This is a hotel story but not as we usually know it.
Across the water in Amsterdam the city is planning a prostitution hotel, or a so-called ‘erotic centre’. It is planned as a safer alternative to the city’s renowned red-light district as well as a means of reducing the nuisance caused by noisy tourists and stag-weekends.
Apparently, Amsterdam’s red-light district attracts around 18million tourists a year all flocking to see the cultural highlights of the district including the canal-side window brothels and sex shops.
The new centre would include sex clubs and pornographic theatres which would be part of the prostitution hotel. The hotel rooms would include all the ‘tools of the trade’ plus a panic button in case of problems. The sex workers would be able to check their clients in relative safety in the corridors and public spaces of the hotel as well as in its bistro restaurants.
Despite its attractions the majority of prostitutes oppose the plan and want to remain in their red-light district because they claim to have no problem with the tourists who are their main customers and they do not wish to work in a hotel.