There are fears Amsterdam's latest bid to discourage young British men from heading to the city for weekends of booze, drugs and sex could in fact have the opposite effect.
The Stay Away campaign is aimed at British men between 18 and 35 years old, a group well-known in Amsterdam for their out of control bucks parties — known in the UK as stag nights — and "lads' holidays".
UK tourists searching terms like "stag party Amsterdam", "cheap hotel Amsterdam" and "pub crawl Amsterdam", will see video ads warning about the consequences of misbehaving in the Dutch capital.
Ads reinforcing 'Party Valhalla' image
In one of the videos a drunk young man is arrested while stumbling down the street. The video warns of a 140 euros ($227) fine and a criminal record. It ends with a dramatic shot of him sitting in a prison cell, looking defeated.
In another video a man is passed out on a street bench. An ambulance takes him to hospital as the video warns about drug use and permanent health damage.
Dutch communication strategist Lars Duursma says the Stay Away ads just make Amsterdam look like the place to be for booze and drug-abusing tourists.
"They seem to be making the city more attractive for the partying tourists that they don't want and more unattractive for the tourists that they do want, who come here for museums and history," he said.
"I think these videos will be sent around among friends who were unsure of where to go on holiday.
"It makes Amsterdam all the more exciting, reinforcing the image of a party Valhalla."
He thinks some might even view it as a challenge: "See if you can go crazy without having to pay a 140 euros fine. And still, 140 euros... the average British tourist spends more than that on alcohol and drugs in one night."
'Amsterdam: avoid the disappointment'
Amsterdam's campaign has received worldwide media attention, with outlets like The Guardian, the BBC, the New York Times, CNN and the Washington Post reporting on the Stay Away campaign.
"With all this media attention, a much larger audience is being reached, rather than just the people you don't want to see in Amsterdam," Mr Duursma said.
BBC correspondent Anna Holligan tweeted that bookings at a UK-based bucks party company had increased by a claimed 641 per cent.
Mr Duursma says a more effective approach might have been to make Amsterdam look more boring than it actually is.
"A better way to have tackled the problem, would have been to speak to tourists that thought Amsterdam would be a fantastic party destination and then got very disappointed," he said.
"They came to Amsterdam to realise that alcohol is expensive, that bars close early, that you can't even get into clubs, that drugs are very hard to obtain... You want people to think that it's just a very lousy place to party."
Mr Duursma has even thought of an alternative campaign title: "Amsterdam: avoid the disappointment."
Mayor wants to give Amsterdam back to locals
The ad campaign is part of a wider effort to rid Amsterdam of its rowdy reputation.
City officials want to see fewer nuisance bachelor parties and organised pub crawls, and are also moving to cut down on river cruises and ban cannabis smoking in parts of the inner city, including the red light district.
In an interview with Dutch newspaper NRC, Mayor Femke Halsema said she wanted to give the city back to its residents.
"In cities like Venice and Dubrovnik the residents have moved away and it has been left to the tourists. That's where such an old city dies," she warned.
Ms Halsema also wants to ban tourists from the city's cannabis-selling coffee shops.
"[Amsterdam] has 170 coffee shops of which at least 100 are aimed only at tourists. If you only serve local demand, you can cut almost two-thirds of those coffee shops," she said.
But Amsterdam doesn't want every tourist to skip the city, Deputy Mayor Sofyan Mbarki told Het Parool newspaper.
"Visitors are still welcome, but not if they misbehave and cause a nuisance."
