Venice will charge tourists €10 to visit city.
Starting in January, Venice will require day-trippers to make prior reservations and pay a fee to visit the historic lagoon city, in a bid to tackle overcrowding.
Venice officials on Friday unveiled new rules for day-trippers, which will be in effect from 16 January 2023.
The city will charge visitors between €3 to €10 depending on the season and how far in advance the booking was made. Tourists who fail to show their booking confirmation will face a massive fine of €300.
Some day-trippers are exempt from paying the entry fee, although they will still have to book. These include residents of the Veneto region, students, and those visiting family members in the city.
Overnight hotel guests will also avoid paying the entrance fee because they’ll already be paying a tourist tax through their hotel.
Venice’s councillor for tourism, Simone Venturini, said the goal is not to “close the city,” but to get people to book their presence to reduce the “tourist peaks.”
He said, “Venice is a living city and it has to stay that way.”
According to Venturini, with the new rule, Venice aims to “find this balance between residents and long-term and short-term” visitors.
In peak tourism months, tourists can outnumber residents two to one, in a city that measures 5 square km in area.
Venice’s resident population in the historic city numbers just over 50,000, a small fraction of what it was a couple of generations ago.
The reservation approach had been discussed a few years ago, but was put on hold due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
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