It appears that D-Day has finally come for Venice's long-planned and often-delayed scheme to control tourism numbers and raise funds by charging a fee to day-trip visitors.
Venice's City Council has approved firm dates for the first months of the plan, with the fee to be charged on 29 peak tourism days next year, starting on April 25th. The €5 fee will be collected via tickets which will be sold online starting in January. The fee will apply until May 5th, and then on weekends in May and June and the first two weekends of July.
Venice has repeatedly come close to starting the fee in one form or another, but it was postponed repeatedly by the pandemic and by technical and political issues several times. But the city is under real pressure this time: Imposing the fee was one of the conditions by which the city escaped being put on the UNESCO World Heritage endangered list.
The tickets will be required from 8:30 am and 4 pm on the days the fee is in effect, but will not apply to residents, people who work in the city or visitors who are already paying a tourism tax as part of their overnight accommodations. The fee is aimed at day-trippers on the idea that they are resource-costly but spend little.
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