If you are hoping to visit Venice for the day to experience a ride in a gondola or take in Saint Mark’s Square or cross the Rialto Bridge sometime on or after Monday January 16, 2023, be prepared to reserve a spot on the day when you can visit and pay between €3.00 and €10.00 — or $3.13 and $10.43 in United States dollars — simply for the privilege of doing so.
Visiting Venice For the Day Will Cost Up to €10
Venice — which is famous for its numerous canals — will be the first major city in the world to charge a fee for admission in an attempt to better manage travelers who choose to visit for the day and not to stay overnight in hotel or resort properties or other lodging options, which is approximately 80 percent of all people who visit this legendary city in northeastern Italy. For example, during 2019 — prior to the current 2019 Novel Coronavirus pandemic — that 80 percent translated to as many as 19 million people who visited Venice for the day; and yet they only provided a fraction of the revenue from guests who stay overnight at least one night in a hotel or resort property or other lodging option.
Guests who stay overnight in hotel or resort properties or other lodging options — as well as people who own vacation apartments within Venice provided that they can show proof they pay real estate taxes — are exempt from the requirement to reserve a spot and pay an admission fee, as they already pay a lodging tax. Children who are younger than six years of age and people with disabilities are also exempt from the aforementioned requirements.
Rather than charge a fixed admission fee, the cost of visiting Venice for the day will depend on how far in advance the reservation is booked — as well as whether the time is during peak season or when the city is expected to be substantially crowded.
Although visitors to Venice often significantly outnumber its residents in its historic center, Simone Venturini — who is the current deputy mayor assessore and tourism commissioner of Venice — declined to confirm during a news conference of any suggestion that the measure seeks to limit the number of people who arrive at the most visited city in the country.
Visitors who are stopped and unable to show proof they booked a reservation and paid an admission fee with a quick response — or QR — code risk being fined by as much as €300.00.
Final Boarding Call
If you plan to visit Venice for the day during peak season after May of 2023, be prepared to pay as much as a total of €17.00:
- €10.00 for the admission fee into the city itself; and
- €7.00 for the new mandatory European Travel Information and Authorization System
How many times have we heard over the years about how travelers — such as you and I — will simply factor in yet another nominal fee as part of the increased cost in traveling?
Not only do we already pay a plethora of taxes and fees for air travel, lodging and renting cars — including such ludicrous fees as mandatory resort fees and carrier-imposed fees, which are both designed primarily to purposely deceive the customer into an advertised price which is lower than what will be the actual total cost — but those taxes and fees have a tendency to keep increasing as though travelers are treated like some unlimited trough of income.
As of now, I am against such a fee — if only because it seems to be like placing a small bandage on a gaping wound by penalizing visitors as just another “money grab” at the expense of travelers rather than actually solve a problem.
I believe that charging admission simply to visit a city starts a slippery slope of sorts, as the implementation of that process could lead to other cities charging admission. For years, the city of New York has been contemplating charging a congestion fee for each vehicle which enters a certain zone within Manhattan.
I oppose this idea as much as I oppose electronic tolls — a topic about which I have written numerous times here at The Gate…
All photographs ©2004 by Brian Cohen.
