Posts Tagged ‘ Netherlands ’

Destinations are pointing out what a good summer it has been for them. But a VAT increase in Ireland may deter UK tourists from visiting the Republic.

Ranked in the top 25 theme parks in the world, the Dutch located, Efteling has seen over 130 million people through its gates since it opened 66 years ago.

Why an aeroplane cabin door is on Shoreditch High Street is one of the things Adrian mentions this week along with Newcastle-Gateshead success and the end of refurbishment at the Glenfinnan Monument.

Although Efteling is the third largest theme park in Europe, many Brits have still never heard of it.

Whilst you are in the Netherlands there are lots of things to see this autumn in their galleries and museums.

Caves, bathtubs, sheep trekking and surfing off the Lisbon coastline are some of the stories that captured Adrian’s attention this week.

Irene Thomas found Curacao the most successfully diverse country she has ever visited – and one of the most beautiful as well

Today is a public holiday in the Netherlands. It is Queen’s Day. If you though the Brits could make pageantry and the monarchy a big tourist draw then watch the events in the Netherlands!

Adrian visits Keukenhof the eight week, Spring flower bonanza that takes place each year just outside Amsterdam and which attracts 70,000 of us from the UK each year

Boutique hotel experts Mr & Mrs Smith have sifted through the schmaltz to find Valentine’s packages that will really set hearts aflutter (and won’t involve soggy petals clogging the plughole). Here are 10 hot properties that offer something a little bit different…

From early April to October, the Netherlands will be hosting an event that takes place only once every ten years. Floriade is a gardener’s paradise

Orange Hotel’s VP of Marketing on Mexico, Kenya and the other side of Kowloon

With the budget less than a fortnight away the travel trade is boosting its attack on how high APD is and how damaging it could be for jobs and the economy if it stays at its high level. They have been boosted in that one of the few countries in Western Europe to retain such a tax has got rid of it. Ireland has removed it because it was seeing reduced tourism coming into Ireland and fewer air passengers both of which meant the tax was not raising net money but costing the economy instead. Will George Osborne, the Chancellor, take heed?

Amsterdam, the biggest city in Holland is very cosmopolitan as Holly White showed in her take on the city where she lives which appeared earlier this month. It has restaurants of all types of cuisine, indeed down some streets you can find a Burger King followed by a KFC and then a Macdonalds. There are lots of signs in English and English is widely heard because there are so many tourists. On the trains coming in from Schipol to Amsterdam Central you will hear the train guard in four different languages. So is Amsterdam typical of Holland or like many big cities, internationalised? To judge how representative it was, I took a trip half an hour away to the city of Utrecht.

Don’t countries want us to visit them? Have many got a tourism death wish that they cannot understand?
Austria has decided to follow Germany and introduce an eco- tax from January 2011 on passengers leaving from its airports. Just in time for the skiing season, the time when the largest number of visitors will be expected. They will charge €8 to fly to a European destination and €40 elsewhere. And how much will this tax bring them? Estimates vary from between €50-€70 million per year. And how much will they lose as visitors decide to go elsewhere

Last November there was a further increase in the Air Passenger Duty (APD) we UK based flyers pay. Next November it will go up yet again. In Ireland a similar tax is blamed by Ryanair for a substantial fall in the number of people visiting there and its decision to maintain quite so many planes at Dublin. It has concerned some countries that their tourism is being affected so the Netherlands has abolished the tax.
The UK is one of the most heavily taxed, if not the most heavily one for airline flights. But it doesn’t only hit people in the UK. Because of the high cost, overseas countries that rely on tourism for substantial national income are worried we won’t travel there.