Mass tourism in Venice: Are city officials overreacting?

April 11, 2023

Mass tourism in Venice. Overtourism overreaction? Image by Alex B (CC0) via Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/users/mcsmandalas-1918387/
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Tour­ists should be wel­comed and cel­eb­rated but in Venice they are facing rejec­tion and even crim­in­al­isa­tion, accord­ing to long-time Ven­eto res­id­ent Domin­ic Standish.

Are city offi­cials over­re­act­ing to legit­im­ate con­cerns about mass tour­ism in Venice? And how might they man­age tour­ism better?

It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight ini­ti­ated by Tourism’s Hori­zon, a “GT” Insight Part­ner.

[You too can write a “GT” Insight.]

Venice suffered ter­ribly from the col­lapse of tour­ism dur­ing the COVID-19 lockdowns. 

When I walked around the city in May 2020 (when that was per­mit­ted), I noticed many closed stores, cof­fee shops, res­taur­ants, and oth­er businesses. 

Is mass tourism in Venice all bad? This sign in a shop window  in 2022 says: “Without help we will die. If we open we will go bust.”
Is mass tour­ism in Venice bet­ter than none?

One shop win­dow dis­played some­thing like a death announce­ment: “Without help we will die. If we open we will go bust.” 

There were still too few tour­ists to make open­ing viable for many businesses.

Loc­al press repor­ted that 25% of busi­nesses closed in 2021 due to COVID

The return of tour­ists to Venice could be a great oppor­tun­ity to reju­ven­ate the city. 

How­ever, knee-jerk policy-mak­ing risks squan­der­ing this opportunity. 

Mass tourism in Venice, the day-tripper’s ‘Disneyland’

The prin­cip­al cul­prit is Venice City Coun­cil and espe­cially its May­or, Luigi Brugnaro. 

The Coun­cil and Brug­naro made a rash decision after an estim­ated 140,000 people vis­ited the city on East­er Sunday 2022 fol­lowed by nearly 100,000 on East­er Monday. 

The next day Brug­naro announced that day-trip­pers would have to make reser­va­tions to enter the city from the sum­mer of 2022, and pay to enter from 2023

Extens­ive protests by Vene­tians against these meas­ures took place on Novem­ber 19, 2022 and leg­al chal­lenges against restric­tions on free move­ment have been launched. 

Many Vene­tians are unhappy about how the meas­ures would turn their city into a gated ‘Dis­ney­land’ and dis­cour­age vis­its from friends and rel­at­ives on the mainland. 

Don’t miss oth­er “GT” con­tent tagged with
“Car­ry­ing capa­city, mass tour­ism, and overtourism”

For­tu­nately neither of these meas­ures have been imple­men­ted. Both were sus­pen­ded by a Venice City Coun­cil vote on Decem­ber 23, 2022.

In my exper­i­ence, most of the post-COV­ID upsurge in day-trip­pers were Itali­an, not for­eign. Nev­er­the­less, it was unsur­pris­ing that they were targeted. 

Day-trip­pers to Venice have his­tor­ic­ally been depic­ted as hav­ing a neg­at­ive eco­nom­ic impact as com­pared to tour­ists who stay in hotels and eat at restaurants. 

Loc­al offi­cials seem insens­it­ive to the fact that day-trip­pers may lack the funds to stay and eat in the city. Char­ging and lim­it­ing the num­bers of day-trip­pers would dis­crim­in­ate against poorer tourists.

Mass tourism in Venice, the fine city

In addi­tion, while tour­ists in Venice have been dis­cussed as envir­on­ment­al haz­ards for dec­ades, in recent years they risk being criminalised. 

Venice City Coun­cil has a list of for­bid­den beha­viours, includ­ing sit­ting on the ground or on steps to eat or drink, and walk­ing around bare-ches­ted or in a swimsuit. 

‘Offend­ers’ face fines of EUR 25 to EUR 500 plus a ban from the city.

These have been enforced. As I explained dur­ing this 2019 Al Jaz­eera pro­gramme about ‘over­tour­ism’, fines have been issued for sun­bathing in a bikini in Venice’s pub­lic gar­dens and for push­ing, not rid­ing, bicycles through the city.

Even loc­als have been fined.

For­eign­ers’ ‘crimes’ might also be repor­ted to the police and embassies of their coun­tries of origin. 

Crim­in­al­ising vic­tim­less forms of beha­viour that have no neg­at­ive impact on oth­ers could dis­cour­age visitors. 

Mass tourism in Venice, the maritime republic

Tour­ists have also been turned away through the decim­a­tion of the cruise business. 

