Fewer tourists

A total 8.2 million people stayed in some form of guest accommodation in the Netherlands in the third quarter of 2001. This is 285 thousand (3.4 percent) fewer than in the same period twelve months previously. In the second quarter of 2001 the number had already decreased by 3.1 percent.

Hotel guests, 2001

Asia, US and the Netherlands

Partly because of the terrorist attacks in the US, the number of guests and the number of nights spent in Dutch hotels fell more sharply in September 2001 than in previous months. There was a noticeable decrease in the number of visitors from Asia. This was quite remarkable, as visitor numbers from these regions had increased in July and August. The number of visitors from America also dropped more sharply in September 2001 than in July and August, although the decline was parallel with that in the number of Dutch guests.

Guests staying in accommodation the Netherlands, 3rd quarter 2001

Quick recovery in foot-and-mouth areas

The fall in tourist numbers was not the same in all areas of the Netherlands. In the second quarter of 2001 there were fewer visitors in areas where foot-and-mouth disease was prevalent in the spring of 2001. In the third quarter of 2001, however, 2.7 percent more visitors came to these areas than in the third quarter of 2000, whereas the rest of the Netherlands reported a fall of 3.8 percent in the number of tourists.

Although visitors stayed in these regions for shorter periods (they spent 0.2 percent fewer nights there), this too was more favourable than the 3.5 percent fall for the rest of the country. In the summer, more Germans in particular visited the areas affected by foot-and-mouth areas.

Vincent van Polanen Petel