Venice’s daytripper fee returns this week, rising to €10 for last-minute bookings

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Venice’s daytripper tax is relaunching this week, and the fee has doubled to €10 for last-minute visitors.

Mayor Luigi Brugnaro stressed that the tax goals to assist the town and its residents battle overtourism and avoid huge influxes of holiday makers during crowded holidays and weekends.

The payment system was launched last yr for a time-limited pilot program.

Venice introduced the long-discussed daytripper fee after the town narrowly escaped being placed on the UN’s list of endangered heritage sites, due largely to the impact of overtourism.

Visitors staying overnight within the historic centre are exempt from the charge as they already pay a tourist tax.

How does Venice’s entry fee work?

The brand new tax shall be applied every Friday through Sunday and on holidays from 18 April to 27 July, for a complete of 54 days.

That is almost double the variety of days it was in place last yr. Tourists who don’t make reservations as much as 4 days prematurely can pay €10 as a substitute of the standard €5.

The tax shall be in force during peak hours, from 8.30 am to 4 pm.

Anyone found beyond designated control points without the required documentation shall be subject to fines.

These will range from €50 to €300, plus the utmost entrance fee allowed by law, set at €10.

Officials have emphasised that the programme goals to cut back crowds on peak days, encourage longer visits and improve the standard of life for residents.

The fee is just not required for anyone staying in Venice, including the mainland districts of Marghera and Mestre. Venice’s islands, including glass-making Murano, are also outside this system.

Exemptions are also issued for a wide range of reasons, including to access the town for work, school or medical care, in addition to to people born in Venice and residents of the Veneto region.

How can I book my ticket for Venice?

Visitors can ‘reserve’ their day in Venice on a dedicated platform. 

Daytrippers pay the required fee (€5 or €10) and get a QR code that can then be checked at spot controls at seven access points around the town, including on the foremost train station.

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Visitors with hotel reservations enter their hotel information and likewise get a QR code to point out. They haven’t got to pay, nevertheless, since their hotel bill will already include a Venice lodging fee.

Why has Venice introduced an entry fee?

Venice has long suffered under the pressure of overtourism, but officials say pre-pandemic estimates starting from 25 to 30 million visitors a yr – including daytrippers – are usually not reliable and that the pilot project also aimed to give you more exact figures to assist higher manage the phenomenon.

Against this, registered visitors spending the night last yr numbered 4.6 million, in accordance with city figures, down 16 per cent from pre-pandemic highs.

The pandemic delayed Venice’s plans to launch the daytripper tax, which has turn out to be a keystone of the town’s attempts to take care of overtourism.

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UNESCO cited the plan when it decided not to incorporate the town on the list of endangered world heritage sites last September, a tarnish that it similarly avoided two years earlier with the cruise ship ban through St. Mark’s Basin and the Giudecca Canal.

Cruise ships brought 1.6 million people to Venice in 2019.

Activists sounded a warning last summer when the variety of tourist beds officially overtook the variety of residents, which has dwindled to under 50,000 in a trend dating back many years.

They said the imbalance drains the town of services, clogging its tight alleyways and water buses with suitcase-toting tourists and pushing residents to the mainland with its conveniences.

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Was the trial of the entry fee successful?

At the top of the primary test phase last July, officials said the tax had netted €2.4 million, accounting for about 1,000 entrances on each of the test days.

Brugnaro responded to critics who’ve called it a failure and said it didn’t deter as many arrivals as expected.

“Venice is the primary city on the planet that tries to administer the issue of overtourism. We obtained necessary results,” the mayor said.

But some residents’ groups and opposition councillors claim the access fee completely failed to manage overtourism.

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“Data offered by the control room show that on average in the course of the period of implementation of the fee, we had about 7,000 more tourist entries than in previous years,” said Giovanni Andrea Martini, an opposition councillor.

“This shows that the access fee is just not in any respect a system capable of manage the flows.”