> For example, it used to be about impossible to get into Amsterdam, because of rent control and renting regulations; no supply of places to let. Then AirBnB came along, and everyone and their dog let places on AirBnB. You could get in, and at a good price. Then AirBnB was essentially banned, and now you can't get into Amsterdam.
Slightly off topic, and not aimed at you in particular but at tourists in general: For the love of god visit other cities than Amsterdam. Amsterdam is expensive and overcrowded. There's a whole country worth of interesting places to visit instead.
Will you say the same for Paris, London, Rome, Milan, New York, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Beijing, Tokyo, Hongkong, Singapore, and Seoul? All of those cities (and more!) fit this template: "X is expensive and overcrowded." Yeah, and they have lots of interesting culture so people want to visit. They are willing to pay the high prices and put up with crowds.
I've got no first hand experience of those cities, so no I won't.
The point I'm trying to make with Amsterdam is that it's really nothing special when compared to a bunch of other nearby cities. Sure if you want to visit the Anne Frank house you need to go to Amsterdam and stand in a long line. If, however, you are more interested in the culture of the country you can find that nearly anywhere. Pretty much any city of reasonable size will have a FEBO and a pancake restaurant and a couple of neat museums. No need to queue for those, and yet people DO queue for those in Amsterdam for some reason.
Beat on Instagram influencers all you like but popular cities tend to be popular for good reasons. I might go meh to a few cities on that list but quite a few of them would be high on my visit again list.
That is exactly my point. The OP read like a moaning Amsterdammer. I see it a lot: residents of that city complaining about the tourist crowds. I think a better idea would be a very high tourist tax -- like 100 EUR per day charged via hotels etc. (Business travelers would be exempt.) Then, you can exclude all of the low end tourists that few people want in their crowded cities -- they can enjoy second tier cities, or day trips from a nearby city. I cannot find it now, but there is a group of small Italian seaside villages that implemented something similar to limit the number of tourists. My point: Go for quality of visitors, not quantity. The tourist tax can be used to improve tourist infrastructure.
