City to charge Dh41 entry fees to visitors

Currently, the city's tourist tax applies to tourists spending a night in a hotel or a rented apartment.

All tourists to Venice, even those visiting for a few hours, will have to shell out up to $11 (Dh41 approx) entry fee to gain access to the city. Struggling with over-tourism, Venetian authorities announced new plans to charge day visitors as a way of reducing the costs involved in maintaining the city.
Currently, the Italian city's tourist tax applies to tourists spending a night in a hotel or a rented apartment. However, students will be exempted from the charge along with people travelling briefly to Venice for work or business and regional residents.
Venice mayor Luigi Brugnaro said on Twitter that the new visitors' tax would 'allow us to manage the city better and to keep it clean' and 'allow Venetians to live with more decorum'. It is estimated that as many as 30 million people visit Venice each year, with about one-fifth spending at least one night in the historic centre of the city, which excludes islands in the lagoon and a mainland.
Brugnaro said that substantial cost of cleaning and maintaining security has so far been paid 'only by Venetians' with many natives forced to live in the mainland due to high cost of living. The increasing number of tourists from cruise ships have contributed to wear and tear on the city's architecture, which also endures frequent flooding caused by high winds.
City officials said that the cost of maintaining public buildings in Venice's historic centre is one-third higher than on the mainland as materials are brought in by boats and taken on hand-carts through the city's narrow mazes of streets. Cleaning is also done by hand.
The new tax will cover security costs, including the deployment of 150 local police officers every Sunday and the 350 officers on duty for holidays like New Year's Eve and Carnival, and to build walkways during flooding, reported Metro.uk.