"People like her make it very difficult for the rest of us," scowled the leggy, blonde Estonian as she dragged on a cigarette in skimpy black-and-white lingerie, all the while posing seductively for men passing the window in which she flaunts her talents.

"Some of the girls are now doing it for 30 euro (about USD 42). My price is still 50 euro, but the men are playing us off against each other. Some want to pay only 20 euro," she told AFP.

Eva is not the only one complaining.

As the credit crunch keeps away sight-seers and business travellers, the owners of brothels, escort agencies and sex shops all grumble that those visitors who still do indulge in the pleasures of the flesh are increasingly tight-fisted.

"Things are bad," lamented salesman Dave Doeve. He owns Casa Rosso sex shop in the middle of Amsterdam's brazen red-light district where neon-lit prostitutes' windows normally draw hordes of tourists.

"There are no people, as you can see. And those who come buy small things, condoms ... cheap things."

Brothel owner Willy van der Sloot, herself a former prostitute, said she had never seen the sex market so depressed.

"Some days there are just no people," she sighed.

Twenty-six-year-old Oxana, who shares Eva's window, says her income has halved in six months while her window rent went up 25 percent in January.
On a "good day", she sees six clients but sometimes only one -- at 50 euro per visitor not enough to cover her half of the 150 euro daily rent.

"But I can't do it for 20 or 30 euro like some of the others. That is not money."
Escort club owner Hugo Snoep said "things have never been this bad" in his 16 years in the business.

"Me and the girls are battling to keep our heads above water."

-- We are all in the same economic boat --

Between taking calls from clients, offering them a special price of 160 euro per girl per hour -- down from the usual 175, Snoep said the economic crisis had made a deep dent in his biggest client base -- travelling businessman.

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