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Venice rolls out day-tripper fee to try to regulate mass crowds on peak weekends
(english.elpais.com)
this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023
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Bit dramatic of you to call a $5.45 fee hostile. Venice is legitimately overcrowded during tourist season and has a lot of problems to deal with to even literally stay above water right now. I'm sure they won't miss you.
If a family plans a trip that involves an international flight, accommodation and preparation, a โฌ6 is not going to change a thing. This seems more like an easy, state-sponsored money grab than a legitimate effort to better manage over-tourism.
You can get around Europe surprisingly cheap. This tax is made so that the people you mention, who pay for hotels and services in the town are not discouraged, but the ones who just walk through spending nothing will avoid the place.
The fee will be payed only by people who stay in the city just for the day. The idea is to discourage this kind of "fast tourism" in favour of people who instead spend more days in the city (then of course, the actual efficacy of this method for reducing overcrowding is to be seen)
It's a start though
The article says โฌ5 "apiece" which is โฌ60 for the whole family unless I'm wrong in my understanding? Enough money flows into the local economy without tourists needing to be forced to "contribute" even further. Thus, hostile.
We tend to stay in Italy for 2 or 3 weeks at a time, with our lodging being in between multiple destinations in the surrounding regions. Venice is off the table if it is an extra โฌ60 per day. It would also cost significantly more in terms of travel if lodging was also in Venice. We would rather spend the money in Piran or Koper, so the "contribution" is doing its job in managing.
For what its worth, even though we are Dutch, we refuse to visit Amsterdam for the same reason and instead stay in the surrounding cities. A tourist tax is simply a local government giving up on finding real solutions and instead is hoping to price people out of visiting. If Venetians are really worried about sinking, they can ask us for help. We have a bit of experience with keeping the sea away ๐
I mean how you describe your situation sounds like exactly what this tax is meaning to deal with. A big group of people (10 by your numbers?) who only come for the day to use the city like a free open air museum and maybe buy a meal there and then leave having added very little to the economy to the extent that you think โฌ60 is too much to pay for your day there being a part of the extreme congestion the city has.
So if you're not going to come anymore this seems like mission accomplished.
Amsterdam has the same problem with cruise ship tourists. They pile into the city and spend little money and create a nuisance for everyone living here. I think both cities would be much better off without day trip tourists.