Marry an Amsterdammer, an initiative to combat overtourism in the Dutch capital. (Getty Images)

Marry an Amsterdammer: New Way for Tourists to ‘Explore’ Amsterdam

Tourists visiting Amsterdam are being invited to marry Amsterdammer for the days as a part of a new initiative to improve social relations between the local residents and 42 million visitors that swamp the Dutch capital every year.

Over the past 10 years, there has been an explosion influx of international tourists coming to the city. Amsterdam has seen the increasing number of visitors for nearly 13.2 million people annually. These numbers are making the city center’s neighborhoods ‘unlivable’ at the weekends so that it is diluting the character of the city and pushing up property prices.

Therefore, the ‘Marry an Amsterdammer for the days’ initiative is presented as a movement to invite tourist seeing the city through the eyes of the locals—steering them away from the mainstream tourist trail and encouraging them to make a positive contribution when they are there.

This initiative pairs up one local and one visitor as a couple who will later be married off. The nuptials will take place in the city’s central market district, De Pijp. Yet the most interesting part after the session is the ‘honeymoon’, in which the happy couples will explore the city for a full day visiting hidden nooks that are rarely passed by tourists as well as sharing ideas and cultures to each other.

Dozens of activities can be chosen by the tourists to create a more gratifying trip, such as ‘Plastic fishing in canals’ where tourists can help locals tackle the plastic pollution by grabbing a net on the UNESCO-listed canals, which the plastic waste will then be recycled into furniture. There are also ‘Weed dating’ to do urban farming and ‘Feed the Dutch’ picnic’ to build smooth relations with the locals by inviting them for free sandwiches that facilitate cultural exchange. The list goes on and can be found in a new book The Untourist Guide to Amsterdam that will be published next week along with the launch of the initiative.

Elena Simons of the Untourist Movement that manages the change making initiative said that as there is a lot of negativities about tourists at the moment, they want to work on the positive options that can be a new way to help Amsterdam and other cities facing the same problem.