Venice's access fee doesn't reduce tourism: it selects who can afford it
1–10 of 15 posts
Re: Venice's access fee doesn't reduce tourism: it selects who can afford it
#2I'm a Venetian resident; I wrote this. Happy to answer questions. The short version: the day-tripper "access fee" is often framed as a fix for overtourism, but the data from the 2024–2025 trials shows arrivals still rising: it filters visitors by income rather than reducing them. Meanwhile the real driver of the city emptying out is housing: short-term rentals now outnumber residents. I also sketch a concrete policy proposal (time-limited rental licences) based on a recent Constitutional Court ruling.
Re: Venice's access fee doesn't reduce tourism: it selects who can afford it
#3@trikko: increases in prices reduce demand, there is no question about it. The data from 2024-25 means nothing: if the visitors kept increasing means they would have increased even more without the fee. The claim "it filters visitors by income rather than reducing them" is nonsense: there isn't a max capacity (the ticket applies only to day tourists anyway) so those who are filtered out are not replaced by anyone else. Besides, the tickets implemented so far were very small so their impact was presumably small too.
Yes Venice is dying anyway, but the biggest issue is that Venice is an impractical city to live in, without any of the infrastructure of modern cities, without any industry or services to work for (except of course the University and the various cultural institutions). I really wonder who are all these people who have a job in Venice but can't find a home because all the apartments are rented out to tourists.
Re: Venice's access fee doesn't reduce tourism: it selects who can afford it
#4[dead]
Re: Venice's access fee doesn't reduce tourism: it selects who can afford it
#5@trikko: increases in prices reduce demand, there is no question about it. The data from 2024-25 means nothing: if the visitors kept increasing means they would have increased even more without the fee. The claim "it filters visitors by income rather than reducing them" is nonsense: there isn't a max capacity (the ticket applies only to day tourists anyway) so those who are filtered out are not replaced by anyone els…
Those people are the reason why in countries like Portugal, where I am the first generation after the dictatorship, so plenty of people that are supposed to remember how it used to be and the colonial wars, now has right wing in power.
Turns out when folks cannot find a home because all the apartments are rented out to tourists, digital nomads and US citizens turning the country into new Florida, nationalism gets up on the raise.
I can understand the Venetians, on my Portuguese city, I avoid city center as much as possible, childhood places where natives nowadays are treated as tourists and almost every of them have turned into tourist traps.
Even though I like travelling, I also observe how bad it has become to local populations, to the point there are now even movies about this kind of over tourism.
Re: Venice's access fee doesn't reduce tourism: it selects who can afford it
#6@trikko: increases in prices reduce demand, there is no question about it. The data from 2024-25 means nothing: if the visitors kept increasing means they would have increased even more without the fee. The claim "it filters visitors by income rather than reducing them" is nonsense: there isn't a max capacity (the ticket applies only to day tourists anyway) so those who are filtered out are not replaced by anyone els…
There are a lot of misconceptions and biases in that statement. What exactly is meant by a 'modern city'? Venice is both a provincial and a regional capital. It has one of the largest international airports in Italy, as well as a major train station. It has public transportation to get you from one side of the city to the other. Surprisingly, it also lends itself very well to infrastructure upgrades: for example, because laying cables is so straightforward here, it was one of the very first cities in Italy to get fiber-optic internet straight to the home.
People often tell me, 'You don’t have a car.' I do have a car, it’s just not parked right outside my door. But in how many other major Italian cities can you actually park right outside your building? Practically none. The difference is that in those cities you deal with 24/7 traffic congestion, whereas here it is absolutely peaceful.
The city is built on a human scale, not for cars, and that is a massive advantage. How can you say it is impractical to live in if you have never actually lived here? You should try it. I was born and lived outside the city for years, but now that I live here, I would never go back.
There are countless people actively looking for housing. A neighbor of mine, who relocated from another part of Italy, sold his home with the strict stipulation that it could only go to residents and not be turned into a tourist rental. It sold within three days of being listed.
My partner and I pay about 1,000€ a month for our mortgage. Meanwhile, an apartment in a nearby building which is worth far less than ours, being smaller and having fewer amenities is constantly booked solid at over 150€ a night.
Regarding the supposed lack of jobs, that completely ignores reality. The historic center itself has a major hospital, courthouses, government offices, police forces, and countless local businesses. Furthermore, you don't necessarily have to work right on your doorstep. The island is small, but right across the bridge, Mestre is full of job opportunities. That is actually where I work, and I commute there easily by car, bus, or train. All these workers need housing. To answer your question about who can't find a home, just do the math on my previous example: at 150€ a night, a landlord surpasses a standard 1,000€ monthly rent in just seven days. That is exactly why apartments are rented out to tourists instead of residents.
Re: Venice's access fee doesn't reduce tourism: it selects who can afford it
#7These problems aren't even hard to solve, governments are just reluctant. Just ban a all airbnbs and short term rentals and charge everyone who isn't Italian or a resident €50 to enter
Re: Venice's access fee doesn't reduce tourism: it selects who can afford it
#8These problems aren't even hard to solve, governments are just reluctant. Just ban a all airbnbs and short term rentals and charge everyone who isn't Italian or a resident €50 to enter
The charging part is not even needed :)
Re: Venice's access fee doesn't reduce tourism: it selects who can afford it
#9You cannot reduce tourism unless you literally stop the free movement of people, close the borders and prosecute airliners/cruise liners and train operators.
Amsterdam has been bitching about visitors for decades but unfortunately for them they are the national capital so they cannot stop Dutch citizens from vomitting on their precious canals.
Re: Venice's access fee doesn't reduce tourism: it selects who can afford it
#10You cannot reduce tourism unless you literally stop the free movement of people, close the borders and prosecute airliners/cruise liners and train operators. Amsterdam has been bitching about visitors for decades but unfortunately for them they are the national capital so they cannot stop Dutch citizens from vomitting on their precious canals.
Reducing tourist numbers was never my point, and you are right that you cannot.
The point is not letting tourism turn every home into a short-term rental and push residents out: in the historic centre tourist beds have passed 50,000 while residents fell below 49,000. That is a housing and land-use problem a city is fully allowed to regulate, and it has nothing to do with borders or free movement.
Keep homes as homes, and people can visit all they want.