NETHERLANDS TOURISM ADMINISTRATIVE AND TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION

The Ministry of Economic Affairs is responsible for tourism policy at the national level. The Ministry’s responsibilities include:

•  funding of NBTC Holland Marketing, which is responsible for the international marketing of the Netherlands and the attraction of international conventions;
• stimulating innovation, entrepreneurship and sustainability; the tourism industry can make use of a range of general policy instruments available within the ministry;
• stimulating the synergy between nature, recreation and entrepreneurship;
• acting as the first point of contact within central government for tourism industry associations and stakeholders.

Regional and local authorities are responsible for tourism policy at their own levels, and deal with tourism matters such as:

• funding regional and local destination marketing organisations which are responsible for domestic and international marketing of the regional or local destination; and
• product development.

NBTC Holland Marketing (Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions) uses a Private Public Partnership (PPP)-model in order to create the joint cooperation necessary for the delivery of marketing programmes. This allows a variety of different partners to bundle their budgets and other investments around a shared goal or interest. They can be public partners (national, provincial and municipal governments of regional tourist boards), public-private partners (marketing and promotional organisations) and private partners (businesses in the visitor sector and related sectors) in the Netherlands and other countries.

The government actively participates in public/private partnership. The hospitality sector has started with a networking approach and formed a top team comprised of entrepreneurs, representatives of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and knowledge and marketing institutes.

The top team has drawn up an integral vision for the hospitality economy. It formulated its ambition as follows: ‘In 2025 the Netherlands will be the country with the greatest diversity of experiences in the world. The aim will be to offer excellent hospitality, a competing sector and an attractive society.’ This will also promote a healthy business climate for (foreign) companies in the Netherlands.

 The vision’s strategic framework is based on:

• ‘find’. It all starts with finding the guest. Guests do not want to go searching but wish to find things and be surprised at what is discovered. It requires mass customisation and opting for strength to provide guests with the best possible experience.
• ‘surprise’ means we must provide excellent hospitality with an innovative choice of offers and concepts.
• ‘connect’. Guests like to combine different experiences across the chain and beyond geographical borders. Closer cooperation with companies and organisations within and outside the sector improves access to what is on offer and creates a surprising and innovative range of options.

Trade organisations like Hospitable Netherlands (Gastvrij Nederland - Nationale Raad voor toerisme, recreatie, horeca en vrije tijd) which represent 16 organisations and sectors in the hospitality economy, nature and consumer organisations are involved in the processs of this networking approach.