Campaign For A Living Venice

Starting in September 2023 tourist beds now outnumber those for residents, 49,693 to 49,304. The trend does not only involve a continuing loss of residents but also a dramatic continuing growth in tourist lodgings. From 1997 to 2022 the city and islands lost an average 2.4 residents a day, while gaining a staggering 4.8 tourist beds at the same rate.

9 September 2023

A historic threshold crossed: in September 2023 the number of beds for tourists surpassed those for residents, 49,693 to 49,304. The associations “Ocio” and “Venessia.com” made the announcement based on census data from the Municipality of Venice, as represented among other things by two counters, one placed in the window of the Marco Polo Usata bookshop in Campo Santa Margherita (the one that counts the tourist beds) and the other that records the number of residents, located in the window of the Morelli pharmacy.

“Although this threshold has already been crossed some time ago in several sestieri – say the two associations – it is important to emphasize, especially a few days before the 45th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee – during which the inclusion of Venice and its lagoon among the Endangered World Heritage Sites will be discussed – how the continuous opening of new hotels and the lack of regulation of short-term tourist rentals have progressively transformed the historic city of water into a historic tourist center”.

From April up to today, in just 5 months, the counter of tourist beds has recorded a 1,097 increase, and that of residents a decrease of 61. Historical data tells us that from 1997 to 2022, the municipality of Venice, Murano, Burano lost 2.4 residents per day on average, while it acquired 4.8 beds per day.

“We calculate the number of residents, which has been decreasing since 2008, while “Ocio” follows the tourist data trends, and by cross-referencing the data it emerges today that this threshold has been crossed for a few days”, said Matteo Secchi, founder of “Venessia.com”.

OCIO, an organization which monitors housing in Venice, published detailed graphs of this data on their website, with headlines like “Exponential and Uncontrolled Growth” and “Tourist Overloading in Housing Emergency Areas”.

The report concludes with an important note about the professionalization of the rental industry: “In Airbnb listings, 1 in 5 hosts (22% of hosts) manage multiple listings for apartments. This 22% manages almost 62% of the ads, or 2 out of 3 ads.  The most “centralized” 5% manage as many as 33% of the ads (only for entire apartments). This figure is also likely an undercount, because the various cases in which a host opens a different profile for each advertisement were not counted”.

Secchi concluded the announcement with a warning that has been heard in Venice for many years now: “The tourism monoculture is pervasive, and in fact, more than filling vacancies, is contributing to aggravating the exodus of inhabitants (the Historic City loses an average 2.23 residents daily, while the entire estuary loses almost 3), inhabitants that politics – local and national – have not been able to or have not wanted to protect. Protecting housing for the citizens means protecting the city, because a city without its inhabitants becomes something different: an open-air museum, a theme park. The line has been drawn, and if we continue to follow it at this passage without any intervention that can reverse the trend, very soon Venice will become a non-city”.

Source: La Nuova di Venezia e Mestre/www.ocio-venezia.it