Venice plans to experiment with a €5 entrance fee for people visiting the city for one day from next year to try to sustainably manage the flow of tourists, the city council said today, as quoted by DPA.
The fee will be introduced on a trial basis in 2024, and in the coming weeks the city council will decide exactly which days it will be mandatory for tourists not staying in Venice hotels to make reservations and pay a fee to enter the city – from weekends in the spring until the peak months of June and July, according to information from Corriere del Veneto. All visitors over the age of 14 will have to pay this fee.
The aim is to find “a new balance between the rights of those who live, study or work in Venice and tourists,” said tourism adviser Simone Venturini.
It is not a money-raising move, he added, noting that the fee will only cover the costs of administering the scheme.
Exact dates for the plan and how it will work will be agreed after final approval by the city council, which is expected next week.
The plan, which was first mooted in 2019, was initially shelved because of the pandemic and related lockdowns that hampered tourism, and later for technical and procedural reasons.
Meanwhile, tourists have returned to Venice, often greatly outnumbering the roughly 50,000 people living in the old part of the city, and this is causing congestion in the narrow streets.
Overtourism has long been a serious problem for the “fragile” Venetian lagoon. In July, UNESCO experts recommended that Venice and its lagoon be added to the endangered world heritage list, arguing that Italy is not doing enough to protect the city from the effects of climate change and mass tourism. /BTA, Galya Gornishka/
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2023-09-06 06:06:00
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