Listen to the audio version of the article
Venice with a ticket, like at the cinema, or at the amusement park. The experimentation of a solution that should manage the waves of tourists that descend on the city as soon as the summer begins begins today, Thursday 15 April: the ticket to enter the city. In essence, it will have to be paid by daily tourists – the so-called “hit and run” – for access to the historic city from 8.00 to 16.30, therefore not in the evening. From June 1st, a rule also establishes a cap on tourist groups, a maximum of 25 people at a time, and a ban on loudspeakers used by guides. The Municipality’s Smart control room, where the images from all the cameras and the data from the people counting sensors converge, will be the focal point of the controls.
Daily tourists have to pay 5 euros
Venice thus becomes the first city of art to experiment with a contribution for access to its historic centre: 5 euros for all those “daily” tourists who do not want to give up setting foot in San Marco even on May 1st, or on August 15th.
80 thousand booked today, one in 10 doesn’t pay
On the first day of testing the entry ticket to Venice, over 80 thousand people registered their presence in the city today, 25 April. However, only 7 thousand, one in ten, according to data updated yesterday afternoon, have paid the 5 euro voucher to access the historic centre. All other accesses are for people exempt from the tax (Venetian citizens, workers, students and other categories), required to register on the online platform but not to pay. Among these, 30,300 are guests of the accommodation facilities, 9,450 are Venetians, potential “day” holidaymakers.
Mayor Brugnaro reassures: «Venice is an open city»
No prohibition however: there is no maximum number of tourists expected beyond which the gates can be closed. «Venice is an open city» underlined, paraphrasing the masterpiece of neorealism, the mayor Luigi Brugnaro, who met the foreign press a few weeks ago.
All the associations that have always fought in Venice against the single thought of tourism were mobilised. However, it was not the idea of making money that pushed Ca’ Farsetti to establish the ticket. It will cost more to operate than the revenue it will generate. But finally, it is the belief, we will have the exact number of people present on the “black mark” weekends.
