07/15/2024 – 19:27
The city council of Venice, in northern Italy, is considering increasing the controversial entrance fee for visitors to the city’s historic center from 2025, when the amount could rise from the current five euros to 10 on days with the highest number of people.
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“Venice is still very cheap,” Venice’s deputy tourism director Simone Venturini told regional newspapers, stressing that he was “thinking about increasing the entrance fee to put an end to overtourism.”
The municipality, one of Italy’s main tourist attractions, began charging on April 25 with the aim of limiting the impact of round-trip travel to the “floating city”, which has suffered for years from mass tourism and population decline.
The testing phase, which covered 29 non-sequential days, ended last Sunday, 1), with almost 2.2 million euros raised through payments from around 450 thousand tourists, according to data from the City Council.
Residents, people working in the city, students, children under 14, people staying in the city and people traveling to sporting events were exempt.
“This has allowed us to collect data that we did not have. Now is the time to study the numbers and organize the calendar for 2025, with all the new developments that will follow,” said Venice Budget Councilor Michele Zuin.
The Italian politician further explained that “the first experimental phase did not show significant dissuasive effects” and emphasized that “the situation will change when the maximum ticket price increases to 10 euros”, which is “what the law allows us, depending on flows and reservations”.
For Zuin, this is “an attempt to reverse the trend” so that people plan to visit the Italian city. Finally, Venturini emphasized that “Venice cannot contain all the people in the world,” so it is necessary to “choose what kind of people we want to bring to a city that offers a unique experience in the world, but within a finite space.”
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