VENICE: Venice is charging day-trippers to the famed canal metropolis an arrivals tax for the second 12 months beginning Friday (Apr 18), a measure to fight the overtourism that officers say is placing the town’s UNESCO World Cultural Heritage standing in danger.
A UNESCO physique determined towards placing Venice on its checklist of cultural heritage websites deemed at risk after the tax was introduced. However opponents of the day-tripper payment say it has performed nothing to discourage visits.
Right here’s a take a look at Venice’s battle with overtourism by the numbers:
€5 to €10
The tax charged to guests who should not overnighting in Venice to enter its historic centre throughout the second 12 months of the day-tripper tax. Guests who obtain a QR code a minimum of three days upfront can pay €5 euros (about US$6) – the identical quantity charged final 12 months all through the pilot program. However those that make last-minute plans can pay double. The QR code is required from 8.30am till 4pm and is checked at entry factors to the town, together with the Santa Lucia practice station, the Piazzale Roma bus depot and close to St Mark’s Sq..
54
The variety of days this 12 months that day guests to Venice will likely be charged a payment to enter the historic centre. They embrace largely weekends and holidays from Apr 18 to Jul 27. That’s up from 29 final 12 months. The brand new calendar covers whole weeks over key holidays and extends the weekend interval to incorporate Fridays.
2.4 MILLION
The quantity in euros that the town of Venice took in throughout a 2024 pilot program for the tax. The town’s high finances official, Michele Zuin, mentioned final 12 months the working prices for the brand new system ran to €2.7 million, overshooting the whole charges collected. This 12 months, Zuin initiatives a surplus of about €1 million to €1.5 million, which will likely be used to offset the price of trash assortment and different providers for residents.
450,000
The variety of day-trippers who paid the tax in 2024. Officers say 8,000 day-trippers paid upfront to enter the town on Friday, among the many 77,000 who’ve already registered to date to enter the town this 12 months. One other 117,000 have registered for exemptions, which apply to anybody born in Venice, these paying property taxes within the metropolis, finding out or working within the historic centre, or residing within the wider Veneto area, amongst others.
75,000
The typical variety of day by day guests on the primary 11 days of 2024 that Venice charged day-trippers. That is about 10,000 folks greater than the variety of vacationers recorded on every of the three vital holidays throughout the earlier 12 months. Metropolis council member Giovanni Andrea Martini, an opponent of the measure, mentioned the figures present the venture has not deterred guests.
48,283
The variety of official residents in Venice’s historic centre, composed of over 100 islands related by footbridges and traversed by its famed canals. The inhabitants peaked at 174,000 in 1951, when Venice was house to thriving industries. The quantity shrank throughout Italy’s postwar financial growth as residents moved to the mainland for extra fashionable housing – together with indoor plumbing which was missing in Venice. It has been shrinking dramatically over current a long time as native trade misplaced traction, households sought mainland conveniences and housing costs rose. Activists additionally blame the “mono-culture” of tourism, which they are saying has emptied the town of primary providers like outlets for on a regular basis items and medical care.
51,129
The variety of beds for vacationers in Venice’s historic centre, together with 12,627 within the much less regulated short-term rental market, in line with April knowledge from the Ocio housing activist group. The variety of vacationer beds surpassed the variety of everlasting residents in 2023, in line with Ocio’s monitor. Anybody staying in a resort inside the metropolis limits, together with on the mainland districts of Mestre and Marghera, pays a lodging tax and is subsequently exempt from the day-tripper tax.
25 MILLION to 30 MILLION
The variety of annual arrivals of each day-trippers and in a single day friends roughly confirmed by cellphone knowledge tracked from a Good Management Room since 2020, in line with metropolis officers.
