In Venice, there’s one thing nearly everyone agrees on: Something’s got to be done to curb the effects of mass tourism. But local consensus on what, exactly, remains elusive.
Never was this clearer than during the late April rollout of a hotly debated new ticket for day trippers, known officially as the Venice Access Fee — but better known as the world’s first example of a city charging for entry. The €5 fee (about $5.36) came into effect on April 25 and will be enforced on select dates — mostly holidays and weekends — throughout May, June and July, for a total of 29 days this year.
Amid global press attention, the City of Venice has reiterated in multiple statements that the fee’s main objective is to “define a new system to manage tourist flows and to de-incentivize single-day tourism in certain periods, in keeping with the delicate and unique nature of the city.”
Mayor Luigi Brugnaro, speaking in front of the Santa Lucia train station on the morning the fee went into effect, acknowledged critics’ reservations but defended the fee’s necessity: “I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but we have to do something,” he said. “We can’t just talk about it; it’s our duty and our task to preserve the city for future generations.”
What’s involved? Is it actually an “inconvenience?”
The new system requires all daytime visitors arriving in Venice between 8.30am and 4pm on the designated dates to pay €5, either via an online portal or at ticket booths in Piazzale Roma (the city’s main bus terminal) and outside Santa Lucia. Registrants then receive a QR code to be shown at ticket checks in main entry points to the historic center, including the train station, the Fusina port and the busy Riva degli Schiavoni waterfront.
Signage at these new checkpoints directs tourists to one line and fee-exempt residents, students and workers to another.
Random checks are also being carried out by about 75 stewards, identifiable by their white, orange and yellow vests and dispersed in 16 main areas around the city.
The checks affect overnight visitors, too. Though exempt from paying the fee, overnight travelers to Venice must still apply for exemption, indicating where they are lodging, and be able to demonstrate their own QR code if asked for it. (Some hotels are already doing this on guests’ behalf.)
How’s it been working so far?
Data from the first full five days show that day-tripper numbers peaked at 23,600 on Friday, April 25 and dropped to 17,031 on Monday, April 29. (Another 51,000 guests at hotels or other travelers’ accommodations registered their presences on Monday, but were exempt from paying, as they were already subject to a tourist tax.)
The fee not only came into effect during what’s often a busy travel time in Italy — the period between two national holidays, Liberation Day (April 25) and Labor Day (May 1) — but also coincided with two high-traffic events: the first full week of the 60th Venice Biennale and a visit from Pope Francis, who stopped by the Vatican’s pavilion at the contemporary art showcase and celebrated mass at Saint Mark’s Basilica on Sunday. Brugnaro said in a statement that the papal visit had been pulled off “with a complex organizational mechanism that worked well down to the details.”
What do locals in Venice really think?
Between the papal visit, the protests, the institutional voices and the flurry of international press coverage, it’s been tough for outsiders to get a read on what everyday people in the Venetian lagoon think about the trial run. Here’s what the word on the street — or the calle, as it’s called in the city — has been like so far as Venice adjusts to this new chapter.
At Santa Lucia station
Cinzia Rossi, a sales associate at the tobacconist inside Santa Lucia, said that for the past month, perplexed visitors had already been entering the shop asking if they could buy tickets from her. Rossi, a commuting worker from Murano, was skeptical that the general confusion would subside, even as the new ticket kiosk outside the station became operational.
“Watch how long those lines will get,” Rossi said. “People will arrive in the station, and maybe some will download their passes [ahead of time], but others still won’t have the faintest idea where to go, and they’ll come in and line up to ask us. And then we’ll send them to another good long line out there.”
Announcements are made via loudspeaker as train passengers reach Santa Lucia, but Rossi suggested clearer instructions inside the station would become necessary. Still, despite her concerns about the logistics, she thinks the new system is worth a try.
“This experiment will be useful,” Rossi said. “There are so many people in Venice, especially on the weekends.”
In the piazze and at the bars
Protests put on by a range of organizers have been underway throughout the rollout; several general assemblies were advertised in flyers around town in the weeks leading up to the launch, and tensions between police and protesters have been reported by multiple outlets, particularly in the Piazzale Roma area.
But on a sunny Liberation Day in the Dorsoduro neighborhood, music rang out, dogs barked and friends mingled as demonstrators — many of them waving flags bearing the logo of Assemblea Sociale per la Casa (ASC), a local organization that advocates for affordable housing — gathered in Campo Santa Margherita, with some splintering off for spritz breaks at the square’s Caffè Rosso after a morning of marching.
Erika Volpicelli, her ASC flag at her feet, was among them. She is one of thousands of residents who’ve been forced out of the city center by rising costs of living. (Last September, local associations Venessia.com and Ocio jointly announced that the number of tourist beds in the historic center had surpassed the number of residents for the first time.)
