Ethical tourism in Venice

All true and to echo what Rick has always advocated stay in mom and pop locally owned hotels and BnBs to keep the more of the money local and not sent to corporate headquarters somewhere else.

And I would add to book directly with these hotels and BnBs whenever possible. Places like Booking.com are great for research but then book directly with hotel rather than some 'deal site' when you can. Again try and keep as much of the money local as you can.

Especially in Venice a lot of the real issue are day trippers that put a huge burden on the infrastructure but contribute little to the local economy. If you are staying locally, paying the city tax, and eating meals in Venice you are already ahead of the pack but we should all also be aware of the other things that can make a positive difference.

My $.02,
=Tod

(which drive up housing prices for locals)

Are there any locals left living in Venice?

All true and to echo what Rick has always advocated stay in mom and
pop locally owned hotels and BnBs to keep the more of the money local
and not sent to corporate headquarters somewhere else.

There are 15 articles in which Rick mentions AirBnb. Except for the one article on Barcelona the others were supportive of the concept along with BnBs and other options. The articles are not dated so don’t know when they were written.

Rick hasn’t written in his blog on Airbnb’s in many, many years. Cameron has two blogs in the last 16 months. Both make recommendations to use Airbnb’s as well as the BnBs.

I presume on a podcast or something he has changed his view? He really ought to go back and correct or delete if he has changed his mind.

eschew disposable water bottles and bring a refillable one of your own

not something I disagree with, but where i live in Europe everyone drinks bottled water out of "disposable" bottles We do have a 50ft deposit on the bottle, so that helps. Actually helps a lot. Even if you thrown it in the trash, in the night someone will reteive it.

@Mr É - Rick has always advocated staying local and keeping your money as local as possible. The last time I remember him talking about it explicitly was during the Greek financial crisis saying that you should go and be sure to stay where locals run the place because having the money go a corporate hotel chain was not helping as much as you could.

But I didn't say Rick didn't advocate using AirBnB but the places he recommends in his books follow this local model. I remember years ago Visa offered Rick a ton of money but he could only recommend hotels that took Visa and he flat turned them down.

I personally am not a fan of AirBnB (or most of the 'gig economy' companies) so I do what I can to vote with the money and not use them. But that being said those companies have swallowed the entire multi-week rentals in Italy so unless you have connections you have little choice.

I believe that travel impacts the world and if we choose to do it we are obligated to do so consciously and be aware of the impacts we are having. It is all a matter of degree and everyone has to decide what that means for themselves.

Happy travels,
=Tod

I think one is more likely keeping one's money local if one stays in AirBnBs rather than in chain hotels.

I wasn't arguing, just adding to it so it matched what RS has printed.

I believe that travel impacts the world

Of course

and if we choose to do it we are obligated to do so consciously and be
aware of the impacts we are having.

That's an impossible task. It would presume that you have some in depth understanding of economics, culture and living standards that even the locals are struggling to quantify. Your ideologically inspired overly generalized good intent could cause a lot of harm.

It is all a matter of degree and everyone has to decide what that
means for themselves.

No, the society you are visiting gets to define your responsibility.

