Venice’s authorities’ decision to impose a €5 fee for foreign visitors planning to enter this city will be implemented starting in spring 2024, the Mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, has confirmed.
Plans to impose such restrictions have been discussed since 2019 as part of efforts to reduce the influx of tourists that head to this city every year.
However, Brugnaro said that this is not a permanent move yet after the authorities have committed to a 30-day experiment.
According to a report from CNN, authorities in Venice will pick the days which they predict to be busiest, such as holiday weekends and peak Carnival periods.
The new rules suggest that all daytrippers aged 14 and more reaching the floating city will be subject to the €5 fee.
However, there will be some exemptions applied. Locals, commuters and those with second homes in Venice who have paid local property tax, taking into account visitors who are staying overnight in the municipality and those participating in sports events, will be excluded from the entry fee.
The fee was previously proposed to be €10, however it has been reduced to €5. The City Councilor for Tourism, Simone Venturini, through a statement, said that changes were made after taking into account proposals of citizens and opposition councillors.
Aware of the urgency to find a new balance between the rights of those who live, work and study in Venice, and those who visit the city, we are setting ourselves up as global frontrunners.
By introducing the new changes, Venice would become the first city in the world to charge daytripper visitors.
Previously, the Italian daily newspaper Il Gazzettino reported that UNESCO World Heritage warned that it might place Venice in the endangered sites due to mass tourism and as a result of the rising sea levels caused by climate changes.
The same source said that the Italian authorities were also criticised for failing to protect the city and the surrounding lagoon. Responding to such comments, the former mayor of Venice, Massimo Cacciari, considered UNESCO “one of the most expensive, useless bodies on the face of the earth,”.
Italy is among the most favourite tourist destinations in Europe. In August this year, the Italian Ministry of Tourism announced that Italy is the second destination for 2023 after 39 per cent of accommodation facilities were booked on online platforms, thus remaining ahead of France and Spain, which registered a total of 14 per cent surge.
