Going to the Santa Lucia train station in Venice on Thursday morning, passengers were informed via a general announcement that they might have to pay a €5 fee to enter the historic city centre. Failure to pay can result in a fine of between 50 and 300 euros, the announcement states.
Outside the station, police in riot gear remained, while a flock of aides in colorful safety vests stopped arriving travelers to ensure they had a QR code showing they had registered to visit a city website. Those who hadn’t directed it to a booth where they could. After registration, overnight guests were sent on their way without having to pay, but people planning to stay just for the day were charged (although there were other exceptions).
It was a new welcome in Venice, the first city in the world to charge day visitors a nominal entrance fee, a measure city officials hope will help combat overtourism.
“I only found out because my partner texted me this morning to say it was happening,” said Lorraine Kolcher, a hospital administrator from Wirral, England, in the queue at the kiosk. “I thought he was joking.”
And he didn’t think people should pay for the privilege of seeing a “beautiful city that everyone wants to visit,” he said.
Not far from the station, hundreds of protesters were making a lot of noise. For them, the entrance fee was a worrying step to bring Venice closer to what many fear the city will become if the tide doesn’t change: a theme park. They whistled, handed out fake tickets that read: “Welcome to Venice.” Some held signs that read: “Venice is not for sale” and “Stick this on the ticket” and shouted: “We want our city back.”
“One ticket does not solve overtourism,” said Renata Marzari, a retired teacher from Venice who was among the protesters.
Like other locals, he acknowledged that the influx of tourists – which last year reached nearly 20 million – could be a challenge. Often, he said, it involved physical confrontations, including “pointing accidents, where you walk into a suddenly raised hand, or photo accidents, when they’re back at you looking at their phones.” But the ticket, which is only valid for day visitors arriving between 8:30 A.M. to 4 p.m., was “ridiculous,” he said. He added, “They could make more money by charging for every cigarette butt thrown on the ground.”
Venice is just one of dozens of cities, including Amsterdam, Athens and Barcelona, struggling with a flood of tourists. Speaking outside the train station on Thursday morning, the city’s mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, said he had been contacted by other parties interested in the initiative, but would not say which, “for reasons of confidentiality”.
Floating on water crisscrossed by canals, Venice, which according to tradition was founded in 421, although this date is debated, is extremely fragile. Last year, experts from UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural agency, recommended that it be included on the list of endangered world heritage sites, citing mass tourism as a major concern. Venice remained off the “at risk” list after the access fee was approved, but UNESCO officials said in a statement that “further progress still needs to be made.”
Critics of the fee say it will do little to combat the city’s real problems, which have pushed many to leave. The permanent population downtown has eroded to fewer than 49,000 people, from nearly 175,000 in 1951, according to municipal statistics. They report a lack of affordable housing due to short-term rentals. a reduction in services such as schools and transport; and the encroachment of the tourism industry on almost all areas of life.
Federica Toninelli, member of a local club who supports affordable housing in Venice, dismissed the ticket as “propaganda” and said the city should put “residents’ needs at the center of policies.” City authorities must “take strong steps that will bring the city back to a level of more manageable tourism,” he said.
Otherwise, “this is how a city dies,” said Nicola Camatti, professor of economics and tourism expert at Venice’s Ca’ Foscari University.
Franca Caltarossa, who once ran a municipal after-school program that she said lost much of its funding under the current mayor, said “tourism has distorted the city.”
“Venice is a living city, not a theme park,” he said.
ONE study 2020 by tourism experts at Ca’ Foscari, Venice’s main university, suggested that the optimum number of visitors to Venice per day was about 52,000 people, about a quarter of them day trippers. But Venice does not limit the number of visitors.
“We are against limiting the number of visitors. this is an open city,” said Michele Zuin, the city councilor responsible for the budget. Instead, the city hoped that day visitors — about 10 million last year — would plan to come on off-peak days when the city “is quieter,” Mr. Zuin said.
“We are convinced that it is a solution for managing day visitors,” he said.
On Thursday, a national holiday in Italy, 113,000 people had registered to enter Venice. Of those, 15,700 paid the access fee and 40,000 were exempt overnight visitors, while the remaining visitors — also exempt — include students, workers and relatives or friends of residents.
For 2024, the fee will be applied to 29 peak days as an “experiment”, Mr Zuin said. Data collected during this phase will help city officials better manage resources and better control the phenomenon, they say. Mr Zuin said next year, more days would be added to the fee calendar and fees could reach €10.
“Doubling the price makes the city a commodity, nothing more than a theme park, a museum,” said Giovanni Andrea Martini, a local opposition MP. He questioned the usefulness of the fee, given that City Hall’s future projects included plans to expand the airport and open new channels in the lagoon so that boats, including cruise ships, which were banned in 2019, could dock closer. “This means the city will be further suffocated,” he said Thursday, cutting the interview short because a brief clash had broken out between protesters and police.
At the train station, tourists lined up patiently at the access fee booth to collect their passes.
Charlotte Dean, a wine merchant, and Caroline Meatyard, a retired teacher, both from England, happily paid the fee. It’s “fair enough”, Ms Dean said. “Venice is a wonderful place. It should be valuable.”