Venice to charge admission fees

Great idea, they should have done this years ago. They also really need to put a significant fee on cruise ships.

The first Italian fare evader has already arrived.

Roberto, they'll get him with the parking tickets.

CRuise ships are usually charged big port fees per passenger. But the passengers dont feel it directly. I hope they use the fees for the betterment of infrastructure and the community.

I'm not sure if it's 2019 or in 2020 but cruise ships will no longer be allowed to dock in Venice proper but instead will dock on the mainland. The passengers will then be ferried over to Venice.

I just wonder how they are going to collect the fees.

It shouldn't be too hard to charge cruise ship passengers as they'll just count the number coming down the gangway and then collect from the Purser. The cruise lines will build the tax into fares for all ships that stop in Venice, and of course the passengers will pay in the end.

Taxing those that arrive by train, bus or car may be a bit more complicated. They'll first have to determine which ones are arriving just for the day and which ones are staying overnight.

If this works in Venice, I wonder how long it will be before it's adopted in the Cinque Terre or other locations.

If they try to stop every person arriving to collect a fee, the lines would be outrageous. I think they might make arrangements to add the fee to train tickets, parking fees /tolls and airline tickets. The same for cruise ship passengers.

I'm not sure that extra fees on train tickets would work. If the traveller was coming to stay in Venice for a few nights, they shouldn't have to pay. I wonder if they would have to carry a document to prove they were staying?

I believe Venice charges a tourist tax on hotel stays. All they would have to do is eliminate that and collect on everyone entering instead. Or, you would show your plane or train ticket and your hotel could deduct that amount from your bill and collect it from the city instead.

Or they could put turnstiles on the Rialto Bridge and surrounding St. Marks Square. Everyone entering those would have to pay. If you were staying at a hotel the hotel would give you a card to show to allow you free access. There are some places in Switzerland that allow hotels to give guests cards that allows them to ride public transit for free. (I'm kidding with this one.)

I don't think this tax will stop people from visiting but it will allow the city to raise extra funds to help fix the damage all those tourists create by just being there.

I guess this is the same as the highly touted and never implemented restriction on visitors to the Cinque Terre that was all the rage several months ago?

Frank II,

it will allow the city to raise extra funds to help fix the damage all those tourists create

One hopes that the money would be used this way.

If you think of Venice as a big outdoor museum, then a 10 euro entrance fee is well worth it.

Thanks for sharing this article. Having recently visited Venice and stayed for four nights, it is clear that the city needs to do something to offset the negative impact of over tourism on Venice’s infrastructure and people. Whether a modest fee will make a big difference will depend on the implementation (fee + inconvenience of collecting fee from tourist. How Venice will use the extra funds to benefit residents are all details to be worked out. What is clear is that Venice is serious about piloting some options. It will interesting to watch the progress.

I hope they do this. But fwiw, that article contains one very important phrase: "... if the plan reaches fruition..." It's not a done deal yet.

@Ken
The new extra add on charge provision to transport tickets are intended to replace in whole or in part the stay tax per night (now based on a per star per person stay). The hotel association is in favor of the measure, which currently disadvantages those who spend the night in Venice. Numerous studies show that those visitors who stay overnight spend substantially more on a daily basis than day trippers, even after removing the cost of accommodations. In other words those who stay at night also shop more and spend more in restaurants as well. Night stayers are the tourists the City wants to incentivize.

This is not new. The measure was introduced recently for several small islands, including Elba. Basically an extra charge added on to the ferry (or plane) ticket to act as a disincentive for day trippers and to pay for mitigating measures to problems caused by crowds (such as extra garbage collection costs).

"CBS This Morning" aired a news story re: the new fee this morning. Positioned as helping to maintain the city. The challenge of large ships was mentioned, too.

I had not followed this thread closely, but when CBS mentioned the E10 fee for those not staying overnight, I actually thought that was not very expensive. It costs just about E10 for entrance into so many places these days...... I think Doge's Place was around that price (senior price) when we visited a few years ago. Venice can be enjoyed by many simply by walking around and taking in the beauty..........and, of course, we all know staying overnight makes it much more magical to enjoy the quieter night and early mornings. But, this helps to gather some revenue from those who just pop in and then pop out.

I salute Venice for pursuing this. Better to maintain a beautiful place than to let it be overcome to the point of near-ruin.

The fee is not high enough. Venice should do like Dubrovnik and only issue a set number of permits for cruise ships per day to dock or moor offshore.

RE: They also really need to put a significant fee on cruise ships. They already do so!

Full disclosure, I am one of the often-referred-to "hordes of cruise ship passengers" who have arrived in Venice; however, it was at the end of a Mediterranean cruise on a ship with 680 passengers (not on a day trip from a mega-ship with 6,000 passengers) and we were not day-trippers. As independent travelers, we enjoyed several days and a hotel stay in Venice prior to taking one of the 19 trains a day to Rome for a 4-night hotel stay there.

Please be assured that cruise ship passengers and the cruise lines are paying their share of taxes, fees and port expenses and contributing to the local economy for the privilege of visiting the destination.

For those Travel Forum members who may never take an ocean cruise, these fees are not buried in the cruise fare - we normally know in advance how much will be added onto our cruise fare. BTW, if a scheduled port has to be missed due to weather or other event, we've noticed there is a credit applied to our ship-board account - unless an alternate port stop has been arranged.

Here's one description of the Taxes, Fees & Port Expenses (approximately 12% to 15% of the fare) added on to each cruise fare:

Taxes, Fees & Port Expenses, as used by us, may include any and all fees, charges, tolls and taxes imposed on us by governmental or quasi-governmental authorities, as well third party fees and charges arising from a vessel's presence in a harbor or port. Taxes, Fees & Port Expenses may include U.S. Customs fees, head taxes, Panama Canal tolls, dockage fees, wharfage fees, inspection fees, pilotage, air taxes, hotel or VAT taxes incurred as part of a land tour, immigration and naturalization fees, and Internal Revenue Service fees, as well as fees for navigation, berthing, stevedoring, baggage handling/storage and security services. Taxes, Fees & Port Expenses may be assessed per passenger, per berth, per ton or per vessel. Assessments calculated on a per ton or per vessel basis will be spread over the number of passengers on the Ship. Taxes, Fees & Port Expenses are subject to change and we reserve the right to collect any increases in effect at the time of sailing even if the fare has already been paid in full.

Just as an aside, there are many cities that collect tourism destination marketing fees through their hotels and countries that collect "departure taxes"- now often included in the airfare. (I recall years ago, lining up at a ticket machine in Tokyo's Narita Airport to purchase a departure tax prior to boarding my flights.) The UK and Australia are two countries that are among those who charge the highest passenger fees --- and tourism to those destinations doesn't seem to be affected by fees or taxes. So if Venice feels the need to earn extra revenue from visitors to help with the cost of upkeep, it wouldn't be out of line.

@Roberto,

I was just curious how the authorities would differentiate which travellers were going to Venice for the day vs. those staying overnight. Would that be charged at the time people bought rail tickets? Perhaps they intend to build a wall around the city and question each person that enters how long they plan to stay before determining how much to charge them? Cruise ship passengers should be relatively easy - they can put a toll booth at the bottom of the gangway. Perhaps they could bring this lot out of retirement to collect the entrance fees?