The Dutch have canceled their hotel stays en masse after statements by RIVM epidemiologist Susan van den Hof to 'not to go to Rotterdam if it is not necessary'. When RIVM later nuanced its statement, the damage had already been done and the Rotterdam hospitality industry was not happy with all the negative attention. According to the Financieel Dagblad, a thousand overnight stays at the Rotterdam hotels were canceled in the 24 hours after that decision. That is around € 200.000 in turnover.
For a few weeks now, Rotterdam has been regarded as the heart of the corona fire in the Netherlands and that has considerably damaged the image of the city. According to Roel Dusseldorp, chairman of the Rotterdam Hotel Combinatie Foundation and also director of Hotel New York, things are looking bad for the hotel industry in Rotterdam. The RIVM affair in particular has had disastrous consequences.
The considerably increasing number of new corona infections has forced Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb to introduce a masking obligation for certain busy areas in the center. It is a step that has attracted a lot of attention in the national media. The pilot with the masking obligation will run until the end of August and will be evaluated afterwards, according to a spokesperson.
“We are looking at how this contributes to sensible, safe and desirable behavior of people on the street, especially when keeping the 1,5 meters distance,” said Mayor Aboutaleb.
The FD writes that promotion organization Rotterdam Partners had to temporarily stop a campaign aimed at attracting more Dutch tourists to the city in the summer. 'Although we wanted to use this to attract people to less busy places, a sentiment arose that it is unwise to continue this', says Wilbert Lek, director of Rotterdam Partners.
Susan van den Hof
Susan van den Hof (1972) studied Biomedical Sciences in Nijmegen. She obtained her PhD at the University of Utrecht for research into the protection of the Dutch population from mumps, measles and rubella, and research during the measles epidemic in 1999-2000. She has held various positions in epidemiology and infectious disease surveillance RIVM National Institute for Public Health and the Environment from 1996 to 2006. Then she worked at KNCV Royal Dutch Central Association (for tuberculosis control) - Tuberculosis Foundation Tuberculosis Foundation as epidemiologist and coordinator of research, which largely took place in Asian and African countries. She has been back at RIVM since July 2018 as head of the Center for Epidemiology and Surveillance of Infectious Diseases.
