The flying dutchmen: Recent trends in international outbound tourism from the Netherlands

This brief paper focuses on Dutch outbound tourism, that is, international flows with the Netherlands as a place of origin. Using data provided by CBS Statistics Netherlands, we show that the total number of international holidays, both in absolute terms and per capita, has significantly grown in the last three decades, denoting a significant increase in the propensity of Dutch residents to engage in international tourism; moreover, year-by-year variations seem to be positively, but weakly, associated with the general conditions of the Dutch economy. In terms of the composition of international holidays by destination country, we found evidence of some instability in the relative importance of different destinations, with an increase in the diversity of choices by Dutch tourists and in the distance of their preferred destination.