Anti-hotel demonstration in Amsterdam Centre

About 150 Amsterdam residents have demonstrated against the massive growth of the number of hotel rooms in Amsterdam, last Friday.

The demonstration was organized to stop the growth of the number of hotel beds in Amsterdam, particularly in the centre.
Tourism to Amsterdam has been growing over the last decade, and more and more this becomes a topic of discussion and complaints.

The complaints are that the large number of tourists make the normal shops go broke, and be replaced by 'useless' shops like souvenirshops, cafes, lunchrooms, massage parlors, ice cream shops, etc. There are also complaints about the inner city generally getting too crowded, and tourists can cause pollution and noise nuisances. Furthermore, there are complaints about tourist bused, that are supposedly too large and too polluting for the inner city. Added are complaints about the 'low-brow' tourism that is growing, leading to beer bikes, noisy boats in the canals, street musicians. There are even complaints about the noise created by the wheels of suitcases.
Also, residential housing becomes scarce and too expensive.

The organization of the demonstration also points at the cities Barcelona and Venice, that suffer from the same problems with too much tourism.

Generally, the complaint is that the balance in Amsterdam between living, working and recreation is shifting too much toward recreation.

The growing number of hotels is a symptom of the growth of tourism. In the last few years, an impressive number of large hotels have been added to the reservoir in Amsterdam, in the city centre and in the outskirts. Thousands of hotel beds are still in the pipeline.

AirBnB pays E 5.5 million to Amsterdam
The other side of the story is that tourism brings in a lot of money and jobs for the Amsterdam economy. Today, the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reports that accommodation agancy AirBnB will pay Eur 5.5 million in tourist tax to Amsterdam. Last year, Amsterdam and AirBnB had agreed that AirBnB would levy tourist tax from its hosts in Amsterdam, and pay this to the City.

The demonstration went from Koningsplein (near the Flower Market) to the huge former Court of Justice at Prinsengracht. This 17th century building is to be converted into a hotel.