30 December 2018
VENICE. The entrance ‘ticket’ to visit Venice is now a reality, thanks to the Budget Law passed in the Italian Camera. The new law allows, in clause 1129, the possibility of collecting a fee – between 2.5 and 5 Euro – from those who reach “the ancient city via any means of transportation”.
The entrance ticket will be an alternative to the current occupancy tax, and will be applied to “day visitors”, commonly called (in Italian) “mordi e fuggi”. The idea is that this will work via withholding agents: those who will pay the fee, from an extra charge on tickets they sell, will have to be the companies who offer commercial transport services – buses, airplanes, cruise ships, boats – that arrive in Venice.
So, today the City of Venice becomes authorized “to adopt in its budget policies, as an alternative to the occupancy tax, the imposition of the landing tax originally provided for the minor islands. Furthermore, the maximum fee allowed for both of these measures is raised to 10 Euro”.
This is the provision in Art. 1, subsection 1129, of the major amendment to the Budget Law, which introduces the so-called “landing tax”.
For the most part this means a ticket for those who arrives in Venice as a tourist – by any means of transportation – but does not reserve a room for the night in the city. Visitors arriving via all methods of transport are equally affected by the administration’s new fees: cruise ships, boats arriving from other cities, trains, private cars, buses, etc.
The fiscal measure – we read – “could have a selective effect and moderate the access of the so-called ‘grandi navi’ (cruise ships) to the area of the lagoon”. More realistically, instead, it will allow the City of Venice to have extra revenue that, we can hope, could be invested towards the needs of residents being harmed by tourism.
Source: La Voce di Venezia
Campaign For A Living Venice 