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Sex Tourism in Amsterdam

Sex Tourism in Amsterdam
Author: Aby Chacko
3 Commentries
Sex Tourism in Amsterdam
Sex tourism may be simply described as sexual intercourse while away from home - an all inclusive term, but one which permits a discussion of different paradigms. Krushes-Mount Burton (1995:192) defined sex tourism as a form of tourism motivated by the desire to engage in commercial sex, makes the complex process by which individuals choose to seek sexual gratification, first within prostitution and secondly as a part of the tourist experience. To restrict definitions of sex tourism, as is often done, to the red-light districts of places like Amsterdam is to limit the understanding of the phenomenon, and to artificially separate the location from the social context.

Amsterdam is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe, receiving more than 4.63 million international visitors annually. The number of visitors has been growing steadily over the past decade. This can be attributed to an increasing number of European visitors. Amsterdam is one of the most well-known sex tourism destinations. The sex industry is big business there, and it brings 5% of Netherlands's GDP. Prostitution is legal in Amsterdam. In the national basis, prostitution in the Netherlands is legal and regulated. Operating a brothel is also legal in Amsterdam. De Wallen, the largest and best-known red-light district in Amsterdam, is a destination for international sex tourism. According to Radio of Netherlands, prostitutes were estimated to be 25,000 to 30,000 in the Netherlands. Additionally, most prostitutes are estimated to be foreigners and the foreign prostitutes in Amsterdam are in high ratio, approximately 40% from Central Europe, 20% from Latin America, 12% from Western Europe, 8% from Africa and 4% from Asia. In the 1970s, the majority of foreign prostitutes were from Thailand and the Philippines, in the 1980s from Latin America and the Caribbean. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, many prostitutes came from Central and Eastern Europe. Amsterdam prostitution occurs in various forms: window and street prostitution, clubs, escort agencies and home-based prostitution.

Basically, the tourist is normal consumer purchases goods and services for personal consumption. Gray (1970) categorizes tourists into sunlust and wanderlust tourists. While sunlust is essentially about rest and relaxation in the form of the 3 Ss in tourism (sun, sea and sand), wanderlust is characterized by a desire to explore and experience people and culture. Plog (2001) divided tourists into simple categories using personality traits to identify tourist types. The key factors that distinguish different tourists are the level of travel and the nature of the travel experience. The original distinction was between allocentric and psychocentric tourists. However, Plog updated his classical study and replaced allocentrics with 'ventures' and psychocentrics with 'dependables'. First, the ventures (or allocentric tourists) are confident and adventurous, seeking challenges and new experiences, and are prepared to take risks; second, the dependables (or psychocentric tourists) are the opposite. They are less adventurous, home loving and prefer familiar surroundings and safety. They travel less frequently and stay for shorter periods.

In the Red Light District, tourists will find several theaters, three of which have nightly sex shows of one sort or another. Each of the three places is different, and two of the three regularly feature live sex by a couple as part of the show. All the shows involve sexy stunts, the most famous of which involves a banana. They are extremely popular among people on bachelor/stag party weekends, especially from England, but plenty of bachelorette/hen parties get in on the fun as well.

Also throughout the Red Light District, tourists will find an abundance of shops that sell DVDs, magazines, and every manner of sex toy they could possibly think of. Whether they are straight or gay, man or woman, tourists will be able to find something you like at one or more of the shops.

Since prostitution is legal in Amsterdam, it should be no surprise that there are plenty of call-out and internet services where tourist can have a girl come to their hotel or apartment. Prices and quality vary, but this is usually fairly expensive since the girl has to travel back and forth and there is a bit of risk involved for her as well.

Sex tourism includes domestic sex tourism, which is travel within the same country, or international sex tourism, which involves travel across national borders. It is a multibillion dollar industry that supports an international workforce estimated to number in the millions. It has been argued by some people that sex tourism benefits not only the sex industry but also the airline, taxi, restaurant and hotel industries. Human Rights organizations warn that sex tourism contributes to human trafficking and child prostitution.

References:
Pascoe, R; and Catling, C. (2007) Amsterdam: Eyewitness Travel Guides. London: Dorling Kindersley Publishers Ltd.

Robinson, P; Heitmann, S; and Dieke, U.C. (2011) Research Themes for Tourism, 1st edition: CABI

Stephen, C; and Carter, S. (2000) Tourism and Sex: Tourism, Leisure and Recreation, 1st edition. London: Biddles Limited.
Is Sex Tourism in Amsterdam an oxymoron? (Commentary on Discussion Paper, by Cheng Zhang, 1017451)
Author: Cheng Zhang
The author of this discussion paper effectively used and referenced the module of sex tourism, with a case study. To begin with, the author discussed the sex tourism in Amsterdam, with its scale and scope, which underpinned the arguments in this paper. The use of Amsterdam supported the discussion, as this destination is a typical example, with 250 officially listed brothels. In addition, the author latter summarised sex tourist behaviours in this destination with some related activities, for example, nightly sex shows. Therefore, the two objectives of this paper were achieved. At the end of this paper, the author highlighted a controversial topic - the child prostitution, which remains a subject of future fierce debate in sex tourism industry. These are strengths of this discussion paper.

