Tourist-flooded Venice OKs test of fee for day-trippers on peak visitor weekends in 2024

By FRANCES D’EMILIO
Associated Press

ROME (AP) — Tourist-flooded Venice has approved guidelines for testing a new fee for day-trippers on peak visitor weekends next year. The city council gave the go-ahead for the guidelines on Tuesday. Final approval of the plan will come up for consideration next week. The city says the fee, initially 5 euros ($5.50) per day-tripper, is “not a tool for making cash.” Instead, the strategy aims to improve the quality of life for Venice’s dwindling number of full-time residents as well as overnight visitors, who already pay a lodging tax and so will be exempt from the fee. The test is to last about 30 days and take place in 2024 on spring weekends spanning Italian national holidays and on summer weekends.