What do the locals think overture is really about?

Four months earlier this year, the Italian city of Venice piloted a surcharge scheme for one-day tourists. Visitors who did not stay overnight had to pay 5 euros ($5.40) on certain days considered the busiest, including weekends and national holidays.

The levy was tried as a way to “dissuade” visitors from arriving on overcrowded days and thus help solve the problem of over-tourism in Venice.

In 2023, 5.7 million people visited Venice, with over 80,000 visitors on peak days. In context, it can be said that the historical center of Venice currently has less than 50,000 inhabitants.

However, the experiment failed to reduce the number of visitors to the iconic city on the canal. Instead, almost 750,000 visitors were registered during the first 11 days of the pilot period. On the same days in 2023, there were about 680,000 entries.

Despite the poor results, Venice authorities announced that the day trip tax would be brought back in 2025, this time doubling to €10 ($10.80) on some days.

Many residents of Venice have opposed the entrance fee from the start, staging protests including on the day it was launched. For campaigners, the solution to Venice’s tourism problems lies in supporting the local community.

Venice’s entry fee is an ‘invasion of privacy’

Susanna Polloni is an activist of the organization Rete Solidale Casa, which fights for the housing rights of the residents of Venice.

She emphasizes that the entrance fee affected not only tourists who were required to pay, but also those living in the city who did not require it.

“What reasonable reasons can justify an invasion of privacy, reducing the most beautiful city in the world to a single toll city, forcing its residents to prove that they are citizens of their city?” she says.

“The burden of excessive tourism falls on the lives of the people of Venice.”

“Urgent” need to reduce short-term rentals in Venice

Polloni examined official data from Venice’s Smart Control Room, which collects all sorts of visitor statistics, and highlighted another issue she believes the authorities should be tackling instead.

The number of registered overnight visitors exceeds the number of beds registered in the city, leading her to conclude that there are dozens of illegal short-term rentals.

There is “an urgent need for the city to implement a rental ordinance that will significantly reduce short-term rentals in the city,” she says.

Venice authorities should invest in tourism management

According to many activists, Venice is harmed not only by the number of tourists, but also by the type of tourism.

In 2015, Valeria Duflot created the Venezia Autentica visitor advice website and now advocates a tourism model that benefits the local population.

“I don’t think (the day trip tax) goes far enough to address the main problems caused by tourism today: the displacement of local businesses and the displacement of local people,” she says.

“We must all take the demise of Venice, its community and its heritage as a warning and work together to change the way we measure success and engage communities in the tourism industry.”

Duflot would like to see more emphasis on impacting tourists and enabling them to spend their time and money where it benefits the local community, economy and heritage.

For Polloni, the €5 entry fee is not only ineffective, but also prevents funds from being channeled into actions aimed at helping residents.

“Other necessary and urgent measures are the reconstruction and provision of vacant public housing, economic diversification to create jobs that are not the sole channel of tourism, improving local public transport and social and health services,” she says.

“This is the only way to save the city.”

This story was originally presented on Fortune.com