Venice has today become the first city in the world to introduce a ticket system for tourists, in a bid to reduce the congestion that chokes the city on the canals during the peak holiday season.
Any visitor to Venice who does not spend the night in the city must buy a ticket online today, April 25, an Italian public holiday, which costs five euros, before entering the lagoon city. It is the first of a total of 29 days this year when visitors will be charged for admission.
Although there are no barriers at the city’s entrances to ensure that all people have passes, inspectors will carry out random checks and issue fines of €50 to €300 to anyone who fails to register.
“No one has introduced a system like this before,” Venice Mayor Luigi Bruniaro told reporters earlier this month. He stated that they are not closing the city, but are just trying to make it livable.
About 20 million people visited Venice last year, Bruniaro said, and about half of them stayed in hotels or apartments. About 49,000 people currently live in the city.
Venice narrowly avoided being placed on UNESCO’s endangered world heritage list last year, in part because the UN body concluded that the city’s authorities were taking the problem of mass tourism seriously.
In addition to the entrance fee, the city banned large cruise ships from entering the Venetian lagoon and announced new restrictions on the size of tour groups.
“The phenomenon of mass tourism is a challenge for all European tourist cities,” said city tourism official Simon Venturini. “But since Venice is smaller and more sensitive, it is even more affected by this phenomenon and is therefore forced to take measures before others to try to find a solution,” he added.
Ticket sales are in an experimental phase this year, and Venturini said that in the future Venice may start charging more at certain times of the year to discourage tourist arrivals.
