Venice already will get twice as many daytrippers because the 50,000 presenze (a time period that features those that are sleeping not less than one evening within the metropolis) calculated in 2018 to be tolerable.
Venice, by its very nature, can’t be modified or expanded, and the variety of vacationer beds is now larger than the variety of residents (49,000 in 2022), so a disaster is approaching. Jan van der Borg, a professor of economics on the metropolis’s Ca’ Foscari College specialising in tourism, has been learning vacationer flows in Venice for years and led the group that established the determine of fifty,000 as the utmost variety of daytrippers that it may deal with, primarily based on the transport system and the variety of beds within the metropolis. He says that the €5 entrance price to be imposed in spring 2024 on sure days, is not going to scale back numbers.
The Artwork Newspaper: How ought to the variety of guests to Venice be apportioned?
Jan van der Borg: The proportion ought to be 50% vacationers who sleep within the metropolis and 50% daytrippers, however at current the latter are 80% of these arriving in Venice (and for all intents and functions, vacationers who sleep on the mainland must also be thought of daytrippers). At present we’re getting excess of 100,000 daytrippers on peak days and persistently 15,000 to twenty,000 greater than capability.
The city council plans to cost a €5 entrance price for guests for the 20 to 30 days when the inflow is at its best.
The issue shouldn’t be the peaks, which any metropolis of tradition faces on sure days, however the many days—not less than 200 a yr—when the numbers exceed most capability. That is what wears it down, turning it right into a form of amusement park and driving away the residents. For the doorway price to discourage arrivals within the metropolis, it ought to be charged on daily basis. As [the plan] has been conceived, it should serve no objective, not least due to the big selection of exemptions to fee.
Venice has been learning the issue of tourism for years, with large portions of knowledge produced by the now defunct Consortium for Analysis and Coaching, as soon as financed by the city council and province of Venice.
Certainly, however it by no means adopted the measures put ahead when the scenario was much less critical than it’s right now. The paradox is that the tourism research produced by Venice however by no means put into follow are actually being utilized by cities which can be significantly addressing the issue of extra tourism, equivalent to Salzburg, Berlin, Barcelona and Bruges. When the pandemic emptied Venice, the city council had the chance to essentially reorganise its tourism to be a mannequin for different cities of tradition. As a substitute, every little thing stayed as earlier than.
From the taxation perspective, what could possibly be finished to enhance the circulate of those that keep within the metropolis and the daytrippers?
We’d like a brand new fiscal coverage for tourism, as a result of right now the city council penalises with a metropolis tax exactly these it ought to be encouraging—the in a single day vacationers—whereas the daytrippers are unaffected. This metropolis tax ought to be lowered, whereas increasing the measures that ought to be utilized all yr spherical to daytrippers. At present now we have too many taxes that usually hit the guests we’d most like to guard, that’s, those that keep a number of days within the metropolis: the town tax, the ZTL tax on incoming vacationer buses, an airport boarding tax that’s about to be launched, and now the doorway ticket.
The opposite growth that has been very damaging is that of B&Bs and rented-out rooms, which have multiplied enormously over the previous decade, depriving residents of housing and rental alternatives.
This has been as a result of absence of any critical pro-resident housing coverage on the a part of the city council for a few years. Those that hire out greater than two flats to vacationers ought to not be thought of non-public people supplementing their revenue, however entrepreneurs within the hospitality sector with all of the tax obligations that this entails, plus the identical hygiene and security obligations as any lodge.
However how can the pattern be reversed to enhance the administration of vacationer flows in Venice?
By focusing very intentionally on the standard of tourism and not on amount. How do you do that? By first doing critical advertising and marketing to alter the picture of the town so that individuals not assume they’re coming to a theme park for leisure. After which by engaged on provide. We are able to’t cease vacationers from coming to Venice, however, with an environment friendly reservation system and with financial and different incentives and disincentives, we will persuade them to return to the town in periods of decrease inflow as a result of they’re decidedly cheaper. Enhancing high quality doesn’t imply making it in order that solely those that keep in five-star inns come right here, but additionally the coed with cultural pursuits who can use the town otherwise.
Is that doable?
Sure, take a look at the case of the Biennale, which prior to now ten to fifteen years has steadily elevated the variety of its guests by high quality programming of its exhibitions that additionally entice many younger individuals. If what’s on supply is critical, of high quality, and correctly promoted, individuals are available a special mind set to Venice. And while you then learn that the mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, proclaims that he desires to create an unlimited disco on the Arsenale, you understand that that’s not the route during which to go.
