(Rome) World premiere in Venice on April 25: day tourists will have to pay 5 euros ($7.30) to access the City of the Doges, which hopes to stem overtourism.
“This is an experiment, and it’s the first time that it’s been done in the world,” Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro boasted Thursday at a press conference in Rome in the presence of media. of the whole world.
“It’s not about making money […] our goal is to make Venice more liveable,” he stressed, while the Serenissima is one of the most visited cities in the world. At peak attendance, 100,000 tourists sleep there, in addition to tens of thousands of daily visitors. Compare to the approximately 50,000 inhabitants of the city center, which continues to depopulate.
For 2024, only 29 days of high tourist influx are affected by this new tax: “The calendar starts on April 25 (public holiday in Italy, Editor’s note), then follows almost every weekend from May to July,” explained Luigi Brugnaro, who promised “very soft”, “random” and “no queues” controls.
This tax, the implementation of which has been postponed several times, only targets daily tourists entering the old town between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. local time. They will have to download a QR code for 5 euros on the dedicated site (https://cda.ve.it/fr/), available in English, Spanish, French, German and of course Italian.
If necessary, they will have to present it to controllers stationed at the main entrances to the city, in particular the Santa Lucia train station. Tourists who have not completed this formality will be invited to acquire it at the last minute upon their arrival with the help of local operators.
Which will not pose a problem since for the moment no ceiling has been set on the number of QR codes sold for each day: “We are opposed to the numerus clausus, otherwise we are no longer a city, but a museum”, wanted to highlight the city councilor of Venice.
Tourists sleeping at least one night on site are not affected and will receive a QR code free of charge. In addition, numerous exemptions are provided, particularly for those under 14 and students.
The main objective of this project is to dissuade day visitors who contribute to congesting the city, famous throughout the world for its works of art, its bridges and its canals and which has been a UNESCO world heritage site since 1987.