Venice, Italy, has begun a pilot test of a new entry fee to visit the city.
Called the Venice Access Fee, it will now cost tourists five euros (about C$7.35) on select dates through July to enter.
Tourists will have to pay the fee online and download a QR code to show officials at checkpoints. Already at the city’s main train station, a separate entrance for tourists has been erected, and officials in yellow vests were roaming around to check the fee had been paid.
The fine for not paying is between 50 and 300 euros (C$73 to C$440). The fee can also be paid in person for the time being.
There are exemptions for the fee, though. Residents, workers and students are exempt, as well as those under 14 years old and those staying within the city’s jurisdiction, which includes mainland districts.
The fee is only required on select dates and between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. local time. Outside those hours entry into the city is free.
Those who are exempt will have to download a pass online to prove so at the checkpoints, which have a separate entrance for students, residents and workers.
The fee is designed to tackle the large number of visitors to the city, as stats show that tourist beds outnumbered residential ones in 2023. The number of day visitors to the city, which is marked by narrow streets flanked by waterways and canals, has led to overcrowding, with police necessary to direct foot traffic.
The city estimates it receives about 30,000 to 40,000 day visitors daily, and about 25 to 30 million arrivals a year. That’s in comparison to the about 50,000 residents living in the city’s historic centre.
Even though residents are exempt from the fee, some are protesting it, saying it is not the right route to tackle the city’s issues. Some argue the city should focus instead on limiting short-term rentals and boosting its residential population.
“Putting a ticket to enter a city will not decrease not even by one single unit the number of visitors that are coming,’’ activist and protest organizer Tommaso Cacciari told The Associated Press.
“You pay a ticket to take the metro, to go to a museum, an amusement park. You don’t pay a ticket to enter a city. This is the last symbolic step of a project of an idea of this municipal administration to kick residents out of Venice.”
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