Venice looks set to extend its tourist tax and make it more expensive for some UK tourists. European Union holidaymakers have been warned over Venice extending its day-tripper fee and tourist tax for those visiting the Italian city.
The fee for last-minute visitors with go up to 10 euros, officials said on Thursday. Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro stressed that the tax aims at helping the city and its citizens to battle over-tourism, avoiding peaks of visitors during crowded holidays and weekends.
The new pilot system will start on April 18 2025 and run until July 27, and the fee will apply to Fridays as well as weekends and holidays, for a total of 54 days. Mr Brugnaro on Thursday again responded to critics who have called it a failure and said it has not deterred as many arrivals as envisioned.
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“Venice is the first city in the world that tries to manage the problem of over-tourism, we obtained important results,” the mayor said. Tourists who fail to make a reservation in advance will be forced to pay €10 (£8.34) instead of the usual €5 (£4.17). The tax will be in place during peak hours which is from 8:30am to 4pm.
“Venice is at the forefront in tackling overtourism,” Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said. “Bookability has allowed us to have the numbers of visitors to this city, numbers we have never had available before and that gave us very interesting information.
“The experiment worked and now we can move forward by maintaining the period but increasing the days. The goal is always the same: to define a new system for managing tourist flows and discourage daily tourism in Venice in certain periods, in line with the city’s sensitivity and uniqueness, to guarantee it the full respect it deserves.
“We are the city that is a pioneer in this sense and the whole world is watching us.”
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