Municipality demands local tourism bureaus to merge

SNEEK – The tourism promoting groups (known by their Dutch acronym VVV) of southwestern Friesland, a region famous for its water sport attractions, must merge by the end of this year or loose their municipal funding. The municipality expects that a regional VVV can operate more economically than five small local tourism offices. Traditionally, the VVV’s offer information to visitors, help coordinate events and act as hosts to groups and travel writers. The local governments gave the VVV’s their example when four rural municipalities merged with Sneek, to form Súdwest Fryslân, a municipality consisting of 6 small cities and 63 towns, villages and hamlets. Now the largest municipal landmass in the Netherlands, Súdwest Fryslân has a population of 82,000 with a job inventory of 30,000.