On Tuesday, the Venice city council announced a five-euro admission fee for day-trippers from 2024
for all tourists over the age of 14, according to a Reuters report. The fee will initially be charged during a
proposed trial period of 30 days, spread out through the year to target spring bank holidays and summer
weekends.
The council will meet on September 12 to finalize the dates and approval of the scheme which exempts
overnight tourists, Venice residents, and children.
Simone Venturini, the city’s tourism councilor, says the council wants to bring balance between the rights
of residents and visitors. The resident population dwindled down to 50,000 in the city center and an
estimated 20 million people visit Venice each year, of which a majority are day trippers, as per the World
Population Report.
The fee plan was first introduced and shelved in 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and reduced tourist
numbers in 2020. The current proposal is meant to regulate tourism and control the flow of day-trippers
during peak tourist seasons in the summer months.
Previously in January 2023, Venice authorities had introduced a fee range of three to ten euros for quiet
days and peak days, with an average of six euros for normal days.
Venturini has claimed the fee systems help the city estimate the number of tourists anticipated for the day
and prepare services. The council emphasizes that the fee is not for profit but only covers the costs of the
scheme.
Visitors planning day trips can pay the fee on online ticket booking systems that are already in place and
provide warnings for peak days. Overnight tourists can avoid the fee as they pay tourist taxes on their
hotel bookings but non-payment by day-trippers can currently lead to fines of 50-300 euros.
The fee system is the latest in a series of measures by Venice authorities to curb the problem of over-
tourism that threatens the medieval city’s infrastructure. In 2020, the city even banned cruise ships in its
city center because of UNESCO warnings about the effect of climate change and mass tourism on the
canal systems.
The city even redirects pedestrian traffic by blocking access to pedestrian hot spots during peak days to
Control the overflow of day-trippers.
Fees for day-trippers may be a trend across Europe for cities with fragile infrastructure, although Venice
was the first to instate the day fee in 2023. The Italian village of Civita di Bagnoregio, also known as the
dying town, instated a similar “symbolic” entry fee of 1.50 euros in 2018, as reported by CNN.
