Mick Jagger joins call to save Venice from becoming 'third-world Disneyland'

A group of celebrities including Sir Mick Jagger and Tilda Swinton has written an open letter urging the Italian government to protect Venice as tourism re-starts.

They are appealing for measures to be taken to prevent Venice from returning to how it was before the pandemic, its soul and unique character slowly leached by the invasion of millions of day-trippers, its churches and canals morphing into “a theme park like Disneyland.”

The 21 actors, film directors and luminaries from the arts world include Swinton, Jagger, James Ivory, Francis Ford Coppola, Wes Anderson and the British-Indian sculptor Sir Anish Kapoor, who recently decided to base his foundation in an historic Venetian palazzo.

They have presented a list of 10 points which they say must be addressed to protect the “physical integrity and cultural identity” of Venice as it faces the resumption of mass tourism and the return of giant cruise ships, as well as long-term threats such as rising sea levels and a dwindling population.

The 10-point plan includes banning giant cruise liners from the lagoon, providing affordable housing for Venetians, clamping down on apartments being rented out to tourists through platforms such as Airbnb and completing the multi-billion-euro Moses flood protection barrier.

They are calling for much stricter regulation of tourist numbers, proposing “a management system based on the example of big museums like the Louvre, where groups can enter only if they have a booking.”

The letter comes as tourists start returning to Venice, with some hotels reporting 70 per cent occupancy and the World Heritage city’s narrow alleyways once again thronged with visitors.

The first of the season’s huge cruise ships is scheduled to dock on Saturday, despite the government indicating in March that it wanted to ban the liners from ploughing past St Mark’s Square and along the picturesque Giudecca Canal.

A protest by Venetians will be staged against the arrival of the MSC Orchestra, which can carry 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew.

“Big cruise ships must be definitively banned not only from St Mark’s Basin and the Giudecca Canal but in the whole lagoon,” the signatories said in their appeal.

While many Venetians depend on visitors for their livelihoods, others view the return of mass tourism with dread - before the pandemic, Venice was flooded by an estimated 25 million visitors a year.

The signatories also include Richard Armstrong, the director of the Solomon Guggenheim Museum in New York, Karole Vail, the director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and Françoise Nyssen, a French former minister of culture.

The letter was drawn up by Venetian Heritage, a non-profit foundation, which sent it to Mario Draghi, the prime minister, Sergio Mattarella, Italy’s president, Luca Zaia, the governor of the Veneto region and Luigi Brugnaro, the mayor of Venice.

Toto Bergamo Rossi, the director of Venetian Heritage, dismissed any criticism that wealthy celebrities should keep their noses out of Venetians’ business.

“Venice is Italy’s only international city. Its heritage belongs to the world. The people who signed the letter are not just a collection of well-known names.

They are really involved with the city and several are on the board of our foundation,” he told The Telegraph. “Like many Venetians, they want a city that is better than it was before the pandemic. It was total anarchy before. But we now have an opportunity, before mass tourism returns, to change things.”

The population of Venice has dropped to just 50,000. “Every year we are less and less and Venice becomes more and more fake. If we don’t act now, it will be like Disneyland – only a Third World version, without the organisation of Disneyland.”

Matteo Secchi, the head of Venessia.com, a civil society group that campaigns against over-tourism and other issues, welcomed the initiative.

“It’s important because people listen to celebrities and people who have a high-profile,” he told The Telegraph. “It shows that Venice is of interest to the whole world. It’s a positive thing, but we also need concrete action – we’ve been campaigning on these issues for years.”

Now is a good time to act, just before tourists return en masse. “They are coming back gradually but we are still missing the British, the Americans and the Asians,” said Mr Secchi.