Dutch fence off tulip fields to stop selfie-takers crushing flowers

Barriers and advertising banners are being erected around fields in the tulip bulb region of the Netherlands in an attempt to deter a growing number of tourists from flattening the flowers to take selfies.

Tourists have been seen jumping above the tulips to secure the perfect picture, or lying down in the middle of fields, squashing the bulbs.

Simon Pennings, a grower near the town of Noordwijkerhout in the bulb region of south-west Netherlands, was the first to erect a barrier in his field, emblazoned with the slogan of a pilot campaign backed by the local tourist board: “Enjoy the flowers, respect our pride.”

“They are so careless,” Pennings said of the tourists. “We get large groups of people visiting, which we find very nice and fun, but they flatten everything. It is a shame and we suffer damage as a result. Last year, I had a plot with €10,000 [£8,700] in damage. Everything was trampled … They want to take that selfie anyway.”

Nicole van Lieshout from the local tourist office said a group of 40 “ambassadors” – a voluntary team of guides, including retired farmers – will seek to teach visitors about the history of the tulip fields.

“In recent years, the number of tourists coming has been higher and higher,” said Van Lieshout. “I think the tourists think the fields were made for them. Everyone wants the perfect selfie and the pictures go all over the world, lying or dancing among the flowers.

Advertising banners have also been put up as part of a pilot campaign in the bulb region of the Netherlands.Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters

“We don’t want to send the tourists away. The farmers make the fields beautiful for the visitors, but pictures need to be taken on the edge of the fields, not in or on the flowers.”

Penning told the Dutch newspaper L’Algemeen Dagblad people were generally respectful when they were educated about the fields.

“They don’t think about it,” he said. “People have lost sight of how a plant grows and that we are working on it all year round. When I explain that to people in the field, they say, ‘Oh, oh, yes, you’re right’, and ‘I’m sorry I didn’t see it at all and didn’t understand it’.

“It’s largely ignorance. I assume that. Milk also comes from a factory and not from a cow. That is also the case with the bulbs. It is thought that it is a kind of plastic.”

The Dutch tourism board has made a “dos and don’ts” guide to taking a selfie near a tulip field.

Van Lieshout said growers’ difficulty in dealing with the interest in tulips had been highlighted over the weekend when the roads into the Keukenhof, a 32-hectare (79 acre) floral garden where growers showcase their latest flowers, became gridlocked. Drivers had spilled out of their cars and into the fields.

The annual number of visitors to the Keukenhof has risen from 800,000 to 1.4 million in the past six years. The garden’s director, Bart Siemerink, described the situation as “unacceptable for residents and entrepreneurs in the bulb region”.

The curse of the selfie-taking tourist is not a new phenomenon. Last summer, the New York Times reported on the case of the Bogle family, who had opened their farm in Ontario to allow visitors to wander past tall sunflowers. After eight days, the family shut the gates, blaming hordes of amateur photographers who trampled on plants in order to secure the best selfie, plucked sunflower heads to use as props and left rubbish strewn across the farm.