A record 13 million foreign tourists visited the Netherlands last year, an increase of 3% on 2010 and a new record, the tourist board NBTC said on Thursday.

This year the organisation expects a further increase. ‘The Netherlands benefits from the economic crisis in that Germans and Belgians holiday closer to home,’ director Jos Vranken told news agency ANP.
The weak euro has also made the Netherlands more attractive to holidaymakers from developing countries, he said. But there were fewer tourists from Britain and Japan as well as countries such as Italy and Spain which have been hard hit by the crisis.