Venice expands tourist entry fee system to include more days
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The tourist entry fee system will cover 54 days in 2025, up from the 29 days in 2024.
PHOTO: REUTERS
ROME - Venice is going to broaden its tourist entry fee system in 2025, almost doubling the number of days visitors will have to pay to see the lagoon city, and hiking the price for last-minute arrivals, officials said on Oct 24.
In a world first, the Italian destination introduced a €5 (S$7) charge in April for day trippers
The initial scheme, which was watched closely by other global tourist hotspots, covered 29 days over a four month period. This will be lifted to 54 days in 2025, over the same April to July window.
The charge will stay at €5 for those booking ahead of time, but will rise to €10 for anyone reserving within four days of their planned trip. As before, people with hotel and guest house reservations will be exempt.
“Venice has gone from being the city most exposed to and criticised for the phenomenon of overtourism, to being the city that is reacting to this phenomenon the earliest and most proactively on the global stage,” said Mr Simone Venturini, the city councillor responsible for tourism and social cohesion.
He told a news conference the system was still in an experimental phase. He said places popular with tourists, including Japan’s historic city Kyoto and the Spanish island Formentera, had been in touch to ask about the scheme.
Critics have said the payment system failed to slow the flow of tourists, but Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said it was too soon to judge, with precise data only available in 2024.
He added that Venice did not want to shoo people away, but rather encourage visitors to rethink their dates.
“We are not against it (tourism). We just believe it can somehow be spread out,” he said, warning that the city would hand out fines in 2025 for people without a pass – something it had threatened to do in 2024, but did not.
In all, 485,062 people paid for a day pass in 2024, raising €2.25 million. This covered just some of the costs of the system, Mr Brugnaro said, and was not aimed at raking in cash for the city coffers. REUTERS
