The main objective of this measure is to dissuade day visitors. The Venice city council validated, on Tuesday September 12, a tax of 5 euros which will target from 2024 tourists coming for only one day to the city of the Doges, victim of mass tourism.
In 2024, this tax payable online will only concern a maximum of thirty days during which the number of tourists is traditionally higher, particularly weekends with bridges in spring and during the summer period. The calendar for the days concerned will be published later. Those under 14 and tourists spending at least one night on site will be exempt from this tax.
“It’s a first step (…). We are doing an experiment,” right-wing mayor Luigi Brugnaro said in a statement, promising that the “system will be easy to use.”
World Heritage in Danger
This measure comes as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recommended at the end of July to place the Serenissima on the list of World Heritage in Danger, judging that Italy has so far taken “insufficient” measures to combat the deterioration of the site.
“The continued development [of Venice], the impacts of climate change and mass tourism threaten to cause irreversible changes to the exceptional universal value of the property,” criticized Unesco. Rising sea levels and other “extreme weather phenomena” linked to global warming “threaten the integrity” of the site, UNESCO also warned.
UNESCO’s opinion is for the moment indicative: for Venice to actually be included in this list, the approval of the Member States present at a meeting of the World Heritage Committee currently being held in Riyadh is required.
The timing of the vote on this tax could not be more opportune for Venice, which has been putting off taking drastic measures for years, in particular the implementation of compulsory reservations and the quota on the number of entries into the city. to stem the surge of millions of tourists in its saturated historic center.
Sudden “haste”
The municipal opposition did not fail to highlight the sudden “haste” surrounding this measure in order to “show UNESCO that we are doing something”. “A tax of 5 euros will not prevent anyone from coming to Venice,” judged councilor Gianfranco Bettin.
UNESCO had also stigmatized “the absence of a global common strategic vision” and the “low efficiency and coordination” of Italian local and national authorities. “This registration will lead to greater commitment and mobilization of local, national and international stakeholders,” she hoped.
This exceptional site, which became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, 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 – compared to some 50,000 residents of the city center, which continues to depopulate.
In addition to mass tourism, Venice and its lagoon suffer from high tides which regularly flood St. Mark’s Square and weaken the foundations of its buildings.