start of sale of five-euro tickets for day visits to the city of the Doges

The municipality of Venice began marketing entry tickets on Tuesday to help combat overtourism. This project aims to better distribute the arrival of tourists in this city which welcomes 20 million visitors each year.

The famous city of the Doges launched Tuesday January 16 its first entry tickets for day visits. A sum of five euros per person is requested in order to combat overtourism. To find out if you are affected, you must go to the site created by the city, accessible for the moment only in Italian and English. You mark the date of your visit on a calendar and you take out the credit card.

There are, however, some exceptions. If you want to go gondola riding in February, you’re in luck, it will be free. For the moment, paid periods for visiting the city are limited to the high tourist season. Some 29 days in total between April 25 and July 14. Exemptions for those under 14, students, of course those who live or work in Venice, those who arrive before 8:30 a.m. or after 4 p.m. and those who spend at least one night on site are also planned. Once you have paid your five euros, you will receive a QR code which will be checked by controllers in two places: Venice train station and Piazzale Roma, at the entrance to the historic center. “The margins of error are significant”the mayor of the city himself recognized, Luigi Brugnaro, when he presented the device in November, but it’s a start. Venice is the first city in the world to implement this system.

Fight against “Venice syndrome”

It is not a question of reducing the number of tourists, but of distributing them better. The idea is to continue to benefit from their currencies, but to encourage them not to all come and congregate at the same time in the alleys, on the bridges and the water buses, the vaporetti. Venice is suffocating, with more than 20 million visitors each year, 80% of whom only come during the day. Some 20 million visitors for less than 50,000 inhabitants, we speak of the “Venice syndrome” to describe the effects of overtourism and the feeling of rejection of the inhabitants.

Other cities in Europe have made other choices, for example agreeing to introduce quotas. In Barcelona for ten years, not only do tourists pay to enter Park Güell, but no more than 1,400 are accepted per hour and in the city center, groups are limited to 30 people. The island of Santorini in Greece and the city of Dubrovnik, Croatia have both reduced the number of cruise passengers allowed to disembark each day. Two years ago, Venice also banned the entry of huge cruise ships into the lagoon. Today it is taking an additional measure, but a minimum measure which will perhaps not allow it to escape being listed as a UNESCO world heritage site in danger, which it already narrowly escaped in September.