Venice tourists to pay city entrance fee from 2019
Baku, January 4, AZERTAC
Tourists visiting Venice will have to pay a surcharge to enter the ancient Italian city.
Visitors hoping to take a romantic gondola ride, wander through St Mark’s Square or see the splendor of the Doge’s Palace will have to stump up £9 (€10) after the Italian Parliament passed the measure aimed at tackling the tourist crisis in the city. Overwhelming visitor numbers to the sinking city have angered Venetians for decades despite tourism being Venice’s lifeblood. Once the world’s greatest market city where exotic goods from across Asia met wealthy Europeans at the end of the Silk Road, Venice now relies primarily on the tourist dollar.
The new measure is aimed at improving the sustainability of the Venice’s tourism industry while alleviating residents’ frustrations about tourists ‘clogging’ the city’s streets and waterways.
Only tourists visiting on single day trips will be forced to pay to enter the fee while those staying overnight will be exempt.
The fee was authorized in the passing of Italy’s controversial budget which the Italian government has been arguing with the European Union over months.
Venetians have been demanding concrete measures from the Italian government to help manage the masses of tourists which visit the city every year and they say, the entrance fee will go a long way to ensuring the future success of the city.
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