As the city of Venice brought its controversial entry fee ‘experiment’ to an end this weekend, around 100 campaigners gathered outside Santa Lucia train station on Saturday to protest the measure.
The trial €5 charge for day-trippers was brought in over 29 days between April and July, after years of planning and delays, with the stated aim of reducing tourist numbers during peak season.
City officials hailed the trial as a success, with Budget Councillor Michele Zuin telling Il Gazzettino they planned to expand the scheme in 2025, increasing the charge to €10 on peak days.
READ ALSO: Venice says entry fee could double in 2025 with visitor numbers to soar
But protesters say the project failed to meet its objectives, while infringing on residents’ rights.
How successful you think the scheme was depends on what it was trying to achieve – and officials have left themselves open to criticism that they have conflicting agendas.
Venice’s conservative Mayor Luigi Brugnaro has repeatedly said that his aim is not to raise funds (the scheme was forecast to operate at a significant loss in 2024), but to reduce tourist numbers.
At the end of May, he told reporters he “had the impression” that the scheme had reduced the number of tourists arriving in the city by around five to ten thousand, which he described as “a big deal”.
His comments provoked the ire of opposition members.
“Without providing data that he already has and that we have requested, the mayor says he ‘has the impression’ that the trend has reversed,” said Giovanni Andrea Martini of Tutta la città insieme (‘All the city together’).
“There is a lack of transparency, a lack of data on which to base these ‘impressions’, which are different from those of the people who live the city of Venice.”
As the trial came to a close in mid July, Zuin seemed to backtrack, telling Il Gazzettino that the fee in reality hadn’t had done much to reduce tourist numbers this year – nor had the council expected it to.
“In this first phase of experimentation, major disincentive effects were not there, it’s true, but we didn’t expect them either,” he said, adding that he hoped raising the charge to €10 would have a greater impact in 2025, despite forecasts that visitor numbers are set to soar next year.
READ ALSO: ‘It’s not Disneyland’: What Venice residents really think of new ‘tourist tax’
Brugnaro’s critics argue that the entry fee is little more than a money-making scheme, and that the mainland-based city hall has no qualms about turning the island of Venice into a ‘Disneyland’ to line its coffers
“We live in a reserve that exists to make money for [mainland] Mestre,” resident Daniela Andreozzi wrote in a letter to Corriere del Veneto, while reader Marco Foroni said the city had become “a cow to be milked to exhaustion while no longer being fed.”
City authorities haven’t yet confirmed how much money the project has brought in, saying they would release the official data in August or September.
However initial estimates put total revenue at around €2.2 million – not including the final weekend of July 13-14th – while the council had previously predicted operating costs of €3 million.
Over the next two years, turnover from the scheme could balloon to as much as €15 million, according to some estimates.
The city has been vague about where any future profits will go, simply saying on the fee’s FAQ page that they would be used for “tourism-related interventions, including for the maintenance, enjoyment and recovery of local cultural and environmental assets and related local public services.”
The council did not respond to further questions from The Local about how the money would be spent.
Meanwhile, protesters accuse the city of trying to “lock us in a chicken coop,” referring to the scheme’s use of an expansive electronic and video surveillance network first introduced at the outset of the Covid pandemic in 2020.
During days when the 2024 trial was in operation, residents were required to download a QR code, despite being exempted from the requirement to pay.
If they failed to show the code to officials, they faced being fined up to €300.
“To regulate tourist flows we need to invest in residency options while protecting citizens’ privacy,” read one placard at Saturday’s protest.
“The ticket does not improve the life of Venetians, tourists and residents are increasingly controlled”.
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I was in Venice for a week in June, and the entry fee was in force during the weekend. I had downloaded the QR code proving I was staying overnight but was never asked to show it. On the other hand, I was checked four times on the vaporetto to make sure I had paid. With a single vaporetto ride now costing €9.50, I imagine there is a lot of fare-dodging.
This €5 scheme is a joke. Who will avoid Venice over €5? Ridiculous! Politicians prioritize money and power over citizens’ well-being. To curb mass tourism, limit daily visitors by banning cruise ships and requiring paid reservations for sustainable numbers, as many beaches do. Ban new Airbnbs and restrict existing ones to a small fraction of the housing market to ensure affordable housing for residents and workers.