Venice issues strict new rules for UK tourists and locals say 'you're joking'

UK tourists in Italy face strict new rules for attending Venice - as locals rage: "Are you joking?" Venice, one of the go-to holiday hotspots in the European Union for British holidaymakers and tourists, has started to charge visitors to visit.

Day-trippers will have to pay €5 to visit Italian city under a new scheme designed to protect it from excess tourism. The charge is aimed at protecting the Unesco world heritage site from the effects of excessive tourism by deterring day trippers.

According to the mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, the charge is aimed at making the city “livable” again. “I can tell you that almost the entire city is against it,” Matteo Secchi, who leads Venessia.com, a residents’ activist group, told the Guardian newspaper in the UK.

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Matteo said: “You can’t impose an entrance fee to a city; all they’re doing is transforming it into a theme park. This is a bad image for Venice … I mean, are we joking?” Federica Toninello, who leads ASC, an association for housing, said: “They think this measure will solve the problem, but they haven’t really understood the consequences of mass tourism on a city like Venice.

“For a start, €5 will do nothing to deter people. But day trippers aren’t the issue; things like the shortage of affordable housing are … What we need are policies to help residents, for example, making rules to limit things like Airbnb.”

“It will serve to collect fundamental data and help regulate tourist flows, which during certain periods of the year risking damaging a fragile city like Venice,” Tommaso Sichero, the president of the association for Venice shop owners, told Avvenire newspaper.

The Venice tourism councillor Simone Venturini said: “For the first time since Venice affixed itself to mass tourism, we are trying to do something."