Just 15 minutes from St. Marks Square, a small island forgotten by private investment, the urban park Venice is a city where people and city lovers can meet in peace.
This is page B of the Venice album
, Said Alberto Sonino, owner of the development project, which includes a hotel, a marina, a restaurant and a forest. Everyone knows the first song on a page. But the pool is a very interesting cultural and natural environment no one knows.
This is not the case now or never for Venice, where the fragile city and lake are protected as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Citing “over-tourism”, the UN The company surprised many this week by recommending that the city be added to its list of threatened World Heritage Sites.
A result is expected next week.
After a 15-month hiatus from international tourism, Venetians explore how to greet visitors to their famous canals and Byzantine landscapes, without reuniting with crowds blocking narrow streets, and self-portrait enthusiasts settling on the steps to snack on the steps or snatching the Rialto Bridge.
Tourists visiting St. Marks Square, a popular tourist destination in Venice.
Photo: Associated Press / Luca Bruno
The UNESCO recommendation takes into account mass tourism and especially ships passing through the historic city center, the permanent decline of permanent residents and management and administrative issues.
We do not take this recommendation lightly
, UNESCO World Heritage Committee Director McIlde Rosler told the Associated Press. We urge the international community to do more to address these issues.
Towards one The sustainability capital of the world
Leaders of the Veneto region have proposed to Rome a revival plan for the city, which relies heavily on tourism. In particular, plans are in place to monitor daytime tourist arrivals, increase the number of permanent residents, encourage start-up businesses, limit the number of private residences available for rent, and restrict business zones to protect artisans. Venice.
The project, filed in March, was launched in Venice The sustainability capital of the world
. His administration hopes to use the EU’s 222 million euro funding to help Italy recover from the epidemic.
Venice is under threat of extinction
, Said Nicola Pianon, a Venetian from the Boston Consulting Group who participated in the development of the rescue program.
If we don’t go back, in ten years Venice will be a desert where we turn off the lights in the morning and turn them off at night.
The project is in response to the Venetian people reclaiming their city due to mass tourism that reached 25 million individual visitors in 2019 and ending an evacuation that sees thousands of Venetians leaving every year.
A total of four billion euros in investment is expected to attract 12,000 new residents and create 20,000 new jobs.
An industry undervalued by epidemics
As the people of Venice complain about the crowd of tourists, the epidemic has exposed just how cooperative this is.
In addition to losing tourism revenue, Venetians have to cut back heavily on public transportation, which is heavily funded by tourism. Even the city’s museums were unable to reopen to residents when renovations began.
Without tourists, Venice became a city unable to serve its own citizens.
The epidemic has prevented the city from taxing sleeping visitors elsewhere – up from 80% ridership last year.
According to Boston Consulting, about 19 million day visitors came in 2019, but only spent $ 5 to $ 20 each. In contrast, 20% of tourists who spend at least one night in Venice make up two-thirds of the city’s total tourist revenue.
The paid booking system for overseeing day travelers was able to see daylight in 2022.
The city, which wanted to track the daily arrivals of tourists, set up a sophisticated surveillance system near the main railway bridge last year. It helps to know how many tourists are in Venice, their country of birth and their location in the city using cellular data.
The technology means that future bookings can be managed with QR codes downloaded on phones, without setting up checkpoints. Nicola Pianon believes this is possible in a city like Venice, which has a limited number of accesses and is only five square kilometers in size.
The resumption of more sustainable tourism in Venice will require tourists to be diverted to new destinations, to encourage overnight stays, to encourage day trips and to reuse the city with new residents.
The dangers are numerous. Tourism companies want to acquire, international tourists want to travel. Many of the changes demanded by local and city leaders depend on Rome, such as trade zone restrictions or airbn rent.
I think we need a reaction to the state of dystopia we have reached,
Carlo Bagnoli also belongs to Ca Foscari. Many projects are developed from many places.
The beautiful weather on the streets of Venice is used by travelers as mass tourism has been disrupted for more than 15 months.
Photo: Associated Press / Luca Bruno
The work on the island of Cerdosa is still not finished after ten years, but its success is undeniable: 3,000 visitors each weekend.
Alberto Sonino, head of the development project, hopes to redesign ten other public sites in the pond, including old hospitals, abandoned islands and military bases.
He blames the Venetians for the city’s problems; According to him, they generate more complaints than solutions. He believes, however, that the epidemic – coupled with the planet’s interest in the fate of Venice – could bring about the necessary changes.
I hope we take advantage of this opportunity, he said. Venice needs a lot of ideas and a lot of interest to move from the past to the future.
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