Amsterdam bans cruise ship visits to city's center
July 21 (UPI) -- Amsterdam's council on Friday banned cruise ships from its city center in an ongoing effort to curb mass tourism.
The Dutch city will close its central cruise terminal on the River IJ as it works to cut down on visitors in order to curb pollution.
"Cruise ships in the center of the city don't fit in with Amsterdam's task of cutting the number of tourists," said Ilana Rooderkerk of the liberal D66 Party, which runs the city with the Labor Party and environmentalists.
More than 100 cruise ships dock in Amsterdam annually in what Rooderkerk likened to a "plague of locusts" descending on the city.
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema said last year that cruise tourists would arrive in droves, eat at international chains and rarely stay long enough to visit museums and other attractions.
The decision on cruise ships comes after Amsterdam started a "stay away" campaign in March to discourage European party-goners, particularly young people from Britain, from making the city their destination.
The council previously agreed in February to ban cannabis smoking in Amsterdam's famed red-light district and placed a ban on restaurants staying open beyond 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
Some of those plans have been met with protests. In April, Amsterdam sex work advocates condemned plans to move the red-light district from its historic neighborhood of De Wallen to an erotic center on the outskirts of the city.
The red light district resides in a centuries-old part of Amsterdam city characterized by a network of alleys containing hundreds of one-room shops rented by sex workers who advertise their services from behind a window or glass door. It gets its name from the red lights that sex workers use to illuminate their windows.
