Venice will become the first city to charge visitors to make a reservation and pay a fee in an attempt to manage the number of tourists who flock there every year.
From 16 January 2023, tourists who aren’t staying overnight in Venice will have to sign up online pay a fee, ranging from €3 to €10 (£2.58 to £8.62) a person - the price varies depending on how far in advance the booking is made and whether or not its peak season.
Anyone stopped by authorities and unable show proof they booked and paid with a QR code could be hit with a fine of up to €300 (£258).
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Currently, around 80 percent of tourists come to Venice for just one day - in 2019, the last full year before the pandemic forced the world into lockdown, 19 million day-trippers headed to Venice but far fewer stayed at least one night or more.
Tourists who stay the night currently pay a city tax of between €1 (80p) to €5 (£4.30) a night, but they will be exempt from the reserve-and-fee system.
Officials have said the system isn’t in place to limit the number of people who head to the city.
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Venice's councillor for tourism, Simone Venturini told a news conference yesterday: “We won’t talk about number cutoffs. We’re talking about incentives and disincentives.”
He said the new system will help Venice to ‘find this balance between (Venetian) resident and long-term and short-term’ visitors.
He also promised that the new system ‘will be simple for visitors’ to manage - and hailed Venice as the first city in the world putting such a system for day-only visitors in place.
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The decision to introduce a reservation-and-fee in the city has been talked about several years, but the plans were placed on hold during the pandemic when lockdowns meant visitors weren’t able to travel to Venice.
When the move was announced earlier this year, Venturini said the city hoped to drive down ‘hit-and-run’ tourism.
He said: "The aim is to discourage one-day tourism, hit-and-run tourism, arriving in one day and leaving in the same day, tiring and stressing the city, and encouraging slower tourism instead.”
Exceptions to the day-tripper fees include children younger than six, people with disabilities and those owning holiday apartments in Venice, provided they can show proof they pay real estate taxes.
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Topics: Travel, World News
Claire Reid