by Mia Taylor
Last updated: 2:25 PM ET, Thu October 24, 2024
Venice is continuing to evolve its efforts to address overtourism in the popular historic city.
In the latest development, city officials say they will extend the recently introduced day-tripper tax through next year. Plans also call for increasing the number of days on which tourists must pay the tax to enter the city.
Additionally, the tax itself will be doubled to 10 euros, or about $10.80 for last minute visitors, according to the Associated Press. For tourists who make reservations at least four days in advance, the tax is just $5.40.
The tax was implemented as part of a variety of measures meant to help the city battle overtouism, particularly during holidays and weekends.
Moving forward, the tax must be paid every Friday through Sunday, and also on holidays from April 18 through July 27 of next year. That brings the total days the tax must be paid to 54 or nearly double the days it was implemented in 2024. The tax is enforced from 8:30 a.m. until 4 p.m.
Additionally, there are exemptions available for residents, Venetian-born visitors, students and workers. Tourists who have hotel or other lodging reservations within the city are also not required to pay the tax.
After first being tested last July, the tax brought in $2.6 million from 1,000 visitors each of the test days, according to Associated Press.
Critics have said the tax is not accomplishing the goal of reducing or deterring visitation.
“Data offered by the control room show that on average during the period of implementation of the fee, we had about 7,000 more tourist entries than in previous years,” Giovanni Andrea Martini, an opposition councilor, said per AP. “This shows that the access fee is not at all a system able to manage the flows.”
Mayor Luigi Brugnaro, however, defended the program.
“Venice is the first city in the world that tries to manage the problem of overtourism. We obtained important results,” said Brugnaro, per AP.
Between 25 million to 30 million day-trippers and overnight guests have visited the city of Venice since 2020. Venice has also rolled out other efforts to deal with such large numbers of visitors. This has also included tour group size limits.
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