Venice To Introduce Entry Fee For Day Trippers To Avoid Overtourism

Venice, Italy is one of the favourite destinations of tourists because of its enchanting canals and rich history. For many years now, the city has been dealing with a major problem, which is over-tourism. To tackle it, the Lagoon City of Italy has now introduced a new ticket policy for all visitors. The new strategy has been rolled out to lower the number of tourists visiting the UNESCO World Heritage site. The news of its introduction came out last year, and it will be implemented from April end.

The visitors will now have to pay a fee of 5 Euros, in a bid to tackle mass tourism, which will be applicable for all the visitors above 14 years of age. This makes Venice the world’s first city to make tourists pay an entry fee.

The free structure is an effort to control the day tripper access and to provide a better experience to travellers and residents.

Although the policy was announced sometime later, the Government had not shared any information about how the scheme would be implemented. During a press conference, Venice’s Mayor Luigi Burgnaro promised “soft controls” and “without queues” saying that the city will be carrying out spot checks on tourists to ensure that they’ve been provided with a QR code.

“This is an experiment, and the first time it’s been done anywhere in the world. Our aim is to make Venice more liveable,” Burgnaro stated.

Reportedly, during peak times 100,000 tourists stay a night in the city, whereas thousands are those who visit the city during the day time. This is compared to the city’s population of 50,000 which is constantly declining.

The new fee structure will be applicable for 29 peak days between the months of April and July 2024, with the first set of dates covering April 26 to May 5.

The Venice Fee Access only targets visitors entering the old town between 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM local time. Exemptions include visitors staying in hotels, kids under the age of 14, and the disabled.

The tourists who are planning to stay in a hotel will be provided a free OR code, while the local residents do not have to pay any fee.

Controllers will be stationed around the city to control spot checks on visitors. Those who don’t have a ticket will be invited to buy one on arrival with the help of local operators.

Well, that’s not all, if the visitors fail to abide by the entry fee collection system they will be fined from 50-300 euros.