However, there are some limitations. First of all, the author stated that sex tourism takes places in red-light districts of Amsterdam, but actually sex tourism develops in a broader basis. This brings up the debate as sex tourism is a complicated industry and changing every second. Then, the author discussed the positive impact of sex tourism in Amsterdam - to increase the country's GDP, but every coin has two sides, there are potential negative impacts of sex tourism, such as the image of sex paradise and AIDS, and these should be paid more attention, as they may bring a series of disastrous consequences, which can keep certain marketing segmentation away from this destination.

Moreover, the reasons why sex tourism in Amsterdam is legal have not been explored. In other words, how sex tourism became legal is an interesting issue. If doing so, readers may know what role the government played during this process and what forces have pushed the development of sex tourism. In fact, prostitution in Netherlands has been defined as a form of work and 18 is the minimum age to work in the sex industry, because the Parliament is expected to pass legislation to legalize and tax brothels giving the government a portion of the profits.

Additionally, for the tourist behaviour, the author reviewed the related literatures, but these theories have not been deeply applied into sex tourist behaviour analysis. Indeed, tourists travel to this city in what appears to be normal tourists, but actually participate in sex activities and buy sex services. Parts of sex tourists are looking for prostitutes; others are significantly more motivated to achieve personal fulfilment. Therefore in exploring sex tourist behaviours, it is essential to review the motivations as sex tourists may be not usually driven by one specific force.

Finally, the author strengthened that sex tourism contributed to human trafficking; however, human trafficking is not as black and white as it sounds. Many prostitutes would not say they were 'forced' into prostitution, but rather that they were 'coaxed'.

To sum up, the paper has been engaged well with the strand. The strand was about tourist interactions in destinations; this means, different cultural and social backgrounds, and psychological characteristics will have distinctive influences on tourist behaviours. Previous researches found that male sex tourists prefer pay for sexual encounters through brothels, strips clubs and local prostitutes, but female sex tourists interested in romance holiday. Does this phenomenon exists in Amsterdam, or are there any new and special behaviour? These will be questioned in wider debate and future research.
Amy Stewarts Commentary
Author: Amy Stewart
From reading this paper you get a brief overview of sex tourism in Amsterdam although this is not in a lot of detail. There is a lot of work which isn't referenced for example the data in the second paragraph which has no obvious referencing. I feel the paper does not go in to enough detail about sex tourism as it only talks about the red light districts and does not cover all areas of sex tourism. There are also a lot of grammar mistakes in the paper.

The paper does discuss sex tourism in Amsterdam but doesn't really go in to detail about the positive and negative factors in relation to sex tourism which I think would have given the paper a lot more depth, although the paper does state the main points about sex tourism in Amsterdam. It seems like the author has some good information but they hesitated to go in to more detail which may be due to lack of research in to the subject.

The paper has the potential to be very good if more research is carried out in to the subject area as there are some good points. It may have been interesting to look at sex tourism from both the tourists and the local peoples view to get an all-round view of how Amsterdam is affected by sex tourism. As the sex industry in Amsterdam is so big it may also have been interesting for the author to look at how sex tourism has exploded so massively and if this has had a positive or negative affect on the city.

Because Amsterdam has been a sex tourism destination for so long it may be of use for the author to compare it to other sex tourism destinations to see how sex tourism has affected them and make comparisons and maybe to look at countries where sex tourism is not legal but does take place and look at how the legislation affects the industry and whether it helps to have legislation in place or not.

Overall the paper has some very interesting ideas and it is a shame that these were not discussed in more depth by the author.
Sex Tourism in Amsterdam
Author: Lesley Evans
This abstract is very informative and provides a good review and understanding of sex tourism and its various attributes. The author has engaged the reader within the topic of sex tourism and has made good definitions of tourist typologies and the different attitudes and approaches towards prostitution taken by these tourists.

I feel that a major subject that is omitted is that of male prostitution, which has not been mentioned apart from the live sex shows whereby both male and female sex scenes are depicted. The author may have used the term 'prostitution' loosely so as to include both males and females; however I feel that this assumption should not be made when it comes to such a term.

This is in addition to the fact that the author has not really expanded on the reasons as to why prostitution is legal in Amsterdam and if there are any limitations or requirements that need to be fulfilled by those wishing to make it a career choice, so as to avoid or limit the risks involved, for example a minimum age requirement for call girls and safety and health procedures that must be followed.

Sex tourism as a domestic tourism product is mentioned by the author, although the statistics mentioned are only of International tourists visiting Amsterdam and using sex tourism, further discussion and elaboration is needed in regards to the sex tourism industry within Amsterdam's domestic tourism industry.

The author mentions about there being risk involved to prostitutes when visiting 'clients' at their hotels, although these risks may seem obvious, I think that more detail could have been provided, possibly to state the less obvious risks that may be present.

This paper has engaged a great deal within the strand and is very informative about the sex tourism industry and its' operations, especially when it came to mentioning the statistic of 5%GDP revenue generated by the sex tourism industry for The Netherlands.

However I feel that the author could have explored the motivations of why people choose to participate within sex tourism in more detail and elaborated on the host/guest interactions more. Although very informative and well structured I feel that the author has omitted to mention the happenings of male prostitution within Amsterdam and has made the assumption that female prostitution, although more prominent, is the only type that goes on, excluding the live sex shows mentioned.