Amsterdam is running 18 experiments to encourage tourists out of the over-crowded city centre, reports ANP.

It is trying to stop buses driving around the Museumplein – home to the city’s most famous museums and its concert hall – and getting them into a special coach park.

The city is building new footpaths to encourage people to take a walk in the east, creating bus links to interesting places outside the centre, and developing rural areas for tourism.

If the experiments are successful, they will be extended to other parts of the Dutch capital. They come after a wave of policies to limit the growth of hotels and stop people renting out their own homes ‘illegally’ for more than 60 days a year or to more than four tourists at a time.