Web Analytics

Venice Travel: You’ll Need To Pre-Book From June 2022

Venice introducing a pre-booking system for travel
Grand Canal, Venice [Image by Neil Morrell on Pixabay]

Following two years of the pandemic, travel is picking up again in Venice. However, the over-touristed city is going ahead with plans to keep the numbers down. In fact, Venice is introducing a booking system for visitors, including an entry fee of up to €10 ($11) for day-trippers.

Venice heading for more sustainable tourism

The recent Easter weekend saw crowds of tourists in its main attractions, the Palazzo Ducale and Piazza San Marco. In fact, Venice gradually got closer to its pre-pandemic visitor numbers, with a peak of 160,000 on Saturday, April 16.

Piazza San Marco, Venice
Piazza San Marco [Image by StockSnap on Pixabay]

Meanwhile, over-tourism has been a problem in the city for some time, with more visitors overloading Venice’s delicate infrastructure. Prior to the pandemic, Venice was reaching a crisis point in its battle with over-tourism, with the city recording 30 million visitors in 2019. Many of those visitors were day-trippers, adding little to the city’s tourism purse.

Since that time, Venice has been seeking ways to ease the crowds, while keeping the locals happy. One measure was to ban large cruise ships from the lagoon, but now Venice has other plans. A new booking system is being implemented to regulate the number of tourists entering the city.

How to pre-book your visit to Venice

Venice is launching a new pre-booking system in June, as part of a pilot project. Basically, the system will require tourists to book a visit to the city in advance. Once a booking has been made visitors will receive a QR code to be scanned at electric turnstiles at Venice’s main access points.

Initially, there will be no charge for booking, but from January next year an entry fee system will kick in, requiring day-trippers to pay a single fee of up to €10 ($11) at peak times, including summer. However, on quieter days, the entry fee could drop to €3 ($3.40) but it will generally be around €6 ($6.80) during the off-season.

Gondolas in Venice
Gondolas [Image by Sarah Lötscher on Pixabay]

Simone Venturini, Venice’s tourism councillor spoke to La Repubblica about the new system. She said the experimental phase will begin in June when day tourists will be invited to book through a website..

“Those who book will receive incentives, such as discounts on entering museums. To determine the access fee, we will set a maximum threshold of 40,000 or 50,000 visitors a day,” she added.

Who has to pre-book entry to Venice?

Basically, everyone visiting Venice will need to pre-book their visit. However, residents and their family members, children under six, and visitors staying at least one night in local hotels will not pay an entry fee, according to the Guardian.

Grand Canal Venice
Grand Canal [Image by blaze_rob on Pixabay]

Residents, students, and workers who travel in and out of Venice on a daily basis will receive a virtual key to the turnstiles. The system will be utilized through an app on their smartphones. Meanwhile, day-trippers will fill the remaining spots each day by pre-booking their entry. Once the maximum threshold is reached, any further day-trippers will be turned away.

Reuters quoted Marco Bettini, Director of Venis, the IT company that created the booking system last year. He said there is a physical limitation on the number of people that can be in the city at the same time.

“We don’t want to leave anyone behind or stop people from coming to Venice. We want people to book in advance, tell us where they want to go, what they want to visit, in order to provide a better quality of service,” Bettini added.

Other measures to manage over-tourism in Venice

Pre-booking entry is part of an ambitious system that tracks the comings and goings of people in Venice. In 2021, the city installed a network of cameras, sensors, and mobile phone data in the city to keep track of visitor numbers and information.

Carnival
Carnival in Venice [Image by Serge WOLFGANG en Pixabay]

The idea of this system is that should the crowds begin to build up in one tourist hotspot, authorities can temporarily restrict access until the crowds ease back. Meanwhile, people can be diverted elsewhere in the city so as not to block pedestrian traffic. However, authorities insist that the new system will be used with “absolute respect for privacy.”

The latest move follows Venice formally banning cruise ships from its historic city center in April last year. This step came after UNESCO warned the city of the damage caused by cruise ships in the lagoon.

Be sure to catch up on everything happening with Travel. Come back here often for Travel news and updates.