Record number of hotel stays in The Hague in July 2022

"These visitors not only stay here overnight, they also spend money in the city and that is good for the local economy," said Marco Esser, director of The Hague & Partners, the organisation that promotes The Hague to both domestic and foreign potential visitors." Visitors who came to The Hague for holidays alone generated €100.7 million in spending for the city, of which €19.2 million came from domestic residential tourism and €81.5 million from foreign residential tourism. Thanks to that spending, shopkeepers and the hospitality industry can make up some ground after a difficult corona time."

Recovery after corona

"In the past corona years, we have continued to put The Hague on the map at home and abroad, for instance with our "Sea of Space" campaign. That has attracted a lot of (inter)national attention and it is therefore great to see that visitors from surrounding countries have found The Hague again; even to a higher degree than ever," Esser said. He says he does worry about the autumn and winter. "We are well on track, the investments are working. The important thing now is to maintain growth by fully focusing on the post-season and winter period. For instance, we are working closely with entrepreneurs and the municipality to put The Hague on the map as a winter city. This also makes The Hague an attractive city to live in. In addition, business visits really need to pick up. We must continue to invest in attracting congresses and foreign companies and institutions to ensure full hotel rooms even outside the high season and thus also full shops, restaurants and museums."

Day visit

The post-corona recovery has created pleasant crowds in The Hague during the high season. It was never too busy, according to The Hague & Partners' Space Monitor and signals from the city. "We have seen that in the high season it was sometimes even relatively quiet on the boulevard of Scheveningen. These figures confirm that the commitment to residential tourism and dispersion is working. The record figures did not lead to a feeling of crowding, yet it was a peak season with full hotels." According to Esser, the relative calm on Scheveningen in summer is due to a mix of factors: "Hagenaars also went on holiday abroad again this year; the weather was nice for an extended period of time, so visitors came to the beach spread out; with current inflation, price is an issue, visitors no longer go out every day; and the warnings from the services in the preseason that Scheveningen was full will have had their effect."

Higher overnight stay figures than Rotterdam

How does The Hague compare with the other major cities? For all G4 cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht) except Amsterdam, last July turned out to be a record month in terms of overnight stays. However, the peak for The Hague was higher than for the rest. "Our ambition is to once again become the second visitor city in the Netherlands with a good spread of visits throughout the year. Looking at these figures, we seem to be on the right track."