British tourists are defying Amsterdam’s Stay Away campaign targeting young men from the UK with one mother saying it was “fine if her sons wanted to visit prostitutes”. The Dutch capital has launched an internet advertising drive with pop ups aimed at young men between 18 and 35 in Britain searching for the city as a party destination.
The ads show young men being arrested, fined or suffering health complications as a result of drug and alcohol misuse or anti-social behaviour.
But as Express.co.uk revealed on Thursday, the scare tactics have seemingly had the opposite effect on many Brits with one firm, The Stag Company, reporting bookings for Amsterdam rising by 600 percent.
Tom Bourlet, from The Stag Company, said there had been a “whirlwind 24 hours” of bookings as many tried to beat any future restrictions.
And on the canal-lined streets of the city over the weekend undeterred UK tourists were still enjoying everything the renowned liberal destination had to offer.
Claire Moore, 45, from Worthing, West Sussex, was with partner Jeff Gibbs, 55, and their sons Reece, 22 and Joshua, 26.
Ms Moore told the Mail Online: “We want the boys to make up their own minds about what they want to do here. If they want to visit the prostitutes, that is fine with us.
“They can make up their own minds about what they do here and of course about any sexual preferences they have. We don’t want them to feel like they’ve been judged. We want them to live freely.”
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Young Brit Ollie Puttnam, from Worcestershire, told the paper he “didn’t get the problem” Amsterdam authorities had with British tourists because prostitution, mushrooms and cannabis were all legal there.
On Friday hundreds of sex workers took to the streets in protest at what they see as a clamp down on their profession and plans to move the sex industry out of the city to so-called “erotic centres”.
The group walked through the famous Red Light District before meeting the mayor Femke Halsema.
Paloma, 53, a transexual from the South American country Ecuador, told the Mail Online “British men were polite” and that “sex is for all, not just people from any particular country”.
In a statement, mayor Halsema said: “I hope it’s possible to create an erotic centre that has some class and distinction and isn’t a place where only petty criminals and the most vulnerable women gather.”
