Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Welcome to Amsterdam - Now Please Go Away


I use this sign in current presentations of how not to market visitors to a city. It's outside the North-South Line exhibition, built at Amsterdam Central Station to explain why the capital of the Netherlands has been dug up and disrupted since 2003.

But clearly the exhibition staff have been bothered by pesky tourists wandering into the exhibition area to ask for directions or other tourist information. It is, after all, marked as a visitor's centre and it's run by Amsterdam City Council. Clearly, the solution they decided on was to put up a sign outside telling people to clear off and find the VVV (Tourist Office) a few hundred metres away.

I would have put up a big sign outside saying

YES. Information about our great city can be found across the road inside the VVV Building (picture below and map). If you're interested in how our city will be changed by the new metro, then please come inside.




Most people I talk to think this office just sells tickets for the tram and metro. If the sign said "City Info and Tickets", everything would be a lot clearer.


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