ANWB Shops

The ANWB shops in the Netherlands are the result of the offices that the association opened from 1915. On May 1 that year, the ANWB opened an office annex shop on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam for the first time.

ANWB Shops

Tiendas ANWB

ANWB Geschäfte

ANWB商店

That is why the ANWB opened a shop-cum-office on the Parkstraat in The Hague in 1917. Just like the building in Amsterdam, this location also had a shop window. Inside, the members found a desk with ANWB staff behind it who could help them with administrative questions and show and sell maps and guides.
In Maastricht the ANWB opened in 1934 its third branch, the first outside the west of the Netherlands. The building was centrally located on the connecting street between the station and the Romanesque bridge over the Maas. After that, the ANWB also opened branches in Groningen, Arnhem and then also Utrecht and Eindhoven. With the existing offices in The Hague and Amsterdam, the union had more or less coverage across the country from the 1930s onwards.
In the 1950s, the ANWB gradually set up offices and shops in areas where the association was not previously represented, such as in Zeeland and Friesland. The number of branches approached twenty. Members and other interested parties could go to the shops for new products such as the roadside assistance service (from 1946) and the travel and letter of credit (from 1958) and the expanding range of travel guides, manuals and maps.

Boutiques ANWB

ANWB магазины

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ANWB Winkels

In 1965 the ANWB had eleven border offices and nineteen “branch offices”. After 1968, the ANWB closed its border offices because tourists need less and less travel documents to cross borders due to the emerging European unification. In contrast, the number of branches increased rapidly. In 1973 the ANWB had 35 branches, in 1980 the union had 45 offices. One of the flagships was the branch on the Lijnbaan in Rotterdam, the most modern shopping center in the Netherlands at the time.
In 1976, the ANWB set up “open, self-service shops” in IJmuiden, Hoogvliet, Hilversum, Amstelveen, Zwolle and Dordrecht. In these shops, visitors could book themselves and select tickets from the shelves. Until then, customers had to ask employees behind counters for everything. Later the union would also convert the existing branches into self-service shops.