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About time! Tourists are the biggest threat to Venice survival, especially, sorry for saying it out loud, Americans. The city needs to rebalance its populati

About time! Tourists are the biggest threat to Venice survival, especially, sorry for saying it out loud, Americans. The city needs to rebalance its population: workers and citizens need more space to live, the city needs to be less crowded to function and be maintained. Venice is a very fragile ecosystem, it's not a theme park. I'm from Rome and think that Rome should do the same thing. Not because we don't like tourists, but because the city is a living organism and priority should go to people living and working there. Another big issue is businesses over-relying on tourism which almost brought many historical cities on their knees during the pandemic. Restricting the access to a well known maximum number of tourists has the benefit of reshaping the economy of the city, making it more liveable for the residents. In Rome, for example, the pandemic brought back roman citizens to live in the city centre that due to airbnb and the over abundance of short term rentals was off limits up to 18 months ago for the city dwellers. Despite spending less money on average than tourists, after a year and half local businesses are appreciating the change: less problems, less noise, no linguistic barriers, regular customers are the majority now with all the benefits of establishing long term relationships. I think we need to do that more, in general, everywhere. Mass tourism is a plague.

fxtentacle 5y ago
You bring up a very important point: AirBnB. I loved AirBnB when I was traveling myself, but it really is snatching apartments away from regular citizens and driving prices up to a crazy level. And that means as a tourist you travel to a fake ghost town, because all the locals have been priced out of their neighborhood.
cafard 5y ago
Umm. The last time I was in Venice, there were what sounded like Britons partying under the windows late at night. And the first time I was in Venice, I read that the city's population was a third of what it had been in 1970, and there were not a lot of signs of life at night.
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  Venice used to have a very active (and attractive) night life, but not anymore. The root cause is that young people leave very early due to lack of jobs outside of the tourism sector, increased price of living and worsening quality of life. Venice population peeked in the 70s with around 350.000 residents, it is now back at the same level of the 30s at around 250.000 residents. Up until 2019 ~5.5 million tourists visit Venice every year, which is a gigantic number for such a small city. Last year due to the pandemic it dropped to around 1.3 million. Exceptional high sea levels did the rest. I've mentioned the Americans in my first comment because with 5 direct weekly flights from NY, they are the major customers of the large cruise ships that cause so much troubles to the locals. We should never forget that technically Venice is a sinking city.

fxtentacle 5y ago

You bring up a very important point: AirBnB. I loved AirBnB when I was traveling myself, but it really is snatching apartments away from regular citizens and driving prices up to a crazy level. And that means as a tourist you travel to a fake ghost town, because all the locals have been priced out of their neighborhood.

cafard 5y ago

Umm. The last time I was in Venice, there were what sounded like Britons partying under the windows late at night. And the first time I was in Venice, I read that the city's population was a third of what it had been in 1970, and there were not a lot of signs of life at night.

peoplefromibiza 5y ago
Venice used to have a very active (and attractive) night life, but not anymore. The root cause is that young people leave very early due to lack of jobs outside of the tourism sector, increased price of living and worsening quality of life. Venice population peeked in the 70s with around 350.000 residents, it is now back at the same level of the 30s at around 250.000 residents. Up until 2019 ~5.5 million tourists visit Venice every year, which is a gigantic number for such a small city. Last year due to the pandemic it dropped to around 1.3 million. Exceptional high sea levels did the rest. I've mentioned the Americans in my first comment because with 5 direct weekly flights from NY, they are the major customers of the large cruise ships that cause so much troubles to the locals. We should never forget that technically Venice is a sinking city.