Tourists board gondolas for a tour in Venice, Italy on June 17. After a 15-month hiatus in international mass traffic, the Venetians are considering how to welcome visitors back to the picturesque canals and Byzantine backdrops without suffering the humiliations of the congested crowds around its narrow streets, day trippers descending on stairs sipping a panino and hordes of selfie-takers looking for a place on the Rialto Bridge or in front of St. Mark’s Basilica. Luca Bruno / Associated Press

VENICE, Italy – Away from the once insane crowds of St. Mark’s Square, the tiny island of Certosa could serve as a blueprint for building a sustainable future in Venice as it seeks to revitalize its tourism industry without returning to the pre-pandemic day-trip hordes.

Private investments have turned the forgotten public island, just a 15-minute waterbus ride from St. Mark’s Square, into a multi-faceted urban park where Venetians and Venetian conoscenti can mingle, free from the tensions associated with perpetual mass tourism Connected to the lagoon city.

“This is the B-side of the Venetian LP,” said Alberto Sonino, who leads the development project, which includes a hotel, marina, restaurant and wooded area. “Everyone knows the first song on the A-side of our longplay, almost nobody, not even the expert or local, knows the lagoon as an interesting natural and cultural environment.”

Maybe now or never for Venice, whose fragile city and lagoon landscape are both protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Citing overtourism, UNESCO took the rare step this week of recommending Venice to be placed on its World Heritage List in Danger. A decision is expected next month.

After a 15-month hiatus in international mass traffic, the Venetians are considering how to welcome visitors back to their picturesque canals and Byzantine backdrops without suffering the earlier humiliations of crowds clogging narrow streets, day-trippers picnicking on porches and Selfie-takers crowd the Rialto Bridge.

The recommendation of the UNESCO World Heritage Center took into account mass tourism, especially the passage of cruise ships through the old town, a steady decline in permanent residents, and governance and management problems.

“This is not something we suggest lightly,” Mechtild Roessler, director of the World Heritage Center, told AP. “It is intended to warn the international community to do more to address these issues together.”

Officials of the Veneto region have presented Rome with a plan to revitalize the tourism-dependent city, which aims to control the arrivals of day-trippers, encourage permanent residents, encourage start-ups, limit the stock of private rental housing and the Gain control of commercial zoning to protect Venetian artisans.

The proposal submitted in March aims to make Venice a “world capital of sustainability” and hopes to use part of the € 222 million (US $ 265 million) in EU recovery funds to help hard-hit Italy To help revive the pandemic.

“Venice is in danger of disappearing. If we don’t stop and reverse this, in 10 years Venice will be a desert where you turn the lights on in the morning and turn them off in the evening, ”said Nicola Pianon, a native of Venice and managing director of the Boston Consulting Group, whose strategic plan for Venice proposed the proposal shaped the region.

The proposal responds to the urgency of the Venetians to rid their city of mass tourism, which peaked in 2019 with around 25 million unique visitors, and to stop the exodus of 1,000 Venetians every year. It plans investments of up to 4 billion euros to attract 12,000 new residents and create 20,000 new jobs.

As much as the Venetians groan at the huge flow of tourists, the pandemic has also shown how symbiotic the relationship is.

Along with the lost income from tourism, the Venetians suffered a drastic reduction in public transport, which was heavily subsidized by tourist traffic. Even city museums couldn’t afford to reopen to residents when the lockdowns eased.

“Venice without tourists became a city that could not serve its own citizens,” says Anna Moretti, destination management expert at Ca ‘Foscari University in Venice.

The pandemic suspended the city’s plans last year to introduce a day-tripper tax for visitors staying elsewhere – 80 percent of total tourist footfall.

According to Boston Consulting, around 19 million day trippers visited in 2019, each spending only 5 to 20 euros. On the other side of this equation, the 20 percent of tourists who spend at least one night in Venice account for more than two-thirds of all tourist revenue.

A reservation system with access fee is expected to be introduced sometime in 2022 to manage day visitors.

To monitor daily tourist arrivals, the city set up a state-of-the-art Smart Control Room near the main railway bridge last year, which uses cell phone data that also reveals their country to identify at any time how many visitors are in Venice, their origin and location City.

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People are held in the background by the bell tower of St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice on June 17th. Luca Bruno / Associated Press

The technology means future reservations can be monitored with QR codes downloaded onto phones without the need to set up checkpoints. Pianon said the plan is feasible in a city like Venice, which has a limited number of access points and is only 3 square kilometers.

Revitalizing more sustainable tourism in Venice would require redirecting tourists to new destinations, encouraging more overnight stays, discouraging day trips and allowing the city to be repopulated with new residents.

A lot can go wrong. Tour operators are desperate for a return to business and there is a pent-up global travel desire. Additionally, many changes requested by regional and city officials need to be decided in Rome, including any restrictions on commercial zones or Airbnb rentals.

“I think the level of dystopia we have reached has been so great that there has to be a response,” said Carlo Bagnoli, director of the VeniSia innovation laboratory at Ca Foscari University. “There are many projects that arise in many places.”

Certosa Island is still in the works after more than a decade, but its success lies in the numbers: 3,000 visitors every weekend.

Sonino sees another 10 public locations with redevelopment potential in the lagoon, including former hospitals, abandoned islands and military bases.

He blames the Venetians for the city’s plight because they talk a lot and do little. But he believes the pandemic – coupled with the world’s continued interest in Venice’s future – could just be the impetus the city needs to change.

“I would rather hope we take the opportunity. Carpe diem is not just a slogan, it’s also an opportunity, ”said Sonino. “We need a lot of ideas and a lot of passion to lead Venice from the past into the future.”

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