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“Although sustainable marine fuels and technologies are not yet available at scale, cruise lines are addressing these challenges with significant investments and innovative approaches,” the statement said. The discussions between the local government, Amsterdam port, and cruise industry are ongoing, and the next steps for the proposed ban have yet to be released. If approved, it will see the closure of Cruise Port Amsterdam on the river IJ near the city's main train station, Amsterdam Centraal Station. In 2021, authorities in Venice, Italy, announced decided to ban large ships from anchoring in the centre. According to Amsterdam’s Research and Statistics unit, the city is estimated to attract a total of 20 million passengers this year.
Amsterdam Votes to Ban Large Cruise Ships From City Center—What This Means for Upcoming Cruises
Amsterdam's council has banned cruise ships from the city centre as the Dutch capital tries to limit visitor numbers and curb pollution. The current cruise terminal was built in 2000 and cost around 40 million euros to build, according to Cruise Port Amsterdam. A few weeks before the city council’s decision, the city had approved the installation of shore power connections for ocean and river cruise ships that are expected to be operational by 2025.
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“Amsterdam sails better without the cruise,” says Rooderkerk in a statement, per Google Translate. “Holland America Line has been bringing guests to and from the Netherlands for 150 years, and that tradition will continue for many years to come,” the cruise line tells the Points Guy’s Jordan Waller in a statement. City leaders have not given any indication as to when they would officially implement the ban, or where the terminal might be relocated to. “This will take some time, so at the moment we cannot give any details on how or when the proposal will be implemented,” she wrote. The city has long been trying to curb rowdy behaviour such as stag parties, especially near the red light area where sex workers operate.
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The growing northern district is one of the few areas within the city’s limits with room to add housing stock, and the city wants to build the bridge to a height of just 30 feet for both cost and accessibility reasons. The decision comes amid a wider crackdown on the tourist influx and sense of disruption they bring to Amsterdam, a city famed for its red-light district and coffee shops that sell marijuana. Ms Halsema, the city's first female mayor, has been the face of Amsterdam's campaign to clean up its streets, which welcome up to 22 million tourists each year, despite the city's relatively small size. More than 3.8 million passengers have gone through the Cruise Port Amsterdam since 2000, its website says, and more than 2,100 ships have docked in that port. The move comes amid a years-long effort to address the impact of overtourism in Amsterdam and follows a broader outcry over crowding from popular cruise destinations in Europe and elsewhere.
The city has struggled with over tourism since travel resumed post-Covid, Bloomberg reported, and short-term visitors from cruise ships aren’t seen as overly helpful to the local economy. Pollution was also a concern for the Spanish port—Barcelona was the European city most polluted by cruise ship emissions in 2019, per Bloomberg, and in 2017 there were 32.8 tons of sulfur oxides emitted at the port. The Dutch capital’s council voted on Thursday to restrict the jumbo ships from docking in the city and aims to close its central cruise-ship terminal, according to a municipality spokesperson. The timeline and details of implementation will be decided after consultations with various stakeholders, the spokesperson said.
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The council claims cruise ship vessels are not conducive to the city's efforts to limit tourism and boost sustainability, according to a statement from the Democrats 66 party. Amsterdam’s latest measure against out-of-control tourism and worsening pollution is closing down a cruise ship terminal in the city center. The Dutch city’s municipal council voted on Thursday (July 21) to restrict large ships from docking in the center with aims to eventually close the terminal, the BBC reported. While cruise ships were welcomed with open arms before, the current city government has even called cruise ship passengers ‘locusts’ and wishes to ban cruise ships entirely from the city limits. The policy aligns with other initiatives in Amsterdam to discourage tourists from visiting the Dutch capital. According to a municipality spokesperson, Amsterdam’s council voted on Thursday to restrict the jumbo ships from docking in the city while the Netherlands’ capital also aims to close its central cruise-ship terminal, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
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She said that they did not benefit the city's residents because they only visited for a "couple of hours", ate meals at "international brands" and had "little time" to visit museums. The proposal was adopted by a large majority of the city's council, which is run by a coalition of the centrist Democrats 66 party (D66), the social democratic PvdA and the GroenLinks environmentalists. Amsterdam is set to receive a total of 73 cruise ship visits through the end of 2023. Holland America Line’s ms Rotterdam is scheduled to make nine visits, making a total of 15 visits for Holland America Line. Norwegian Cruise Line also has 15 calls scheduled this year, six of these will be from the cruise line’s flagship, Norwegian Prima.
