Amsterdam festivals warn tourist tax is raising prices and cutting shows

Major Amsterdam cultural institutions, including the Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) and the documentary festival IDFA, say the city’s rising tourist tax is pushing up ticket prices and shrinking what they can programme. The warning, reported by NL Times based on interviews in the Amsterdam newspaper Parool, comes as ADE takes place this week and IDFA prepares for November.

What happened

According to NL Times, several of Amsterdam’s best-known festivals and venues told Parool that the city’s repeated increases to tourist tax are hurting the cultural sector. Their argument is that more expensive hotel stays lead to higher ticket prices and a narrower range of programming. They say this affects Amsterdam residents as well as tourists.

NL Times reports that Amsterdam already has the highest tourist tax in the world. The city plans to raise it from its current 12.5 percent of the room rate to 16 percent, and eventually to 20 percent. The aim is both to add to the city’s budget and to reduce the number of tourists. On top of this, the national government increased VAT on overnight stays by 12 percent this year.

Visitors to ADE this week, and people planning to attend IDFA in November, have complained on social media about the cost of hotel rooms and Airbnb rentals in the capital. One person wrote that hotel prices had gone up by 25 to 35 percent since last year and asked what the ADE organisation was doing about it.

A spokesperson for ADE, which NL Times describes as Amsterdam’s largest annual cultural event, told Parool the organisation was aware of the reports. The spokesperson said visitors were facing higher prices like everyone else in the economy, but that hotel rates appeared to be rising more sharply than prices in other sectors. They called this a point of concern, while adding that ADE has no direct influence over it.

For IDFA, the effect is already showing in its programme. The festival covers travel and accommodation for international participants, and NL Times reports that this is becoming increasingly difficult, which narrows what it can offer. ADE may be affected in a similar way, but its spokesperson could not confirm this. The festival parts of ADE are organised by external parties under the ADE umbrella.

Other institutions report the same pressure. A spokesperson for the debate centre De Balie told Parool that taxes on air travel and levies on hotel stays have risen sharply in recent years. They said travel and accommodation costs for a speaker coming from Los Angeles are now roughly double what they were a few years ago. Without a bigger budget or extra subsidies, they said, that pressure falls on ticket prices or limits programming.

The Holland Festival says about 90 percent of its creators and artists come from abroad, so travel and accommodation are a fixed and significant part of its budget. A spokesperson said higher VAT and tourist taxes cut directly into the artistic budget, leaving a choice between a smaller programme and higher prices. The festival said it tries to keep performances accessible to people with smaller budgets. It cannot prove whether its current prices put people off, but it pointed to wider research suggesting rising prices play a major role in falling cultural attendance.

Why it matters if you live in the Netherlands

The festivals’ main point is that this is not only a tourist issue. If you live in or near Amsterdam and go to concerts, film screenings, debates or performances, the institutions say you may see the effects in two ways.

• Ticket prices. De Balie and the Holland Festival both say rising accommodation costs for international guests can be passed on through ticket prices.
• Less international programming. IDFA says it is already finding it harder to invite international participants. The Holland Festival, which relies heavily on artists from abroad, says a smaller programme is one of its options.
• Visiting friends and family. If people are coming from abroad to join you at ADE or IDFA, social media reports cited by NL Times suggest accommodation in Amsterdam is noticeably more expensive than last year.
• Access for lower budgets. The Holland Festival says it wants to stay accessible to visitors with less to spend, but warns that higher prices tend to reduce cultural attendance more broadly.

The source does not give specific ticket prices or programme changes for upcoming events, so check each festival’s own website for current details before you buy.

What to watch next

The planned rise in Amsterdam’s tourist tax, first to 16 percent and later to 20 percent, is the key development to follow. Cultural institutions have now made clear they see it as a direct threat to their budgets and programmes.

Jeroen Klijs, a professor of the social impact of tourism at Breda University of Applied Sciences, told Parool the effect on culture is an “undesirable side effect” of the city’s efforts to curb overcrowding. He argued that a blanket increase may drive away the visitors the city actually wants and attract more of the kind it would rather avoid.

Klijs suggested the city focus on spreading visitors across different times and places, for example by developing attractions outside the busiest areas and holding more events in quieter months. He said that using cultural activities, museums and events to steer tourist flows would work better than a general tax increase that holds such attractions back.

Look out for how IDFA’s November programme compares with previous editions, whether other festivals adjust prices or line-ups, and whether the sector asks the city or the national government for extra subsidies to offset the higher costs.

Source: NL Times