Skift Take
Venice is taking on group tours and loudspeakers as part of its overall framework toward combating mass tourism.
Starting Thursday in Venice, group tours won’t be able to exceed 25 people and guides will be banned from using loudspeakers on the streets.
Group tours will also not be allowed to park their vehicle on bridges, according to the municipal government. The restrictions aim to deter overcrowding, reduce noise pollution and promote pedestrian mobility.
âWe want to keep the group smaller because we want to make the quality of a visit higher and a big group can cause stress to the city,â deputy mayor and city councilor Simone Venturini told Skift in a June interview. âWe just banned the loudspeaker because we are not a theme park.â
The restrictions had originally been scheduled to start on June 1 but were delayed to give businesses more time to adapt.
The large group tour and loudspeaker ban comes in the wake of Veniceâs completion of its entry fee system for day trippers. The system was implemented for a total of 29 days between April 25 and July 14.
Over 485,000 day trippers paid the fee, and city collected 2.4 million euros ($2.6 million) in revenue. The city plans to expand it across more days and increase the fee from 5 euros to potentially 10 euros.
Over the past few years, Venice has been trying to reduce mass tourism. The city put a cap on new hotels in the city center and is building a terminal for cruise ships outside the city center. In September, it is going to introduce new restrictions on short-term rentals.
In 2023, Venice and its surrounding region had over 13 million tourists, according to the Italian government.Â
