A recent survey by Amsterdam officials has led to a decision by the city's Mayor to impose restrictions on visits to its infamous cannabis-vending cafeterias in a bid to curb over-tourism.
To clean up the seedy reputation of Amsterdam, which houses a population of nearly 1 million permanent residents, Mayor Femke Halsema has decided to restrict the sale of drugs to the city's tourists.
According to a survey conducted by the Dutch Office for Research, Information and Statistics in August 2019, around 1,100 international tourists were questioned between the ages of 18 and 35 regarding the heavy visits to the city's Red Light District - Wallen/Singel areas.
The survey revealed that 32 per cent of respondents would stop coming if they had to pay an entry visit to the red light areas, while 44 per cent said that they would visit less.
While 72 per cent said that their visit to the city is mainly because of the cannabis-coffee houses, however, only 1 per cent said that their visit concerns window prostitution.
Tourists have been visiting Amsterdam since the '70s when the laws and regulations to the usage of cannabis were relaxed and since then the city has seen an influx of tourists.
As per CNN, in recent years Amsterdam has increasingly tried to address the problem of overtourism as the "famously liberal city" is struggling to deal with surging visitors' and frequent instances of indecent behaviour.
"It is understandable that Amsterdam residents want to preserve their beautiful historic center, and also go about their daily lives without constantly being confronted by rowdy tourists," Femke Halsema told CNN Travel.
Starting from April, 2020, measures will be imposed to regulate the visit of tourists from coming to the red light windows and passing the areas beyond 10 p.m. Also it will have restrictions on lingering in 'places that are sensitive to pressure'.
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