Bruges is often called the “Venice of the North”. True, it’s got some canals, but the comparison is pretty far-fetched. Amsterdam, another city that is also saddled with this comparison, would have a greater claim.
But there is another way in which Bruges is frequently lumped in with Venice, along with Barcelona, Amsterdam, Florence, Dubrovnik, Bath, and others – as the victim of “overtourism”.
Each year about eight million tourists now visit its small historic centre – resident population: just under 20,000. Surely these numbers are unsustainable? Surely, as with Barcelona, Amsterdam, Florence, Dubrovnik, and even Bath, the locals will come to resent the throngs of travellers, and even turn against them, as they have been known to do in Barcelona, with the effect – disastrous for a tourist destination – of making visitors feel unwelcome?
The answer is no: Bruges has managed to cope with its numbers with remarkable success, and in fact has developed something of a blueprint for other distressed tourist cities.
The city authorities have been working at this for some time. Worried by the growing tourist invasion, they introduced a “hotelstop” in 1996, which has limited the number of hotels in the historic centre to just over 100. In 2002 they likewise limited the number of second or holiday homes, expressly to preserve its population of permanent residents.
The city authorities also followed a strategy of concentrating tourists in the southwest of the city, in a cake-slice that links the centre to the coach parks and the railway station on the periphery – separated by a 15-minute walk. Coaches are only permitted into the city centre if they are bringing visitors and their luggage to hotels. Cars are likewise discouraged by limiting parking and locating the cheaper, long-stay car parks on the outskirts.
The vast majority of visitors are day-trippers, and many of them stay for less than three hours. Their numbers have swelled recently with the increasing popularity of cruises, landing at Antwerp, Ostend and (with a new terminal opened in June 2018) at Zeebrugge just 15 km to the north of Bruges. This has been a bone of contention, as cruise passengers on excursions don’t spend much money locally, but nonetheless clog the pavements. In an effort to restrain their walking tours, the city authorities have recently imposed a stipulation that all guides must be properly licensed.
Regulation is one way to mitigate local resentment. Another is to keep them sweet about the whole tourist project. A recent survey suggests that the majority of Bruggelingen (as the locals are called) – numbering some 117,000 in the whole metropolitan area – are supportive of tourism, and the tourist board’s continued efforts to promote it. It helps that Bruges is a “cultural destination”, and not on the target of stag- and hen-dos.
Of course, the local residents have much to gain: tourism brings 440 million euros to the city every year, and many of them are involved directly, owning or working in hotels, restaurants, bars, shops and attractions, and all the ancillary trades. And this is a key point: the benefits of Bruges’ tourism are distributed, if not evenly, at least broadly.
The prosperity of the city is palpable: the main clientele of the best restaurants is local. Furthermore, the city also lays on plenty of events that appeal to locals: the Cactus music festival, the Kookeet food festival, the Bruges Triennial presenting cutting-edge outdoor sculpture and installations, and so on. At the Christmas market, it’s locals who gather and make merry in the pop-up bars. The modern concert hall, the Concertgebouw, runs a year-round programme of prestigious, international music and dance. An outpost of the University of Leuven, and a respected catering school, and the development of new businesses and light industry in the suburbs, all provide good reasons for young Bruggelingen to stick around.
