Rethinking tourism; more than ‘leave no trace’

Jeanne van Heeswijk is a Dutch visual artist based in Rotterdam. Within her work she focuses on social change and the transformation of public spaces to achieve something that she calls “Radicalizing the Local.” In order to create settings that are interdependent and independently thriving and to assist neighborhood communities in actively shaping and co-creating their living environment. Her work methods range from social and pedagogical approaches to performative action and her long term research projects result in visual installations or spatial interventions.

When I met Jeanne, she was teaching a course at my study at the Rietveld Academie, which was taking place at the Oude Kerk. We were lucky to be able to meet up in person even throughout corona times. Centered in The Wallen area, which means as much as ‘the walls’ in Dutch, referring to its position within the old city walls of Amsterdam, we were on location for her current project, an extensive research and collaboration with and within Amsterdam’s most well-known neighborhood.
This part of the city, infamously known as the red light district, has been the subject of controversial debates for decades. While in the past the main issue used to be the excessive use of narcotics in the streets, today the tourists have become a big nuisance for local residents.

I met Jeanne again at her workplace at the Oude Kerk to talk to her about the current state and the future of tourism in this city that is known for its sex, drugs and sausage rolls.

Leonie: In your projects you always focus on ‘the local’ residents and shop owners, employees and people that have other ways of belonging in an area. Which role do tourists play in the ‘ecosystem red light district’ and in the common city of Amsterdam? How do they belong?

JvH: I think their way of belonging is manifested by making use of the area for their leisure activities, in the way in which they spend a day off, a holiday if you will. They are users of a particular kind, are active consumers, as they shop, visit bars and restaurants, attractions and museums. At the same time they become part of public space. While walking the city, while sightseeing, they become participants in some way.

L: The city of Amsterdam seems to be going through some sort of identity crisis. The image of the city doesn’t align anymore with the way it wants to be perceived. Plans are being made to actively change the target group of tourists by prohibiting foreigners to enter coffee shops and driving sex work out of the city center. How do you see this process impacting the residential areas in the city center?

You could say that what the city wants is a particular kind of tourist, and there is a particular kind of tourist that they do not want.

JvH: I think, even though this is a very complex matter, you could say that what the city wants is a particular kind of tourist, and there is a particular kind of tourist that they do not want. If you look at the history of the city, and this of course also is a political issue, you will find that the bureau of tourism very actively has been promoting Amsterdam as a city of cultural interest but also as a city especially in this area (De Wallen) where ‘it is thrilling and exciting’ Next to promoting the area internationally, after the crisis in 2009, the municipality has worked hard to make the area more ‘visitor friendly’ and through these policies actually seem to have facilitated the arrival of mass tourism into the area.

L: They did?

JvH: They did, yes. And now they are at a point where they say ‘we want a different kind of tourism, a different kind of tourists’ but what does that actually signal? I think this goes quite often with ... stereotypes like you know, the unwanted tourist is an uncultivated, drunken person from the suburbs, flocking through the city in groups. They’re acting as if the excessive behavior that they want to prevent belongs to one particular demographic and this is, of course, a falsification. The people that come to the city and end up misbehaving come from various different backgrounds, they can be students and bachelor party groups but also congressmen, lawyers and business travelers. So this kind of idea that this excessive behavior belongs to one kind of tourism and that we would like tourists who are more cultivated and who are going to the Rijksmuseum and then don’t go to a sports bar but to a fancy restaurant, I think this is just shortcutting the point. The question especially in this area is whether you want to reduce the city to one typology of users of public space. One that only goes to a fancy restaurant, a boutique store, or a culture event? Do you want to cleanse the city of all unwanted behavior? This is an important question in general.

L: As well as, what does unwanted behavior even mean? The city seems to recognize that culture, in all its forms, is something that Amsterdam is known and appreciated for. People come here to experience a creative, tolerant and artistically vibrant city. This is not just about the culture that you see in the museums, it’s about the whole of the alternative and creative scene, it’s small bars and restaurants, galleries, artist studios and free living projects. Yet, the government is pushing all of that culture out of the city by evicting squats and by gentrifying neighborhood after neighborhood, causing the rent prices to skyrocket.

JvH: Yeah, and also here in The Wallen they’re trying to shut down the windows* supposedly in an attempt to stop tourists from heavily frequenting this area. Of course in corona times most people here say it is a lot quieter. Some of these excessive behaviors that are happening when people are flocking seven rows thick through the small streets perhaps are not desirable, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t want an area where there are all sorts of things going on. This neighborhood is a melting pot. There are a lot of LGBTQIA+ bars and nightlife, there is diverse urban culture, historically it has been an area that offers a place to people who have nowhere else to go, and we should ask ourselves „can we afford to lose that?“

L: In a PDF document by Amsterdam and Partners that talks about ‘redesigning the visitor economy of Amsterdam’ they say they want to ‘Attract visitors who come for the uniqueness of Amsterdam and add value to the city’.  What do you think they mean when they say tourists should ‘add value’ ?

