It is better to avoid buying tulips at Amsterdam flower market, and you are told why

Society

Only 1% of the tulip bulbs bought at the famous market have really bloomed.

The Netherlands was thought to be the paradise of tulips, it may be mainly a tourist trap. According to a survey conducted by the Municipality of Amsterdam and the Royal Association of Bulb Producers (KAVB), only 1% of the tulip bulbs sold at the famous Amsterdam flower market actually flower. In addition, the colors of the rare flowering tulips often do not match those shown on the package of the bulb pack, the same survey revealed, the findings of which were forwarded to the Consumer and Market Authority. (ACM).

" The survey showed that consumers are deluded chronically KAVB said in a statement. " Millions of tourists and day-trippers are fooled ", Said the president of this association, Rene Le Clercq, quoted in this release.

Amsterdam's flower market is one of the most famous tourist attractions in the city. It dates from about 1862, when merchants brought their barges to sail their goods in the city center via the Amstel River to sell their products. Today, the market includes a number of fixed barges with small greenhouses on the roof. It sells not only tulip bulbs but also narcissi, snowdrops, carnations, violets, peonies and orchids.

" A tourist who buys a bad bulb will probably not come back "

But of the 1,363 bulbs bought and planted, only 14 flourished, according to the survey, which revealed a similar problem along the "boulevard des bulbes de fleurs" in Lisse, a town south of Amsterdam where the famous Keukenhof flower park, the largest bulb garden in the world. Of the tulip bulbs sold in stalls along one of the main streets of Lisse, only 2% bloom, KAVB said.

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Since their importation from the Ottoman Empire 400 years ago, the tulips have become our national symbol and the bulb industry a major player in the Dutch economy Said Le Clercq, adding that " deception was a problem that has existed for 20 years ". The tourism sector could suffer, warns the director of KAVB, Andre Hoogendijk: " A tourist who buys a bad bulb will probably not come back He told the local news channel AT5. From their barges in Amsterdam, merchants confirmed to AT5 the existence of the problem: " There are indeed stalls here that sell junk ", Testified a salesman. According to a spokesman for the municipality of Amsterdam, all the merchants were under investigation, including the results are shocking ".