Venice: Residents outraged by… tourists – They ask for a ticket from 2023

Magnificent palaces overlooking the water, canals with gondolas, world-famous museums. THE Venice it is beautiful, a huge tourist magnet, the city, whose “Mariolian and suspicious beauty” was praised by the German writer Thomas Mann, attracts millions of visitors from all over the world every year and their number remains undiminished. However, the approximately 50,000 residents in the heart of the city were outraged and the municipality wanted to act.

One solution would be to impose an entry ticket. A proposal that is not new, but from January 16, 2023, tourists would have to book their visit to Venice online and pay for it between three and ten euros per person. But for now the plans are frozen and none of this will happen. There is no approval from the city council, says Simone Venturini, who works in the field of culture. The entry into force of the ticket has been postponed and Venice remains free for now.

Marco Gasparinetti, a local politician, believes that ticketed entry will never be implemented. “As the ordinance is written, it won’t go into effect. We are already on the fifth postponement,” he says. Despite mass tourism, the ticketed arrangement is highly controversial among locals. When tourists think of Venice, they mainly mean the historic center, the famous St. Mark’s Square, the Rialto Bridge and the Grand Canal as well as many smaller islands.

Multi-million revenue

The city wants to charge a fee for this area but not for the mainland. Through the tickets, the authorities could better estimate how many people would enter the city and use public transport.

The city was expecting six million euros in revenue for 2023, says Michele Zuin, from the municipality’s budget department. In the following years, he even estimated that the revenues would reach 13 million euros. Venice could use the money to reduce the garbage fees residents pay and to finance the implementation of the ticket.

Day-trippers and the unsavory cruise ship tourists will pay mostly. Those who have booked a hotel in Venice will get a code and be exempted from the measure. Guests will also receive a code. But critics of the measure see it as a violation of data protection and privacy.

Many bans due to tourists

Some Venetians believe the city should handle mass tourism differently. Matteo Cecchi runs a pro-Venice website. He sees day-trippers as particularly the problem. They fill the streets and leave almost no money in the city. Due to the many visitors there are also many prohibitions for tourists in Venice. They are not allowed to walk around in a bathing suit or shirtless or sit on the ground to eat or drink. Fines of up to 500 euros are imposed.

Seki fears that with the ticket the tourists will not behave better, they will just pay for it. He thinks that an additional tax on goods bought in Venice would be more effective. Anyone who buys a bottle of water, for example, will pay more but the money will then go to the city.

However, the issue of the overabundance of tourists has been discussed for over 20 years in Venice and a solution has not yet been found.

DW

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