They want the tourists to spend money in the city, but also to spend money in what they call ‘the higher section of tourism’.

JvH: I think in their case what they predominantly mean is that they want the tourists to spend money in the city, but also to spend money in what they call ‘the higher section of tourism’. They’d like tourists to shop in the more expensive shops. Some people say that Amsterdam wants to transform De Wallen into something like to Negen Straatjes, everything should look like that, like a mix of boutique culture.

L: Is there such a thing as responsible tourism?

JvH: I guess. There are several initiatives who are working on this, for example a project called ‘Reinvent Tourism’ by Elena Wonder, I don’t know if you heard about it? They are trying to come up with ways how tourism can give back to the city, by letting tourists more actively participate in the upkeep of the destination they are visiting. This means being aware of how you deal with your garbage, how you actually deal with your consumption behavior, and to not just be a consumer but to also contribute to the maintenance and the upkeep of the city. When we talk about this kind of sustainable tourism, in nature for example, it is about tourism that ‘takes care’ of its surroundings while participating in it. So you could start by asking what processes of people taking care of the upkeep of the places that they are participating in would look like, without flattening it to ‘let them not leave behind their garbage’.

L: So more than ‘leave no trace?’

JvH: I think that sustainable tourism should be more than that, than just shop and disappear. How can you be conscious of what you bring to and take from an area while you’re participating in it? To make it more a reciprocal interaction, that would be something to think through, but it sure is not easy.

L: Also how to motivate people to take part, how to make this an attractive way of exploring a city...

The goal is to make people understand that Amsterdam is an ecosystem of people living there, not a fun park.

JvH:  This project Reinvent Tourism is trying to make this kind of participation attractive to visitors. For instance, if you collect a certain amount of garbage you get some sort of reward or you can go have a coffee with a local resident. The goal is to make people understand that Amsterdam is an ecosystem of people living there, not a fun park. To remind them that the city is actually a lived-in entity that they may be conscious of, that they actually are guests in a lived-in environment.

L: Yeah, how to make someone feel like they are part of it, instead of just feeding off it, I guess?

JvH: Right. But this concept could be a contradiction to people’s desire to really party once in a while. The question  in general in our society is and certainly within  Dutch society, is there still a place for excess? A space for behavior deemed unacceptable.

L: And if so, how do we balance that out with respect for the residents in residential areas?

JvH: I think especially for people that are living and working in The Wallen this question is relevant. How can tourists still come here but be aware of the fact that they are technically walking in somebody’s front yard and not in a fun park.

L: What advice would you give to individual citizens or a neighborhood initiative that wants to take action and have a say in what the future of tourism will look like in Amsterdam?

JvH: In general, I think everybody wanting to participate in the city should claim the right to have a say in how this city is being shaped, formed, governed and financed, and quite often you see that the forces at work that make our cities more homogenous are far greater than the possibility to participate in conversations about it. I think that demanding to be at the table is always an important thing.

A good way to start is by building counter narratives. For example; I had an interview last week with one of the owners of the Condomerie, who has been here for over thirty years and who basically said that when one talks about drunken tourism one singles out one particular category and makes them the central point of unwanted behavior. Suddenly there is talk of ‘these people from the periphery that come here to get drunk and get laid and get high and exhibit unwanted behavior’.
I think that it’s important to tell stories of other realities as well, just as the Prostitution Information Centre says, the narrative about what’s happening to the windows here in The Wallen is one sided, and it is one sided because it needs to fit the gentrification agenda of the municipality.

L: Counter narratives then in a way of saying like, ‘hey no, this is not how it is, but..?’

JvH: More like ‘yes, part of this is true, but this is not all that is’. Because quite often you see that when a stigma is put on an area and it is repeated over and over again, at some point it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think that is why we need to constantly question prejudice. Who is talking on whose behalf, who is crafting the narrative and who does that narrative serve?
This was something that also came up from the conversation at the Condomerie. He told me that his father was a preacher who, when asked about the windows around the church, used to say that paid love around the church is not a problem, but as soon as big capital moves in, you should get worried. If power unites around a particular idea, a particular ideology, an elaborate plan about what the future should look like, we should be worried. Because that might not serve us, the people who are actually living and working in the city, that serves another purpose. So ask yourselves, whose narrative is actually being used and whose prevailed? This, amongst other things, is the power of cultural imagination, or design, or art, to help building and crafting these counter narratives.

L: Yeah, and giving it a space

JvH: Giving it a space for conversation and negotiation.