Tourism v. Localism

Some online manifestations of topics on “tourism v. localism”
I started off by just googling the word “Amsterdam”, and a list of websites contain tourist information appeared on the top of the search page. Just to get a sense of how prevalent tourism is in Amsterdam as to other places, I then googled “Washington” and the official state government page showed on the top of the page rather than anything else. Here are some websites that contains tremendous amount of traveling necessities for tourists in Amsterdam:
http://www.iamsterdam.com/
This is the City of Amsterdam official English portal for Amsterdam’s international visitor. The website covers from architecture to people, economy to night life, outlining a fairly comprehensive guide for probably first-time visitors to Amsterdam.
One thing that draws my attention to this website is its claim of “I amsterdam”. It sends out a welcoming gesture to tourists from all over the world as an embodiment of its provocative multiculturalism. It stands on a middle ground between tourists and the locals by not taking much of the perspectives of either side. Instead, it serves as an informative tool that tells the tourists what Amsterdam has to offer and what not to miss, so they can later go on to find out on their own.
The next term I tried googling was “Amsterdam travel jounal/blog”. My incentive was to get more personal on each individual traveler’s experience in Amsterdam, because different people might get so many dissimilar flavors out of one city, which I think is the very charm of Amsterdam. The results turned out in abundance. Such as:
http://www.igougo.com/travelcontent/JournalDestination.aspx?LocationID=502&Mode=0
http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Netherlands/North-Holland/Amsterdam/
They are people who just went to Amsterdam or are still there with various cultural and national backgrounds. Regardless they have something in common-they are all tourists. Their blogs/journals are flooded with photos, videos, and detailed descriptions of places in Amsterdam, yet adding their own experiences and perspectives, none of the entries are the even remotely the same.
In term of the research, I definitely think that reading those blog entries is a preview of what Amsterdam is like in tourists’ eyes. This would give me some directions and expectations when I have a chance to interview or take observations in Amsterdam.
The last piece of information I needs was local’s views on Amsterdam as well as their perception of the tourists. However, it was not easy-accessed as I have imagined. I tried different approaches such as “local’s views of Amsterdam”, “live in Amsterdam”, “Dutch in Amsterdam”, “Amsterdamer”, and etc. Most of them do not reveal much of the local lifestyle and happenings but rather are the ad-hocs for traveling suggestions.
I tried to search for “misconceptions about Amsterdam”. Although there were not a whole lot of articles focusing on such topic specifically, there are fragments of facts and opinions addressing the misconceptions about the city. Most of them seem to be very interesting by comparing and contrasting what is assumed and what is really going on. One example of the websites would be:
http://www.amsterdamhotelstours.com/
Finally, I attempted “life in Amsterdam”, from where I found some interesting stories of the new comers adjusting to the city while they explore the locals’ ways to settle down instead of just come and go. It takes more than just a map and a bike to get to know the city on the surface. What those people are going through is to make themselves as a part of Amsterdam.
http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kantors_abroad/amsterdam/1050357600/tpod.html
This blog entry is written by someone who is trying to adjust life in Amsterdam for the first couple weeks. While he seems to be caught up with a ton of tasks he is supposed to accomplish for settling down, he draws out some miscellaneous distinction of how the Dutch act locally in some occasions. His writings send out a clue to me about what’s the mainstream Amsterdam culture could be like and maybe how easy or hard it is to fit in the Dutch society.