Venice will try again on its plan to charge day-trippers a €5 daily entry fee and to limit the number who can visit at a time, with a 30-day trial set for next April. The planned 'turnstile' fee has been postponed repeatedly over the past few years.
Final City Council approval is expected Sept. 12, and the plan has already been green-lighted by the Council's executive committee. The fee will exempt visitors who stay overnight, commuters, students and those under 14. Venice officials have long felt that one-day visitors, often from cruise ships, place a heavy burden on the city but don't create much revenue. The trial will likely not be continuous, but will spread the 30 days over weekends and public holidays.
Previous attempts to implement the system were postponed by various technical issues, by political wrangling and then by the pandemic.
The push to implement the system, for which high-tech turnstiles and camera equipment were installed before a previously-planned start, comes in part from warnings from UNESCO that the city's status as World Heritage site is in danger because of environmental issue and excessive tourism. A vote to put Venice on the endangered heritage list could come at a meeting of the World Heritage committee later this month.
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