Tourist numbers top 16 million, visitor numbers rose 5% in 2016

There was a 5% rise in the number of foreign tourists visiting the Netherlands last year, and the tourist board NBTC expects a further 3% rise in 2017.

That would take the total number of foreign tourists to 16.2 million, in line with the trend over the past 10 years, the tourist board said.

The number of German tourists rose 7% to 4.5 million, while the number of British and Belgian tourists rose 8% to around two million. The low euro also boosted the number of visitors from the US by 15% to 1.2 million.

However, there was a 15% drop in the number of Chinese visitors and a 19% reduction in the number of Russians, the NBTC said. The threat of terrorism also led to the number of Japanese tourists going down by 25%.