I have friends from childhood who rent apartments on AirBnB in Florence. They are local living creatures, not abstract corporate entities. They inherited the ancestral apartments where they grew up or their parents or grandparents lived. They chose to buy a more modern home outside the city center and use the proceeds of the city center apartment placed on AirBnB to make their mortgage payments on their home outside the city center. Living in the historical city centers is not so cool as it might seem to the accidental tourist in Florence or Venice for a 4 night holiday. They are old buildings, the apartments are small, often with no elevators, they are in the ZTL so you can’t drive in much of the area and even if you get a resident permit it is not helpful unless you have a garage, which many buildings don’t, and pay garages are expensive. Italians don’t want to live in those conditions in the XXI century. They want the same amenities that Americans want in their 2000+ sqft mansions, including enough room for a washing machine and refrigeratore larger than a toaster oven. That is the reason Italians left the historical centers, not because of AirBnB. That trend started long before AirBnB even existed. If they want to lower the prices for rent, they should make it easier for landlords to evict tenants who stop paying rent. Many don’t place their empty apartments in the long term rental market for that reason. If a tenant stops paying the rent (not an infrequent occurrence in Italy) you have an uphill battle through the courts which take months and thousands of euro of legal costs. If some tenants are a family with minors it becomes virtually impossible to have the eviction executed. Often a landlord has to bribe the tenant to leave with thousands of euro of “incentive”. As a result many people keep their second homes empty or rent only to tourists or students, whom they know are in town only for a limited time. Actually the battle against AirBnB apartments (the owners of which are often ordinary locals like my friends), is fueled by the hotel lobby and by the hotel corporate chains, who don’t like the competition by the local apartment owners.

Roberto da Firenze, but it was so cute in the neighborhood before airbnb. They should be made to move back so the tourists can enjoy the quaintness of 2 generations living in 50m2 with no air conditioning or washing machine. And who needs a big refrigerator, I've seen all the old movies, shopping every day is part of the lovely culture that airbnb destroyed.

Mr. É...
Those Americans who think that way live in LA LA Land.

Italy is no longer the country of the Sophia Loren's movies. Italians nowadays also want all the amenities that we consider essential in America, like an Iphone16 for each member of the family over the age of 3, mobile and internet service, and a vehicle (car and/or scooter) for each member of the family over the age of 14, and of course a vacation abroad at least once a year. To be able to afford that, both husband and wife have to work, often their children over the age of 18 must too.

So nowadays who's got the time to go shopping every day? No my dear friends who romanticize the Italy of "Under the Tuscan Sun". In the real XXI century Italy people don't go to the open market to buy produce every day. With very few exceptions, like San Lorenzo or Sant'Ambrogio in Florence, those markets come to the neighborhood or to the town only once a week, if that, and even then Italians may not have time to go since they are open only in the morning of that weekday. Italians of the XXI century go to the supermarket once a week, possibly on Saturday or Sunday when they are off work. And for that, you need a car with some trunk space and a house you can drive to and park in front of, in order to unload your groceries. So the cute ZTL doesn't work for all. Actually the ZTLs contributed to the death of the "living" historical centers and transformed those historical centers in Disneyland type theme parks for tourists, or playgrounds for young college age students, not AirBnB. My friends (none of which live in the historical center anymore) don't even know where the good restaurants downtown are. Unless they know because they work in the historical center, they absolutely never go to restaurants in the historical center when they go out with friends and family, and they don't even shop in the historical center unless they have to. If you don't live in the historical center and therefore cannot drive in the historical center, the historical center is a place you simply avoid, unless you need to do some business of some sort (like work or do some business in a public office).

The wheeled suitcase thing is rubbish.
The streets of Venice are paved with stone, and it is hard.
Also bricks, books, booze, broccoli and bread are all transported by wheeled devices. The odd suitcase makes little difference.

Roberto - to your point, we were surprised at how crowded and vibrant the shopping malls were in the evenings in places like Pompei and Livorno. It was like malls in the US back 15-20 years ago. But they had stores with all the things you need, including big supermarkets, and plenty of free parking. It was great to find inexpensive stores full of teenage Italian girls when our daughter needed a few clothes to be able to make it through the trip without doing laundry!

Historical centers are just quaint theme parks for tourists and playgrounds where young single Italians spend their evenings having aperitivi and apericene, and having fun with friends. That is what you see on travel magazines and travel TV programs, and, if you visit only the historical centers, that is the impression you might get. However they are not representative of where and how the vast majority of Italian families live. To find that, you need to go outside the city walls, and maybe visit the suburban American style shopping centers. The real Italian families are there, outside the ancient city walls, doing the same things American families do in America.