The period costumes indicate that it is already carnival time in Venice. Confetti invades the streets, a hundred colorful gondolas travel the canals. It would be low season in any other city in the world, but not here. Visitors from all over walk the bridges and narrow alleys gawking, complicating passage in a city where mobility is necessarily peculiar. There are those who have come to spend the weekend, but others, only on Sunday. These will soon be the guinea pigs of the latest initiative by the Venice City Council to combat mass tourism: a toll of five euros a day for those who want to enjoy its streets without having booked a hotel.
Finally, and after many delays since the entry ticket was announced, a measure that has sparked enormous debate in the city comes into force in 2024. The experiment will currently be requested for only 29 days this year, between April 25 and July 14. Those interested in attending must reserve their ticket on an online platform of the City Council that is already in operation and where all the indicated dates are well marked on the calendar.
There will be no turnstiles, since in 2018 they were already tested to regulate access flows and it was a disaster: they barely lasted half an hour after a group of protesters tore them off in front of the cameras. Those in charge of controlling it will be municipal guards who will be able to ask for the reservation code at the main access points from anyone who walks during the chosen days. The fines for not complying will range from 50 to 300 euros.
“Our objective – explained the Councilor for Tourism, Simone Venturini – is to find a new balance between the demands of those who live in Venice, those who work or study, and those who intend to visit and get to know Venice.” Because, he considers, the tourism of those who do not stay overnight in the city “complicates the management of flows on certain days”, so they prefer to bet on visitors who want to get to know Venice better, “taking the appropriate time, at least one or two nights, to get in tune and discover their artistic heritage, their traditions and craftsmanship.”
The system has generated many doubts, which is why municipal officials are doing a pedagogy exercise these days. To begin with, the amount will be five euros per person for those over 14 years of age, and no reductions are foreseen, but there is a long list of people who will be exempt. Neither Venetians nor those who come every day to work or study at their universities will have to pay it, but neither will their relatives up to the third degree or friends – they will be able to prove it with a voucher that their loved ones will provide them -, the residents of the Veneto region , those who come to participate in sports competitions or to the hospital. Neither, obviously, will those who have a hotel reservation or another tourist accommodation structure, since they will already pay the corresponding municipal tax there. The idea is that only visitors who go to Venice to spend the day need the ticket, and contribute to the municipal coffers of a city under enormous tourist pressure.
There is reluctance among the inhabitants. For example, Paolo, owner of a small hotel in the San Polo neighborhood, very close to the old market, complains about the complications this will represent for hoteliers. “Now we will have to explain to tourists when they book that they have to fill out a form through the platform, and not even we know how to do it,” he says, while serving a family of Americans. “It is a way of accepting that we are in a museum and not in a city. This will only help the mayor to raise money,” laments Gloria, who works in a restaurant in the Cannareggio neighborhood. Mario, a bar waiter at the iconic Monaco hotel, believes that it is fine as long as this money is used to support Venice. “It’s this mayor’s umpteenth firefighter idea. “It’s not going to be of any use,” protested Giulia, born in Venice, while she waited for the vaporetto.
“The ticket in Venice is necessary: ??the objective is not to close the city, but not to blow it up,” the mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, countered this Monday. “We need everyone’s understanding,” he asked, “because we cannot all be together at the same moment.”
