The Emmen Vlinderstad Entrepreneurship Association (OEV) is happy with the way Emmen introduced itself to the Netherlands during King's Day. The City Center Shopkeepers Club hopes that more day-trippers and tourists will now visit the city.
More than 2.2 million people watched on television yesterday how the royal family walked through the city center of Emmen. Another 30,000 saw it with their own eyes, along the road in the city centre. So there is no shortage of interest.
King Willem-Alexander and his family from Emmen and Drenthe were presented with various banners as they marched through the city. Sometimes figuratively, with living statues of dolmen builders and peat workers, and sometimes literally, with homemade croquettes from KrokettenKunst.
Overall, according to the center's director, Lawrence Major of the Business Association, Emin is doing well after King's Day. “I think people have already gotten a very positive image of Emmen and our surroundings,” says Major.
According to the center's director, there was relatively little left to do with entrepreneurs in the city center during the king's visit. Meier: “On a day like this with so many people, you don't go shopping so quickly. You come for the event. But we hope to reap its benefits in the near future.”
At the end of his visit, King Willem-Alexander announced that a seed had been planted in his mind. Emin and Drenthe have become part of his heart, and he quotes singer Daniel Lohuis. “Every time I return to the governorate or to Iman, I say: I will leave here.”
So it seems that the king has already converted. Now the rest of the Netherlands. “I hope the seed has also been planted in people's minds,” Meagher says. “So that the people who saw King's Day can go to Drenthe next summer and take Emmen with them.”