Citing skyrocketing housing costs and a lack of services in the center, Volpicelli said she thought closer regulation of the short-term rental economy would be a more useful measure than charging visitors what she called a “classist” entry fee.
“For a normal person with even a relatively well-paid job, compared to the Italian average, it’s really become impossible to live here,” she added.
Many like Volpicelli and her friend Irene Bedin are worried about the new system’s encroachment on residents’ well-being in a place where the tourist economy already shapes so much of daily life. Volpicelli cited potential complications for visiting friends and family as a concern; friends and relatives of locals, in fact, must register for exemption when coming to town on designated days. (The only parties not required to take any action are residents of the municipality of Venice and those who were born there, children under 14, people with special disability permissions and their caregivers, and members of the armed forces.)
“It limits our freedom of movement and privacy,” Bedin said, “and most of all won’t do anything to effectively benefit residents or reduce tourism.”
In the shops and streets
Fence-sitters somewhere between the fee’s institutional defenders and its loudest protesters may represent the weary Venetian majority. Most local workers this writer spoke with referred to the access fee with tones of either reluctant acceptance or cautious optimism.
Roberto Ballarin, a longtime gondolier who was taking a smoke break near the Ponte San Moisè, said that he found it a good idea in theory.
“The important thing to know is where the money ends up and if it gets put to good use,” Ballarin said.
Stefano Casati, a marbled paper artisan with a shop near the Fenice Theatre, said that Venice is “a city, not a museum” and did not wish to elaborate further.
Other workers around town, like Michele Luciani, who owns an eyewear boutique near San Marco and commutes daily from the Lido di Venezia, the barrier island famous for hosting the Venice Film Festival, expressed last-minute confusion about what their obligations were. (As one of roughly 20,000 residents on the Lido, which is part of the municipality of Venice, Luciani is not required to register for exemption, but for many commuters we spoke to, this hasn’t been clear-cut.)
In the hotels
Over at the glitzy new Nolinski Venezia, housed in the former headquarters of Venice’s Stock Exchange, staff opinions about the measure didn’t toe any specific company line.
At the front desk, reception clerk Matteo, who commutes from Marghera, said he didn’t think interpreting the data would be possible until a year or so had passed.
“It’s definitely not going to reduce tourism in Venice; I don’t think €5 per person makes a difference,” he said. “But personally I hope that the money gets invested in trash collection and city cleanup.”
Head concierge Gabriele Picci more openly opposed the fee, which he sees as “discriminatory.”
“It might help to somewhat regulate the flow of tourist traffic, but not much, because, okay, you pay the €5 and then you come for one day only anyway,” Picci said. (There is no “cap” on the number of visitors and local officials like Michele Zuin, the councillor who oversees the budget, have told reporters that the city has no plans to impose one.)
Picci also said there were social ethics to consider. “I think that trying to regulate the flows is acceptable, but basing entrance on who can pay versus can’t pay is discriminatory,” he explained.
For those already making a long-haul trip to Italy, a €5 fee may seem nominal. But it’s the clampdown on day trippers and the privileging of overnight visitors that Picci, Volpicelli and other critics see as unjust. According to the latest annual municipal report on tourism, three-star structures make up the lion’s share of hotels in Venice (42.7%), yet 62.7% of all hotel beds are found in four- and five-star outfits. At the five-star Nolinski, room rates on the lower end started at €760 (about $816) per night at the time of writing.
Nightly prices in registered accommodations outside the traditional hotel circuit — like those on Airbnb and VRBO — also run high in La Serenissima when compared to the rest of Italy. Venice remains the most expensive Italian city to rent in overnight, according to a recent report for Il sole 24 ore carried out by AirDNA, an analytics provider for the short-term rental industry.
Still, a trend toward “selectivity” is precisely what some other hospitality professionals suggest is needed for the city to survive. At the Hotel Saturnia’s ground floor restaurant, Ivan Bottazzin, who has worked in Venice for 35 years, said he’s seen a decline in the “quality” of visitors to the city.
“To get back to work after the pandemic, we had to lower prices and accept a little bit of everything,” Bottazzin said. “Now that things are getting somewhat back to normal, the bar is being raised temporarily to see if we can eliminate some of the day-to-day tourism.”
Bottazzin clarified that he thought everyone should have the right to see the city — a UNESCO World Heritage Site — just not all at once. (Those who want to visit for just a few hours on days when the fee is in force can still come, fee-free, after 4pm, he pointed out.)
“As with all new things, you’ve got to test it out first to see if it brings positive or negative effects for the city,” Bottazzin said. “And Venice isn’t a normal city.”
