An online Stay Away campaign does exactly what the name suggests: it aims to discourage potential troublemakers from visiting Amsterdam. To start with, this online campaign targets British men between the ages of 18 and 35.
So how does the campaign work? When people with a British IP address type certain search terms—such as “bachelor party Amsterdam” or “bar crawl Amsterdam”—into a search engine, a video automatically appears at the top of the search results.
The Stay Away campaign video is intended to address the problems Amsterdam faces with rowdy tourists who visit sex workers, use drugs, drink excessively, and generally cause a nuisance. As a Brit, I’ll gladly admit that we do indeed love to drink.
Amsterdam is seen by some as a city where anything goes, and a ban on smoking weed in the city center was recently announced. Amsterdam’s city government still wants to encourage visitors, but not at the expense of the people who live in the city.
These videos explain the risks of excessive drinking and drug use. We suspect they also include information about what happens if you ride a bike through the city while drunk or take a dip in one of the canals.
A “How To Amsterdam” campaign will also launch soon to teach visitors how to behave in the city. In short: don’t do anything that the video advises against. It’s a two-pronged approach that may soon be expanded to include search queries from other countries.