🛍️ Banning new tourist shops in the city’s central Singel area and on all main streets reaching out to the edge of its Canal Belt. While the council has the power to enact this policy locally due to the Port Authority’s ownership by the municipality, the motion needs to be translated into law or regulation, which can be a lengthy process. Moving the terminal was first brought up in 2016, but little else has happened besides limiting the number of calls from 300 to 190. CLIA also addressed the pollution concerns, noting that operators are working to reduce emissions at sea and in port. The campaign, targeting young British men, involved online advertisements warning people searching for getaways to Amsterdam of the “consequences of antisocial behaviour and excessive drug and alcohol abuse”. Any changes or relocation efforts would likely take years to implement, possibly in a multi-phased approach or with only limited impact in the initial stages.
Mayor Femke Halsema, a former GroenLinks party leader, has been a strong proponent of reducing "party tourism" in the city. "We do not want to become Venice or Dubrovnik, where your historical center has become a closed theme park," Halsema told Bloomberg in 2022. Further bolstering its sustainability efforts, the Dutch government also plans a 12% reduction in air traffic to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (AMS) by 2024. The plan will see the airport's current annual cap of 500,000 flight movements cut to 440,000.
To appease the city’s 900,000 residents, the local government this spring introduced a raft of new measures aimed at sending a message to disruptive tourists to behave or stay away. It has banned the smoking of marijuana on the streets of its popular red-light district, mandated earlier closing hours for cafes and restaurants and prostitution businesses, and banned the sale of alcohol in stores after 4 p.m. Such efforts would likely be actioned through multiple phases over the next few years. The city is a popular embarkation port or stop on transatlantic, British Isles and Northern and Western Europe itineraries. Many river cruise lines, such as Viking and AmaWaterways, also embark ships or dock in the city on Rhine River and "Tulip Time" cruises around Belgium and the Netherlands. Amsterdam is not the first city to ban cruise ships, as Venice,Italy, announced in 2021 that it worked with UNESCO cultural body to banlarge vessels from entering the city center.
Which European cities are trying to cut back the number of cruise ship visits? - Euronews
Which European cities are trying to cut back the number of cruise ship visits?.
Posted: Tue, 16 Apr 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]
He added that the cruise port is expecting to welcome 125,000 cruise ship passengers this year, and 175,000 cruise ship passengers next year. The decision follows a motion passed with a considerable majority in the city council. The resolution involves relocating the current cruise terminal to an area outside the city center.
A study of the Marella Discovery, a ship that docked in Amsterdam, estimated that the vessel produced the same amount of the pollutant nitrogen oxide as 30,000 trucks or 370,000 cars. The trade group said about 1 percent of Amsterdam’s visitors arrive by cruise ship every year and noted that cruise tourism contributes about 105 million euros to the city every year. Industry group CLIA has clarified that cruise ships are currently still being welcomed to the city, and upcoming cruises with scheduled stops in Amsterdam are still allowed to port there. The crackdown on cruises is the latest move by the city to reduce tourism in the Dutch capital, which has seen numerous recent campaigns to discourage tourists attracted by its infamous party town reputation and reduce group travel. “Of the more than 21 million visitors that Amsterdam receives each year, around 1% arrive by cruise ship, with cruise tourism contributing around 105 million Euros to the city annually,” CLIA said. D66 politician Ilana Rooderkerk, who compared cruise passengers to a "plague of locust" in an opinion piece last month, said Amsterdam would "sail better" without cruise ships.
She’s covered Netflix’s hottest documentaries, a surge of assaults reported on social media, the most popular books of the year and how climate change stands to impact the way we eat. Roeloffs was included on Editor & Publisher Magazine's “25 Under 30” list in 2023 and worked covering local news in the greater Boston area from 2017 to 2023. She graduated with a double major in political science and journalism from Northeastern University. Follow Roeloffs for continued coverage of streaming wars, pop culture news and trending topics. Environmental concerns also contributed to the decision—the European Federation for Transport and Environment said in June that 63 cruise ships owned by the Carnival Corporation emitted 43% more sulfur oxides than Europe’s 291 million cars in 2022. Anouk Panman, a spokesperson for deputy mayor Hester van Buren, confirmed in an email Friday the city council had adopted the motion.
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