Another significant city is now part of the crackdown on maritime activity.
As part of a multi-pronged strategy to control what they refer to as “nuisance tourism,” local leaders in this tourist hotspot want to impose restrictions on cruise ships.
Officials from Amsterdam revealed that the city had decided to prohibit passengers from cruise ships from disembarking in the middle of the city or from boarding at a terminal close by.
The restriction is the most recent effort by local authorities to reduce both air pollution and the large number of tourists that visit the city each year.
The majority of the municipal council members voted in support of the motion, according to a statement from the D66 political party on Thursday. Fighting climate change is a top priority for the Liberal Party.
Ilana Rooderkerk, the head of the D66 party, stated: “Cruise ships in the city center are not capable of reducing the number of visitors visiting Amsterdam.
Rooderkerk has recently likened cruise passengers disembarking to a “plague of locusts” since they visit the city all at once for a brief period of time.
The prohibition is the most recent move to improve the city’s appearance. Reduced marijuana usage in the city’s red-light district is one of the first steps, as is a warning to male visitors who want to conduct their bachelor parties there to stay away.
In a statement earlier this year, Deputy Mayor Sofian Mbarki made a remark. “We choose limits over reckless growth to keep our city livable.”
According to the BBC, the second reason for barring cruise ships from landing in the city’s capital—which receives more than 100 of them annually—is to lower air pollution levels. A 2021 study of a cruise liner carrying close to 3,000 passengers discovered that it created the same amount of nitrogen oxides in one day as 30,000 truckloads.
According to Dick de Graaff, director of Cruise Port Amsterdam, 114 ships will arrive in Amsterdam this year, as reported by the Associated Press. The target was 130 for the next year.
“The terminal won’t be shut down right away. Council has decided to move the terminal, and we are awaiting the results of the inquiry from the alderman, he said in an email to the Associated Press.
Amsterdam is not the first well-known tourist destination in Europe to prohibit ships from mooring at its ports. In July 2021, Venice forbade ships from sailing through the heart of the city.
The Italian city had the same goal as Amsterdam: to construct a blockade against ships. The then-government issued a statement through CNN to preserve and maintain the “ecological, artistic, and cultural heritage of Venice”.
