Amsterdam in de citymarketingstrategie van Utrecht: een win-win-win-situatie? Een analyse van de profilering van Utrecht ten opzichte van Amsterdam in de Utrechtse citymarketing.

Abstract

More international tourists visit Utrecht every year. The city in the heart of The Netherlands is gaining in popularity amongst international tourists. The Guardian (2015), Lonely Planet (Blasi, 2012) and CNN (Neild, 2013) all find their ways to Utrecht. They write about Utrecht as ‘remarkably undersold’ (The Guardian, 2015) and ‘hidden gem’ (Daniel, 2015). In describing Utrecht, many times a link to Amsterdam is made. How does this trend develop while Amsterdam traditionally being the most famous Dutch city (Kavaratzis & Ashworth, 2007)? At the moment, Amsterdam experiences to many tourists. To handle this a policy of spreading is launched. Utrecht wants to attract more international tourists and tries to anticipate the spreading policy. What are the strategies of Utrecht to gaini more fame and more international visitors? What is the best option, competing or collaborating with Amsterdam? This study focuses on the question: ‘How does Utrecht raise its profile, in its current citymarketing and citybranding, relative to Amsterdam?’ The sub-questions focus on the marketing of Utrecht by the NBTC (the Dutch national marketing organisation), the local actors involved, the agreement between these actors, the collaboration of Utrecht and Amsterdam, and the experiences of the international tourists themselves. The study uses a citymarketing model according to corporate branding (Kavaratzis, 2008). It includes clear communication and a wide bottom-up method by participation of all actors. The central question and sub-questions are answered based on interviews with the many actors (Utrecht Tourism, Utrecht municipality, museums, hotels, citizens, etcetera) and international tourists, and a short content analysis of official reports (like the newest ‘Live like a local, Perspectief Toerisme 2020’) and websites for international tourism in Utrecht. Nowadays Utrecht has many different actors collaborating in its marketing and branding. This collaboration used to be inefficient, but improved during the last couple of years. The actors form a unique coalition. As expected, the collaboration of the citymarketing of Utrecht is complex. Many actors means many opinions and interests. Remarkable however is the ambiguity in all actor’s visions of the raise of Utrecht’s profile relative to Amsterdam. On the one hand the actors are proud to be compared to Amsterdam. On the other hand the actors state that they don’t want Utrecht to be compared to Amsterdam. Ambiguity also exists in the discussion of collaboration or competition. The actors all know collaboration is necessary for Utrecht to be successful, but they also emphasize the importance of Utrecht’s own strengths. While there is a little competition at the same time, it is difficult to get to perfect collaboration. The ambiguity can be explained by the difference between the professional (collaboration with Amsterdam) and personal (competition with Amsterdam) visions. However the actors are aware of the influence of their personal opinion to their professional opinion, and try not to let this latter be overruled. The actors know collaboration leads to a win-win-win situation: Amsterdam lowers its tourism pressure, Utrecht will welcome more international tourists, and international tourists will get a more complete and positive image of The Netherlands. The tourists themselves all agree to this in the surveys and interviews. According to the idea of corporate branding, Utrecht tries to be a specific brand. The facets of Kavaratzis’ citybranding framework (2008), can more or less be recognized in the citymarketing and citybranding of Utrecht. Some possible improvements in Utrecht’s own strengths become clear, like establishing longer opening hours of the VVV Utrecht Information Center, establishing more bicycle rentals, and establishing a Miffy shop. However, collaboration with Amsterdam appears to be the key. This collaboration gives the best chance to the win-win-win situation, with Utrecht, Amsterdam and the international tourists all being winners. “Stimulating collaboration in stead of rivalry at the Dutch square centimetre”, as Govers (2014) states.