VENICE – Entrance fee to Venice, at the end of the second day 23,600 tourists paid the ticket while over 106,000 people registered today, the second day for the entrance ticket on the online platform of the Municipality of Venice. The same The Municipality specifies that among those exempt there are over 51,600 guests in accommodation facilities (because they already pay the tourist tax) while the overall number of registered residents in Veneto is decreasing compared to 25 April, going from 16,800 to 12,800. The checks carried out verified a total of over 16,400 QR-codes, without revealing any particular critical issues.
The controls
Also for tomorrow, Saturday 27 April, and for all the others in which the payment of the access fee is expected, gates will be active at the main access points to the city, distinct from priority gates for residents and workers. Approximately 75 steward informants will be employed daily in 16 areas; approximately 40 steward verifiers and 35 inspectors in approximately 15 control points, the main of which will be in the Railway area, in the Piazzale Roma area and in the San Zaccaria area. 70 information totems scattered across the city’s access points, as well as Chioggia and Punta Sabbioni.
The calendar: all ticket days until July
Tomorrow is the third day in which the entrance fee is expected, followed by those on 28, 29 and 30 April; 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 12, 18, 19, 25, 26 May; 8, 9, 15, 16, 22, 23, 29, 30 June; 6, 7, 13 and 14 July 2024. And always at the same times. As the mayor Luigi Brugnaro recalled, «the experimentation will be medium-long, we must collect data and information to then calibrate the system. The greatest satisfaction was seeing who approached the gates waving the access QR code: these people understood.”
Contribution effect
Venice for the first time with an entrance ticket but still “invaded” by 113 thousand visitors. An only apparent paradox was seen yesterday in the lagoon city, full of holidaymakers despite the fact that a tax of 5 euros was applied for daily tourists. The explanation is given by the municipal budget councilor, Michele Zuin, who with the mayor Brugnaro and the tourism councilor Venturini followed the experimentation from the front row. «Yesterday it went very well – comments Zuin – there were no particular problems, we had 15 thousand people who had booked even though they knew they had to pay the contribution. And to those who say that the disincentive effect did not exist, I simply reply: the experimentation of these first 29 days of 2024 serves us precisely to work on what should be the maximum threshold of tourists present in the city, without blowing up the public services, transport, bathrooms”. It is clear, observes Zuin, that it cannot be 5 euros or less that convince tourists to stay away from Venice. «By cross-referencing all the data on this year’s flows, those of the cell phones of the people who arrived in the city in these days – he continues – in 2025 we will be able to set a maximum threshold of sustainable presences. Beyond that threshold, those who still want to come to Venice on hot days will have to pay a higher contribution, probably the maximum required by law – which limits it to the limits of the tourist tax ed. – that is 10 euros. Here, in that case, a group of more people will perhaps be discouraged from arriving in the city anyway. It was unthinkable that the disincentive effect would start immediately, with the 5 euros.” A maximum threshold, not a ban, Zuin specifies, “because we don’t want to, and we couldn’t, put a limited number on arrivals.”
Michielli: «Ticket even at 10 euros is not enough»
Applauds the ticket Marco Michielli, historic former president of Confturismo Venetowhich for years had been calling for a sort of safeguard from hit-and-run tourism. «I have always been in favor – he tells AdnKronos – I had already written in a book ten years ago, in unsuspecting times, that some tool was needed to limit arrivals. Today it is the ticket, but even if they set it at 10 euros, as it seems, it will not be enough. Sooner or later it will be necessary to arrive at a single reservation based on the number of tourists that the city determines it can welcome that day». It is estimated that tourism in Venice has multiplied by 10 in the last 30 years, thanks to the explosion in the number of beds “in the various airbnbs”, almost 50 thousand (32,500 in hotels) on which, however, there is no full certainty: they could be even more. «Venice has been at its limit for years, it’s unthinkable that it can handle even 200,000 arrivals a day – continues Michielli – It’s not Paris, where just as many arrive every day, but you don’t notice it among 13 million inhabitants».
