Venice drowning under the weight of tourism

Sheer numbers of high-impact low revenue cruise tourists said to be destroying city

Just a couple of days ago two thirds of Venice was underwater with heavy rain and winds resulting in the sixth highest tide levels since 1872. Clearly the iconic city is again being challenged by water and tourists.

Venice is a UNESCO World Heritage Site but cruise ship tourism is threatening to overwhelm the sinking city. Can a balance be found before it turns into a "Veniceland?" commodity tourism offer?

Each day, more than 60,000 people visit Venice – more than the entire population of the city. Of those, an increasing number are from cruise ships; with a 439 percent increase in cruise dockings in the past 15 years, according to statistics from the Venice Passenger Terminal.

It is feared that the sheer number of visitors are damaging the city, part of whose economy is based around them.

"Tourism is a double-edged sword," said Peter Debrine, head of the World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Programme at UNESCO, "You can’t have those kind of numbers come into a site and not have a negative impact."

"There are obviously many benefits to tourism. Venice is a unique case and there needs to be a balance. We cannot demonize the cruise industry. Local people own the real estate. UNESCO’s concern is of course the protection of heritage but with have to do it in collaboration with the tourism industry.

Cruise ships in Venice are particularly damaging because of the fragile structure of the city. The ships cause tides that erode the foundations of buildings, contribute to pollution and have an impact on the cityscape as they dwarf the city’s monuments.

"Venice is a small place, without a lot of space," said Matteo Secchi, spokesperson for Venessia, the largest citizen’s advocacy group in Venice. "The number of tourists is going up every day, every year, including people coming from the cruise ships. There’s too many people in Venice during a normal day."

According to Secchi, increased tourism has contributed to what locals call "the exodus" – Venetians leaving for mainland Italy. Since the 1950s, Venice’s population has fallen by more than two-thirds. An electronic ticker near the Rialto Bridge that keeps track of the number of citizens declines almost every day. On November 8, it displayed a new low: 58,483.

Debrine said the unique nature of Venice itself makes the problem of tourism more difficult to solve.

"Venice’s economy is almost entirely dependent on tourism," he said. "They need the tourists. But, it is also essentially a museum that needs to be preserved. A balance has to be struck."

"It’s a paradox, because the tourists are very important for the economy of Venice," said Secchi, who also manages a hotel in the city’s Cannaregio district. "The tourists are the economy. They buy everything."

In 2009, residents held a mock funeral to symbolize the city’s decline, followed by another event a year later, in which they handed out maps and free "entrance tickets" to "Veniceland." But the colorful protests, which drew international attention, and have led to regular dialogue with local government leaders, have not slowed the ever-increasing stream of tourists, including those arriving on cruise ships.

To fix the problem, Debrine said both residents and cruise operators need to come together to work out a compromise.

"This is the issue: we have these iconic places, but are we loving them to death?" he said. "The people who live in Venice need to come together and begin that dialogue with each other. Everyone needs to come together in a way that benefits the economy but does not damage the heritage of the site, the outstanding universal value."

Said Secchi "If we don’t fix these problems, Venice will be like Disneyland – just a park for the tourists without people living there," he said. "During the day, you visit the city, and at night, we close the park like in Disneyland."

Added British-based Venetian-born travel trade personality Angelo Carraro: "Venice really under water, not the 20/30cm of my youth, when we could still go to school albeit wearing wellies, but 150cm! over 3 feet of water engulfing my beloved city is a disaster of cataclysmic proportions."

"And still the cruise ships, these monsters, continue to arrive and depart, on schedule, as if nothing has happened. The pragmatic Venetians, the 3 or 4 who still live there, eat and drink and what the hell make merry!. Who can blame them? Maybe the sea will wash away the memories of tourists defacing monuments, leaving their gin palaces armed with camera and mineral water, having left their brain in their cabins! Wake up, wake up everyone Ich bein ein Venetian!"

Valere Tjolle

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