Significant bed tax in Venice leads to people staying in Mestre or further afield and commuting in. From your post it sounds like cruise ships are the main prob

Significant bed tax in Venice leads to people staying in Mestre or further afield and commuting in. From your post it sounds like cruise ships are the main problem. Why not increase the cost for them to dock? A tourist tax doesn’t really increase the cost of staying somewhere - if I’m willing g to spend $200 on a hotel in Venice it doesn’t matter if it’s $190 for the hotel and $10 for the tax, or $100 each. On the other hand if the hotel could get customers willing to pay $300, they would charge that anyway. A tourist tax shifts the money away from the hotel owner to the local government to pay for the externalities the hotel owner doesn’t. By targeting tourists rather than beds it also means that people on a business trip pay less, helping diversify the economy. The problem with charging a tourist tax is of course defining what a tourist is, ensuring that Airbnb hosts pass on the tax, and ensuring it’s leveed on day trippers