Venice, Italy, is soon to launch a trial €5 entry fee for access to the city’s historic centre, with failure to pay attracting hefty fines, officials have said. During a press briefing on 4 April, the city’s mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, warned that stewards have been trained to check whether tourists visiting the city have already paid the tax or are exempt.
Who is required to pay?
The trial will run for 29 days, starting with the national Liberation Day holiday on 25 April. It will remain in operation from 8:30 am to 4 pm until mid-July, including the majority of weekends. The historic centre of Venice covered by the fee includes the mainland districts of Marghera and Mestre, but the popular island of Murano, known for its glassmaking, remains outside the pilot scheme.
Those staying overnight already pay a tourist tax and therefore are not required to pay the fee which is aimed at reducing the number of peak season daytrippers overwhelming the city’s canals and narrow streets. Hard fought-for exemptions will also be made for those under 14, disabled people and their carers, those coming into the fee zone for work, school or medical care, as well as for Venice natives and residents of the Veneto region.
How does it work?
Arrivals at the city’s mainline train and bus stations will find payment points have been installed to enable immediate payment of the fee. Alternatively, it will be possible to settle up by smartphone, with a QR code downloaded as proof of payment. It is necessary to register online at a dedicated website. Stewards will be on hand reminding visitors of the new requirement – and making random checks.
While there will be no cap on visitors during the trial and no other physical infrastructure, such as barriers or turnstiles to prevent those who haven’t paid getting in, anyone due to pay the fee who is found beyond the designated checkpoints could be liable for a penalty of between €50 to €300, and that’s in addition to the maximum entrance fee, legally set at €10.
“There is no tax without controls,’’ Brugnaro told press in Rome, though he prefers to term the fee “a contribution.”
Essential or misplaced?
As well as the press briefing, a campaign to raise public awareness of the new entry fee has been created. Alongside Venice’s cruise ship ban in St. Mark’s Basin and the Giudecca Canal, the tourist tax is a key plank of the city’s bid to stay off UNESCO’s “endangered” world heritage list.
But critics of the plan say the focus on daytrippers may be misplaced. They point to the congestion caused by overnight visitors with luggage and the fact that tourists now outnumber residents in the city, whose population has dwindled to just 50,000.
