Venice, Italy’s enormously famous tourist attraction, plans to begin charging travelers for admission and capping daily admissions in summer 2022, Bloomberg reported.
Italy’s fabled sinking city, one among the world’s most popular tourist sites, plans to compel day visitors to make an advance reservation. According to Italian news site La Stampa, it will also likely erect turnstiles at key entrance points to the historical core to monitor attendance.
Such methods to control the massive stream of tourists into the vulnerable environment had been discussed for years previous to the pandemic in 2020, which shut down tourism for months on end.
Residents and municipal authorities experienced how calm their city could be during that time period, as the lagoon waters cleared, animals returned, and indigenous life flourished. As the globe recovers from the COVID-19 crisis and travel begins gradually, it became increasingly clear that tourist numbers needed to be restricted to preserve locals’ quality of life and the visitor experience.
Venice took the first move in reining in tourism activities that are detrimental to the city earlier this month by prohibiting huge cruise ships from entering and docking in the city’s fragile lagoon. Cruise liners and other big boats are being redirected to the Marghera industrial port on the mainland until a new, dedicated cruise terminal can be designed and built.
The entrance price to Venice is projected to range between €3 (currently $3.51) and €10 (currently $11.69), depending on the season and the anticipated number of tourists that day. Residents and their immediate family members, as well as tourists with hotel bookings within the city, are likely to be excluded from the admission price.
Nonetheless, debate surrounds the idea of charging people to view the attractions. According to City Councilor Marco Gasparinetti, such a move would transform Venice into a “theme park.” Rather than that, he recommended that entry be restricted to particularly congested locations such as St. Mark’s Square.