With over 125,000 visitors on Easter Sunday and another 95,000 the next day, Venice mayor Luigi Brugnaro responded to ‘do something’ demands by locals by reviving calls for a tax on day-trippers.
The often-proposed-never-enacted charge would be a temporary measure; the mayor is hoping the new government in Rome, once it is selected, will give him the power to simply close the city when numbers peak. He told Italian press that “The solution is obvious: those who live, work or have a place to sleep in the city can enter, the others must stay away…our priority is to guarantee liveability for residents but also for tourists. Venice is a special city, but many haven’t yet understood this, not even in Rome.”
Over recent years, the city has seen demonstrations by residents against over-tourism, and especially against huge cruise ships which physically dwarf the city as well as flood it with short-term visitors. While the ships will be banned from central areas of the city by 2022, that’s still a long way off.
In Portugal, meanwhile, tourism taxes are being imposed by Sintra, home of some of the country’s most spectacular palaces and sights, but where almost no visitors stay because it is an easy hour from Lisbon by rail. Sintra joins Porto and Lisbon in taxing tourist hotels, but revenues are uncertain because so few visitors stay overnight.
