We mentioned it a few months ago. There are places in the world where the number of tourists far exceeds the local government’s means. One of these, perhaps the most obvious due to geography, is Venice. They were among the first to stop the cruise ships and even added a special “entry” fee. Now they’ve gone a step further.

No music, no big bands. The news was reported by Reuters. The small and very famous Italian city will limit the size of tourist groups and ban tour guides from using loudspeakers “to protect the sanctity of Venice.” Yes, from now on you may have problems if you go in groups of 26 or more people.

For the peace of Venice. Both measures will come into force on August 1. According to authorities, the regulations were approved to “preserve the peace of the locals” and make Venice’s roads more pedestrian-friendly. As such, they will now apply to the main city centre of Venice, as well as the islands of Murano, Burano and Torcello, and non-compliance could result in fines of between 25 and 500 euros.

Measures following the tourism tax. In reality, the loudspeaker ban and crowd control, capped at 25 people, were set to go into effect in June, just weeks after Venice became the first city to charge visitors an entrance fee, known as a “tourist tax.” The goal? Monitor day trippers during peak travel season.

Of course, as we said, the measure is very limited, at least for now: It is limited to a specific area, only applies on certain days and at certain times, and includes a large list of exemptions. Although it is still early days, estimates suggest that the local government has already collected $2.6 million from taxes on more than 485,000 tourists.

UNESCO is against tourism. The truth is that tourist overcrowding is a very worrying issue. Even UNESCO itself added Venice to its list of destinations in danger of extinction, what happened? Yes, the list highlighted the environmental damage caused by motorboats and cruise ships approaching the city, as well as the impact of tourism converted to commercial use on historic buildings, as the main risks facing the city.

Data. To put things in perspective, let’s look at last year’s figures. In 2023, Venice will be visited by around 20 million people. It may seem like a lot or a little, but that’s 400 times the population of the city (just under 50,000). For some time now, the area has been “suffocating” with tourists, as many local media have put it.

And not only that. As more people leave the city feeling that it is impossible to live in, the dependence on tourism to boost the economy increases even more. It is therefore not surprising that Venice is a perfect example or symbol of this trend, where overcrowding of tourists reduces the quality of life and services of the local population.

Other places like Venice. The situation of the Italian city is not unique, of course. We have been talking about how the tourism “ball” has grown in many regions lately. For example, the cruise ship problem in Greece or Barcelona, ​​the curfew in Seoul, the menus for tourists in Japan or, in the most radical cases, even the harassment of tourists in what seems to be an anti-tourism movement.

Image | US Army South

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