Venice postpones introduction of tourist entry fee until summer 2021

The streets and squares of Venice are deserted due to the coronavirus outbreak and the situation is a cause of great worry for the city’s administration. So much that they’ve decided to postpone the introduction of the entry fee to the city.

A pictures of Venice's St Mark Square at sunset — The current lockdown in place in Italy has emptied the street of Venice, as well as those of all other major cities in the country © mauritius images GmbH / Alamy Stock Photos

Last autumn, the Venetian authorities announced the introduction of an “entry ticket” for all tourists wanting to visit the Queen of the Adriatic, with prices ranging from €3 in the off season to €10 in high season.

But now that the city is going through its worst tourism crisis of the last sixty years, the mayor of Venice has decided to postpone the introduction of the fee to until 1 July 2021.

Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said that implementing the entry fee right now would be “ill-timed”. However, he also said that the administration still intends to bring “a different kind of tourism to Venice,” and help the city with its overcrowding issues.

A picture of a narrow Venice canals with gondolas — The entry fee scheme will be in place from July 2021, one year after its scheduled start date © Evgenii Iaroshevskii / Shutterstock

Brugnaro and his council members have estimated that it will be a year before the economic losses from this lockdown level out, but they’re confident that tourism will start again as soon as possible, because “Venice is Venice”.

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