Europe’s oldest cities, according to tourism experts.
Tourism chiefs are warning that popular destinations like Amsterdam are suffering because the huge numbers of visitors mean locals no longer wants to live in the city centres.
They are blaming low-cost airlines like Ryanair, as well as the rise of AirBnB.
Amsterdam Marketing chief executive Frans van der Avert told that bargain-hunting tourists are damaging to the cities, because they only see them as party destinations.
Instead of buying tickets to museums and meals in nice restaurants, the visitors are instead spending all of their money on alcohol and cheap fast food.
According to the site Travel Weekly, Frans revealed that they have given up marketing Amsterdam as a destination because they don’t want any more visitors.
He told the site: “A lot of smaller historic cities in Europe are getting destroyed by visitors."
He continued: “We don’t want to have more people. We want to increase the quality of visitors – we want people who are interested in the city, not who want it as a backdrop for a party.”
“We see lots of visitors with no respect for the character of the city. Low cost carriers create a problem. Ryanair [passengers] – they are the loudest.”
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The drunken tourists aren’t the only problem – according to Frans, the rise of AirBnB is also spoiling the character of the city by turning areas into a ghost town.
He said: “There are so many Airbnb rentals in the [Amsterdam] canal district that the city becomes empty.
“The sharing economy is really a big threat. Airbnb is a billion-dollar company that is destroying cities.”
He added: “Amsterdam is not a big city – 800,000 live in the city and we have 17 million visitors a year - when you say to local people ‘Tourism is about jobs’ they say ‘I don’t care, the visitors have to go.’”
Amsterdam isn’t alone in its struggles with popularity – Frans believes that residents of other historic cities like Barcelona, Prague and Dubrovnik are equally fed up.
He warned that residents could soon start voting for policies that will make the cities much less welcoming for tourists.
Ryanair have since hit back at Frans's comments, saying that they show he doesn't understand how tourism works.
Kenny Jacobs, the Chief Marketing Officer said: "This is total nonsense. Firstly, Amsterdam is one of the smallest route networks in our operation - we fly to Amsterdam from two cities, Dublin and Malaga.
"This year we will bring 525,000 customers to and from Amsterdam; about half of these are Dutch nationals, a quarter are tourists and the other quarter are business travellers.
"Secondly, yes, Amsterdam does have a lot of tourists, but that does not mean you stop tourism or show such disrespect to the tourists that do come.
"The approach of the Netherlands should be to diversify the tourism to other parts of the country outside of Amsterdam.
"Mr. van der Avert's views are those of someone who wants tourism to be the preserve of the wealthy - he would clearly like hotels and airfares to Amsterdam to be more expensive so that everyday tourist cannot afford them."