While the number of restaurants and bars in the Netherlands has increased by 43,000 over the past decade, growth in the city centre of Leeuwarden was lagging behind.
Translation by Thomas Ansell and Traci White
Numbers released by trade organisation Koninklijke Horeca Nederland (KHN) have revealed that the city centre area of Leeuwarden has seen fewer new restaurants, cafes and bars than the average for city centres in the Netherlands, according to KHN as reported by Omrop Fryslan.
That is not to say that the Frisian capital is losing businesses: there are still 14 percent more hospitality businesses in the city than a decade ago. However, that is in comparison to the average of 21 percent growth in other downtown areas – Rotterdam saw explosive growth over the past ten years with an increase of 50 percent.
De Volkskrant reports that across the country, an additional 43,000 lunchrooms, cafes, restaurants, hotels and fast food locations have opened since 2009, most of which has taken place in the city centres. According to the AD, Groningen rounded out the top ten cities with 19 percent growth since 2009, but on the provincial level, Groningen and Drenthe only had 8 percent growth, and Friesland had 5 percent (the provinces came in 8th, 9th and 10th place respectively).
The trade organisation was positive about the overall growth in the country, but cautioned that provinces and municipalities should take pains to ensure that there are not too many of any given type of business in the same area. KHN is calling for the topic of avoiding industry overkill to be taken into consideration during provincial elections on Wednesday.