Same tbh!!
It would be an understatement to say that the British have a bit of reputation for rowdy behaviour abroad. Every summer, thousands of young Brits cram clean underwear and a toothbrush into a backpack and hop on a £20 Ryanair flight to a little place called ‘somewhere in Europe’, before spending a long weekend traipsing round Irish bars, getting sunburnt, and demanding “chips? fries?” in every restaurant.
With their love of binge drinking, singing football songs at 4am, and dick-shaped ephemera, unsurprisingly, most Brits bring a sort of totally disrespectful, loutish, and uncivilised vibe to European cities that the locals really don’t like. And now, Amsterdam has officially taken a stand against the bad behaviour of Brits abroad, with a campaign urging young British men wanting a “messy” weekend to “stay away” from the city.
Starting from this week, when people in Britain enter terms into search engines such as “stag party Amsterdam”, “cheap hotel Amsterdam” and “pub crawl Amsterdam”, they will see video adverts which brutally demonstrate the consequences of anti-social behaviour. “Coming to Amsterdam for a messy night + getting trashed = €140 fine + criminal record = fewer prospects,” the ads’ captions say, while the video depicts a troublesome tourist getting handcuffed, fingerprinted, and shunted into a cell.
It’s faintly ridiculous, but Amsterdam locals have unquestionably suffered as a result of poor behaviour from tourists. They’ve previously complained that the huge influx of tourists attracts drug dealers, while the frequent drug and alcohol abuse is driving up crime rates. “The atmosphere can get grim especially at night,” said one council press release published last month. “People who are under the influence hang around for a long time. Residents cannot sleep well and the neighbourhood becomes unsafe and unlivable.”
Additionally, according to the Guardian, research has actually found that British men aged between 18 and 35 (as well as Dutch men of a similar age) tend to cause the most nuisance in Amsterdam’s red light district, with noisy stag parties and pub crawls making life increasingly difficult for locals. “Visitors are still welcome, but not if they misbehave and cause a nuisance. As a city, we are saying: we’d rather not have this, so stay away,” Sofyan Mbarki, deputy mayor for economic affairs and the inner city, said in a press statement.
While the campaign is aimed at British people, it’s set to eventually be expanded to include the Netherlands and beyond. A complimentary “how to Amsterdam” is also set to launch, which will include posters, screens in hotel lobbies, and hosts encouraging people to treat the city with respect. The city is also planning to implement earlier closing times for brothels and bars starting from this weekend, a ban on cannabis smoking in public in central Amsterdam from May, and there are controversial plans to move the red light district to another area.