Tourists will need to book in advance if they want to visit Venice.

A new report on tourism regulations in Venice has been published, although it has not yet been confirmed when these regulations will take effect, but they are expected to be implemented from summer 2022 to 2023.

Day visitors will have to pay between 3 Euros (approximately 80,000 VND) and 10 Euros (approximately 270,000 VND) and will be given a receipt with a QR code. Guests staying in hotels in Venice, as well as residents and children under 6 years old, are exempt from this fee.

The number of visitors has also not been confirmed, although the city is currently facing pre-pandemic levels of overcrowding with 80,000 visitors per day, according to a report from August.

In response to this situation, city authorities are gradually shifting to other tourism restrictions; large cruise ships have been banned from the city's waterways, while many tourists are being fined for violating rules such as sunbathing on terraces or eating a meal outdoors.

Earlier this year, the city of Venice launched a Smart Control Room to monitor tourist activity during their stay, hoping to control visitor numbers during peak season. Inside the Smart Control Room, the number of tourists in Venice is tracked by working with the telecommunications provider TIM, and information about the origin of each tourist is also clearly understood by identifying the country where their phone number is registered.

According to The Times, the monitoring methods include: surveillance cameras, optical motion-tracking sensors, and a phone tracking system to check all SIM cards in the city. Tracking SIM cards will alert authorities when large numbers of tourists congregate in hotspots throughout the city, allowing them to intervene and redirect tourists to less crowded locations.

Khanh Ha