Venice Entry System Trial Coming This Summer; Entry Fee Next Year.

actually happening? after how many announcements over the years?

I'll believe it when I see it.

I was thinking the same thing, Nigel! From 2014:

https://www.ansa.it/english/news/lifestyle/travel/2014/08/19/venice-entry-ticket-debate-rages_18c0a6ef-2d8e-4f15-94ce-91771cce45f3.html

And 2018:
https://skift.com/2018/12/31/venice-will-start-charging-an-entrance-fee-to-day-trippers-to-combat-overtourism/

Good! Hopefully it goes through. Similar to what they do in Glacier National Park now and it is great!

But the thing is, the way into Glacier is by road, through manned NPS entrance stations where they can check for reservations and exemptions, such as a lodge stay. Tourists enter Venice by road, rail and sea (smaller ships are still allowed to dock there) and they were not going to require reservations/fee for overnight guests, as they are already reserved + pay a per-night tourist accommodation tax. There would be other exemptions as well.

It's exactly HOW they're going to check the status (overnight guest, funeral attendee, day worker, non-resident relative of resident, day tripper, etc.) of every individual coming in by any mode of transport + educate the masses on procedures BEFORE they arrive that's a bit of a head scratcher... and why I'm thinking it has been thrown around for so long without implementation? Should be interesting!

I will probably follow this with interest, cities talk about over-tourism, but rarely do anything significant about it.

However, 50,000 a day limit is hardly clamping down, might hit that during the summer, and on certain days, but it would be like putting a 200 MPH speed limit on the autobahn, it's a limit, but hardly one you need to enforce.

Venice of course can implement this easier than most cities, but if the limit is adjusted to really limit the numbers of people, I would be interested to see the changes. When places try to do this with visitors, it usually means the tour companies are able to snatch up the spots, the independent traveler is left out. I assume, in Venice, the cruise ships will have no problem getting their pick of days and the number of slots they need.

When places try to do this with visitors, it usually means the tour
companies are able to snatch up the spots, the independent traveler is
left out.

A good point, Paul Maybe they'll set up a different reservation system for tours with limits on how large and how many can be accommodated in a single day, leaving a healthy amount for indies?

Easy solution for the independent traveler is to stay overnight in Venice. Not much of a sacrifice……

You can also stay in Mestre to avoid the Venice day-tax. Mestre's part of Venice. No, it's not really Venice, but staying there would be better than day-tripping in from farther away (much as I like Padua).

How many cruise ship visitors come in each day? That's an easy one to count and tax.

Not so easy now that ships are docking in places like Ravenna and the passengers are taking the train (or cruise-line buses?) to Venice.

Past mutterings about the proposed tax from a local's blog; no idea how trustworthy or not but it looks reasonably factual. It also includes a link to a 2019 article about the proposal on the City of Venice's own website (in Italian) so there's that.

https://allaboutvenice.com/venice-tourist-tax/

The linked article:
https://live.comune.venezia.it/it/contributo-accesso-sbarco-venezia-come-funziona

Easy solution for the independent traveler is to stay overnight in Venice

Yes, and that is one "priority" for officials, they would like to guarantee hotel and restaurant income. However, just considering Economics 101, if the daily limit becomes truly limiting (they decide fewer than 50,000, or demand becomes 80,000/day) and paying for a room guarantees you a spot, what do you suppose happens to room prices?

You may also find that rooms are no longer available from "Mom and Pop" or independent hotels, but snatched up and sold as a part of a package or by a booking agency. Basically, like anything, if you restrict access or availability, it becomes available to only those that can afford it, and affordability is defined by market price.

Like I said, it will be interesting, maybe they can bring in Disney as consultants, they have it figured out for Disney World, though they hardly limit crowds, they could if they chose.

Looks like its postponed again https://thepointsguy.com/news/venice-tourist-tax-postponed/

oh, that's a surprise