Venice has prolonged—and elevated—its vacationer tax for 2025, though official knowledge exhibits that the entry charges for day trippers didn’t curb customer numbers throughout the trial interval in spring and summer time 2024.
The truth is, knowledge compiled by town’s Sensible Management Room monitoring system discovered that throughout the 29 dates the preliminary €5 entry charge was in drive in 2024, Venice obtained on common 7,000 extra guests in comparison with the identical days of the earlier 12 months. With a inhabitants of fewer than 50,000 residents, town receives round 40,000 vacationers a day.
The town council underneath mayor Luigi Brugnaro introduced in October that it’s going to double the charge in 2025 to €10 for individuals who guide lower than 4 days prematurely of their arrival in Venice. It’s also growing the variety of days that the costs will probably be carried out from 29 to 54 within the new 12 months. This can come into impact for an preliminary interval from 18 April to 4 Could, after which proceed till the tip of July, totally on weekends (together with Fridays) and public holidays.
The system launched in 2024 will in any other case stay the identical, with the entry charge utilized to day trippers over the age of 14 arriving between 8.30am and 4pm within the historic centre of Venice, excluding those that are solely visiting the islands akin to Murano and the Lido. The scheme doesn’t apply to vacationers staying in lodges or visitor homes who already pay a nightly vacationer tax. Additionally exempt are residents of the Veneto area, householders, college students, staff and people visiting pals and kinfolk who stay in Venice.
The town council additionally guarantees tighter controls on the fee of the tax. Guests must pay the cost on-line and obtain a QR code to point out inspectors stationed in key areas just like the Santa Lucia practice station. Guests who evade the entry charges could also be fined as much as €300.
However in response to Jan Van Der Borg, an economics professor specialised in tourism at Ca’ Foscari College in Venice, town council’s entry charge has failed in its said objective of combating over-tourism.
Based mostly on the 2024 knowledge, the costs have had “no impression on the vacationer numbers arriving within the metropolis”, Van der Borg says. He argues that “the low quantity requested, even with the rise” projected for 2025, together with the numerous exemptions to the charge, notably guests from the broader Veneto area, “are all situations that make the ticket completely ineffective by way of presumably lowering the circulation of vacationers”.
The council’s plan to double the charge in 2025 “just isn’t even linked to a set attendance restrict within the metropolis”, provides Van der Borg, who led an instructional examine that calculated Venice’s most capability for day trippers at 50,000. “Even on this new model, the ticket may have the identical impact because the earlier one,” he predicts. “The one change is that it’s going to actually improve the earnings of the municipality of Venice.”
The Venetian councillor for tourism, Massimo Venturini, says the scheme “just isn’t the magic wand for each downside”, however it “is working completely” and has allowed “to convey out a gray [area] of resort services and leases that weren’t formally registered, and that now have [signed up] in order to acquire the exemption for his or her vacationers and their in a single day stays”.
