Venice to make tourists pre-book and charge day trippers an entry fee, as well as track their movements around the city, to reduce the strain on resources and residents
- Venetian authorities are taking steps to control the flow of tourists and will charge day trippers at least US$3.50 to enter the city
- The city will bar entry to tourists once it is deemed full, and CCTV cameras, optical sensors and mobile-phone tracers will track visitors’ movements
From a control room inside the police headquarters in Venice, Big Brother is watching. To combat tourist overcrowding, officials are tracking every person who sets foot in the Italian lagoon city.
Using 468 CCTV cameras, optical sensors and a mobile-phone tracing system, they can tell residents from visitors, Italians from foreigners, where people are coming from, where they are heading and how fast they are moving.
Every 15 minutes, authorities get a snapshot of how crowded the city is, how many gondolas are sliding on the Grand Canal, whether boats are speeding or the waters are rising to dangerous levels.
Venice mayor Luigi Brugnaro says his aim is to make tourism more sustainable in a city visited by 25 million people a year. But he acknowledges the new rules are likely to be a hard sell.