by Overloaded Venice will try to solve long-standing problems in 2024 with the introduction of an entrance fee for day-trippers and limits on the size of tour groups. The council’s goal, said city tourism councilor Simone Venturini, “is to better balance the needs of residents and workers and those of visitors to the city.”
Venetians continue to doubt, however, that many things will change.
In 2019, the last pre-Covid year, the 3.5 million visitors who stayed at least one night in the historic city were augmented by a flood of day-trippers: estimates put the total number of arrivals at around 20 million. On peak days, up to 80,000 people would crowd into this delicate gem with a resident population of around 50,000. With crowds returning after the Covid pause, the figure for 2023, once all the sums have been done, is expected to exceed that figure. And many think 2024 will be even busier.
In high season – which in Venice is much of the year – the attack creates chaos for those who live or work in the city, who often find large groups of tourists and their guides blocking pedestrian walkways. “Tourists clog the narrow streets, create bottlenecks and generally take up too much space,” said Jo-Ann Titmarsh, a teacher and longtime Venice resident.
According to Venetian photographer Francesco Allegretto, the topic has become an obsession for locals who feel oppressed – even threatened – by the tourist masses. “They move like large flocks of sheep, unaware that there is anyone around them. Sometimes I feel like if I don’t get out of their way, they’ll just run me over,” he said, describing how he had to brave the crowd on his three-minute walk from his house to his studio. “They move very slowly and spread out to fill the entire street.”
Legislation coming into force in June 2024 will limit the size of organized groups in public places to 25, with a crackdown on unauthorized guides and a ban on the use of loudspeakers to deliver information. Trade Minister Sebastiano Costalonga told reporters that the administration wanted “strict rules that respect the fragility of Venice, its traffic flow and the interaction between visitors and those who live there.”
Daniela Zamperetti, who works in Venice’s civic museums, is skeptical. The limit of 25 people has existed for many years inside museums. “Instead of a group of 50 people, you simply find two groups of 25 next to each other. It doesn’t really change much.”
In fact, the only thing that changes, he said, is the mood of the guides. Professional guides are paid according to the number of people in their group: if they have to double their workload to generate the same income, they will be the big losers under the new rules.
Threatened last September with the possibility of being included on UNESCO’s “World Heritage in Danger” list, the city council of Venice quickly activated a long-stalled decision on charging a fee to enter the lagoon city and its islands of Murano, Burano and Torcello. It remains to be seen what effect the measure will have on visitor numbers.
On 29 designated busy days in spring and summer 2024, anyone over 14 entering the city will have to prove they have an exemption or pay a €5 (£4.31) fee. The exemptions are numerous: residents, obviously, and those born in Venice; anyone with a reserved overnight stay in the city; anyone entering for work, study, medical care or business.
The exemption for visiting resident relations “up to the third degree of kinship” has caused much doubt and considerable joy among locals who wonder how anyone will be able to prove this, and whether they are blood relations or marital relations.
The scope for complications and misunderstandings seems infinite, as the mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, himself admitted when presenting the launch of the reservation system. He described it as “a pilot plan for the reserves” and added: “Of course there will be problems, but we are humble enough to believe that we can try it and make the necessary adjustments.”
For 2024, the registration fee has been set at 5 euros, which will be paid in advance through a website (cda.ve.it) that will be online in mid-January. Even those who are exempt from the fee will need to register for a QR code that will be displayed at random checks at major entry points. If you arrive without knowing the rules, you can pay upon arrival.
At the moment, there is a fee, but there are no limits on the number of people who can pay to enter the city, causing opponents of the plan to accuse Brugnaro of a cynical and toothless move to placate UNESCO and keep Venice off the list of shame, where it would have joined sites facing much greater existential threats, such as the historic center of Odessa in Ukraine and archaeological sites in war-torn Yemen.
The city will not make any money from the experiment which, according to council figures, will cost €3m (£2.58m) to run and generate around €700,000 (£603,000) in revenue. “We just want to evaluate the effect and efficiency of this reservation system,” Brugnaro told the Italian press.
If the pilot system works, subsequent years will see a sliding scale of fares of up to €10 (£8.62) depending on how busy the city is and perhaps a limit on the number of tickets. But with mechanisms already in place to facilitate bulk booking of entry slots for cruise passengers (who no longer sail on central waterways, but dock nearby) and for large tour companies, Venetians are wondering whether they even This measure would change the relationship between visitors and locals who feel that these are precisely the newcomers who are most oblivious to their plight.
Locals would prefer to encourage more sensitive tourists. As president of Save Venice, a nonprofit organization responsible for preserving the city’s art and architectural treasures, Frederick Ilchman is a frequent visitor to the city. He recognizes that he is part of the problem. “When I visit Venice, of course, I am also a tourist, so I am part of the crowd in the narrow streets and on the vaporettos,” Ilchman said. “But I try to be a good tourist,” he added. “I don’t suddenly stop at the top of a bridge or block pedestrian traffic to take a photo.”