There have been minor acci­dents with cruise ships in Venice, par­tic­u­larly when one crashed into a tour­ist boat on June 2, 2019, injur­ing five people.

Since August 1, 2021, by gov­ern­ment decree, ships of more than 25,000 tonnes, taller than 35 metres, and longer than 180 metres have been banned from nav­ig­at­ing the Giu­decca Canal through the centre of Venice. 

This effect­ively pro­hib­its ves­sels car­ry­ing more than 200 people from nav­ig­at­ing to the mari­time sta­tion in the city centre.

Don’t miss oth­er “GT” con­tent tagged with
“Travel & tour­ism industry policy and governance”

It has also threatened the jobs of more than 4,000 employees. 

Many of these employ­ees held protests, which received much less media cov­er­age than protests against big ships in Venice.

Since 2021, a lim­ited num­ber of cruise ships have docked out­side the lagoon at Chiog­gia port. Oth­ers have been able to nav­ig­ate through to docks close to indus­tri­al areas. 

Recently, plans were floated to restrict use of the cent­ral mari­time sta­tion to lux­ury yachts, releg­at­ing less priv­ileged sea goers to views of indus­tri­al zones.

Might infrastructure make Venetian life better?

For many years I have argued for the con­struc­tion of a dock for large ves­sels out­side the lagoon on the Lido. Gov­ern­ment decrees in the spring of 2021 called for con­sulta­tions on such a dock. 

An under­wa­ter sub­way train sys­tem linked to the docks could trans­port pas­sen­gers in and out of Venice as well as to oth­er islands in the lagoon and the main­land, spread­ing the eco­nom­ic bene­fits of tourism. 

A solution to mass tourism in Venice might be infrastructure that can efficiently disperse tourists to other parts of the lagoon, such as Burano
Bur­ano island, north­east of Venice, might bene­fit from infra­struc­ture that can help man­age mass tour­ism in Venice by effi­ciently dis­pers­ing tour­ists and the eco­nom­ic bene­fits they can bring. Bur­ano is famed for its intric­ate lace and col­our­ful homes. Image by Pix­aline (CC0) via Pixabay.

Sev­er­al pro­pos­als for a sub­way train sys­tem run­ning under the lagoon, along­side the city, and stop­ping at the air­port have been mooted for decades. 

A sub­way would not only bene­fit tour­ists, but also res­id­ents, stu­dents, and com­muters, and could also trans­port cargo. It would reduce over­crowding in Venice simply by provid­ing an effi­cient means to move people and pro­duce from one place to another. 

Moreover, a sub­way would reduce demand for boat traffic, as well as cut down on the dam­aging waves, noise, and pol­lu­tion that some boats produce.

Don’t miss oth­er “GT” con­tent tagged with
“Tour­ism infra­struc­ture and development”

As set out in the ten-point pro­pos­al in my book about Venice, many changes could be made to improve Venice for mul­tiple city users. This includes the long-over­due com­ple­tion of the mobile dams, which have nev­er­the­less already pre­ven­ted floods over 110 cm on the tide gauge since Janu­ary 2021.

There are undoubtedly prob­lems asso­ci­ated with mass tour­ism in Venice. How­ever, there are also more tol­er­ant, pro­gress­ive, and devel­op­ment-ori­ented ways to man­age it than to reject and crim­in­al­ise the city’s vis­it­ing admirers.

What do you think? Share your own thoughts in a com­ment below. Or write a deep­er “GT” InsightThe “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism, because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s busi­ness.

“GT” is where free thought travels.

This “Good Tour­ism” Insight is the fourth ini­ti­ated by Tourism’s Hori­zon, a “GT” Insight Part­ner. Tourism’s Hori­zon is “a loose group of aca­dem­ics, writers, and tour­ists who value mass tourism’s cul­tur­al and eco­nom­ic con­tri­bu­tions to our soci­ety, and seek to explore optim­ist­ic and expans­ive futures for the industry”.

Fea­tured pic (top of post): St Mark’s Square dur­ing a flood. Are city offi­cials over­re­act­ing to con­cerns about mass tour­ism in Venice? Image by Alex B (CC0) via Pixabay.

About the author

Dr Dominic Standish
Dr Domin­ic Standish

Domin­ic Standish has lived in the Venice region since 1997. 

A lec­turer at the Uni­ver­sity of Iowa, Dr Standish is the author of Venice in Envir­on­ment­al Per­il? Myth and Real­ity (UPA, 2012), with updates at dstandish.com and on Twit­ter

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