Higher taxes further damaging Amsterdam culture sector, ADE, IDFA & other festivals warn

Amsterdam’s continual increases to tourist tax are harming the Dutch capital’s cultural sector, major festivals like the ADE dance event and IDFA film festival warned in Parool. Higher costs for hotel stays are leading to higher ticket prices and a more limited range of programming, affecting not only tourists but also Amsterdam residents, they said.

Amsterdam already has the highest tourist tax in the world, and the city intends to increase it further, from its current 12.5 percent to 16 percent, and eventually 20 percent of the room rate. This is intended to both supplement the city’s budget and to curb the influx of tourists. On top of that, the national government hiked the VAT on overnight stays by 12 percent this year.

People attending the ADE in Amsterdam this week and the IDFA in November are complaining on social media about the exorbitant costs for hotel rooms and Airbnb rentals in the capital. “Hotel prices have gone up by 25 to 35 percent since last year,” one person wrote. “What a ripoff. What is the ADE organization doing about this?”

A spokesperson for the ADE, Amsterdam’s largest annual cultural event, told Parorol that it was aware of the reports regarding rising accommodation costs. “Like everyone else in the broader economy, our visitors are facing higher prices. However, the increase in hotel rates appears to be sharper than in other sectors. This is certainly a point of concern, even though we have no direct influence over it.”

For the IDFA, the rise in accommodation costs is having a direct impact on its programming. It is becoming increasingly difficult to invite international participants, for whom it covers travel and accommodation costs, which in turn narrows the scope of what it can offer.

The ADE may be affected in a similar way, but the spokesperson could not confirm this. The festival components of the electronic dance music event are organized by external parties under the ADE umbrella.

The high tourist taxes also impact other parts of Amsterdam’s cultural offering. “Taxes on air travel, as well as levies on hotel stays—driven by higher VAT and tourist taxes—have risen sharply in recent years,” a spokesperson for the debate center De Balie told Parool. “The costs for international guests are rising structurally. For a speaker traveling from Los Angeles, travel and accommodation expenses are now roughly double what they were a few years ago. That puts a significant strain on our budget. Without an increased budget or additional subsidies, that pressure inevitably falls on ticket prices or limits our programming options.”

The annual Holland Festival is also feeling the strain. “As an international festival, we invite people from all over the world,” said a spokesperson. “About 90 percent of the creators and artists come from abroad. Travel and accommodation represent a fixed and significant line item in our budget.” The rise in VAT and tourist taxes directly impacts the festival’s artistic budget, so the options are decreasing the program or increasing the prices.

“We consciously strive to keep our performances accessible to visitors with smaller budgets. While we cannot definitively prove whether our current ticket prices act as a barrier, broader research into cultural consumption indicates that rising prices play a major role in the decline of cultural attendance,” the Holland Festival spokesperson told Parool.

Jeroen Klijs, a professor of the social impact of tourism at the Breda University of Applied Sciences, called this an “undesirable side effect” of the city’s attempts to curb overcrowding. “It stands to reason that a blanket increase in tourist taxes will also drive away the very visitors you actually want to attract. In doing so, you may end up drawing in more of the type of visitors you’d rather avoid,” he told the Amsterdam newspaper.

Klijs suggests rather focusing on measures aimed at spreading tourist traffic across different times and locations, for example, by developing attractions outside the hotspots and hosting more events during quieter months. “By curating the right offerings—such as cultural activities, museums, and events—you can steer tourist flows in a desired direction. This is a far better approach than the current path, where such attractions are effectively hindered by a general increase in the tourist tax.”