The inspectors have delivered their report, but a final decision has been postponed until February 2026. Access fees and rental regulations met with approval, but UNESCO notes a “lack of significant progress in tourism management”
By Alberto Vitucci
June 10, 2025
Postponed until February. UNESCO appreciates the efforts that have been made by the government and the Municipality to protect Venice, and sees the initiatives launched in recent months as positive.
However, it has demanded that the issue of tourist pressure be addressed urgently, with a Sustainable Tourism Management Plan that also has “legal support”.
Removal from the list of protected World Heritage sites and inclusion on the dreaded Endangered Sites list have been averted for now. However, the government has until February 1, 2026, to implement the required corrective measures.
Thus concludes the UNESCO inspectors’ report completed after their four-day visit to the lagoon. They delivered their final report to the World Heritage Committee, currently meeting in Paris. The Committee will make its opinion official and operational shortly.
Is it a positive or negative evaluation? The report clearly shows that the inspectors, returning to the lagoon eight months after their last mission in October 2024, noted “progress and improvements.” However, they also noted a “lack of significant progress in tourism management”.
Therefore, the State, that is the Italian government together with the Municipality and the Region, will now have to submit an updated report on the site’s state of conservation and about the implementation of the requested measures by February 1, 2026. Thus, for now, Venice has therefore avoided the risk of removal from the list of protected sites.
In the first part of the report, the inspectors list the actions initiated in response to requests from previous missions. These include the 2024-2026 Housing Plan to reassign vacant public housing units in the historic center, and the Venice Campus City, an initiative in collaboration with the universities to find new housing solutions for students.
Also noted were the establishment of the Lagoon Authority, the works already carried out for flood defense, the restoration of banks, and the barriers for the defense of the Basilica of San Marco with the Insula project for the entire St. Mark’s area.
Mose is almost completed and has operated more than one hundred times since 2020. However, the issue of maintenance remains to be addressed, while environmental monitoring and mitigation work is “underway.”
UNESCO welcomed the continued ban on large cruise ships entering the San Marco Basin and Giudecca Canal, as well as the launch of the proposal submission process for the offshore port, which is not yet concluded.
“But new projects”, the inspectors write, “will have to be carefully evaluated and subjected to a Strategic Environmental Impact Assessment”.
Tourism remains the critical issue. The reservation system and access fee for day tourists are seen as positive, as are the regulations for short-term rentals and the planning to ease pressure by promoting local projects. But the lack of a dedicated management system and operational body remains crucial. “The deterioration of the city, aggravated by human activity, tourism, and climate change, is still present. And there is still a risk of irreversible damage”.
Here, then, is the decalogue that the inspectors propose to approve at the Plenary Assembly in Paris. It reiterates the recommendations of ICOMOS, the UNESCO technical committee, that were previously expressed during last October’s mission.
Specifically, this means the need to establish an operational management body and a Sustainable Tourism Plan that includes a reduction in tourism and short-term rentals, and a buffer zone to prevent new, high-impact construction projects from threatening the lagoon.
All this must be done by February 1, 2026. The final decision on whether Venice should remain on the UNESCO list of protected sites will therefore be made at the Committee’s 48th session next year. This will conclude a review process that began in 2011, which was updated in 2015 with the first joint ICOMOS-Ramsar monitoring mission on behalf of the World Heritage Center and subsequently updated in 2020 and October 2024. The world spotlight remains on Venice and its lagoon.
Source: La Nuova di Venezia
Campaign For A Living Venice 
As a native and a resident since I was born 78 years ago, I assure you it is no longer possible to live in insular Venice without feeling an outsider because of the load of tourists, because of the liberalisation of commerce which has seen the opening of junk shops, shops run by people who do not even speak Italian, restaurants with ‘throw in guys’ as if we were in Naples or at a sea side resort, lack of homes for residents and the like. IF NO MEASURES ARE TAKEN TO ALLOWING ANYONE IN THE WORLD TO DO SHORT TERM RENTALS, TO PUTTING AN END TO LIBERALIZATION OF COMMERCE, AND TO FORBID THE DIGGING ON CANALS TO LET BIG SHIPS IN THE LAGOON, WE ARE WASTING TIME. THE POINT IS THAT ALL THIS CANNOT EVER BE DONE BECAUSE VENICE IS NO LONGER A TOWN OR A CITY, ADMINISTRATIVELY IT’S JUST A QUARTER OF MAINLAND VENICE AND IT HAS BEEN SINCE 1926 WHEN THE TWO MUNICIPALITIES OF VENICE AND MESTRE WERE UNITED BY A ROYAL DECREE WITHOUT THE KNOWLEDGE OT ITS CITIZENS, WHO STILL DO NOT KNOW, AND THE MUNICIPALITY OF MESTRE. ALL THIS TO LET BIG INVESTORS HAVE FREE HAND TO DIG THE VITTORIO EMANUELE CANAL INTO THE LAGOON TO LET BIG OIL CONTAINERS TO REACH OIL REFINARIES IN MAINLAND PORTO MARGHERA. THE CANAL WAS IN FACT DUG IN 1926.
As the Island of Venice is no longer administratively independent it is impossible to intervene, we definately need to give it a special status which separates the political power from the votes of the 200 people who live in the mainland, whose needs are obviously opposite to those living in the aria surrunded by water. Venice was decreed as a museum in 1926, historic centre, … rubbish, we Venetians born after or during the war, when we were 160thousand, know it had, and in a minor scale it still has, its periferies and to name it all a ‘historic centre’, was and is an abuse, as well as its administrative fusion with the mainland. IF we are serious in out attempt to save what can be saved we need another decree fom sensitive authorities from all over the world to give it the administrative power of ruling itself as a real town.
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