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Coronavirus à Venise et en Italie : Tests PCR et Antigéniques, Pass Sanitaire, Quarantaine, Musées, Restaurants, Commerces, Transports, Masques, Autorisations

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Is now the time to visit Venice? Fewer crowds provide a different experience.

• With fewer crowds of visitors, visitors can plunge themselves into Venetian culture.
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a Level 4 Travel Health Notice for Italy advising Americans to "avoid travel."

I am finally going on my first ever international trip to Europe and to say I am overjoyed is an understatement. I am a young Black traveler excited to see the world, one little corner at a time. I planned a winter excursion to Italy, knowing the difficulty of travel restrictions. 

Fully equipped with a negative COVID-19 antigen test within a day  of my Sunday flight and my vaccination proof (booster included). When I arrived in Italy on Monday afternoon, after a long series of delayed flights, I was cleared to exit the airport and made my way to a popular islet in Italy where locals call their cherished home Venezia.

After my cruise jaunt along Venice’s deep blue canals, I dock in front of Venice’s newest five-star hotel, Ca’ di Dio . 

►Which EU countries are open to US tourists?  A breakdown of EU travel restrictions by country

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Learn more: Best travel insurance

The Venetian bed-and-breakfast is an architectural collision of modern art, marbled furniture, and Murano glass displays that brings to life a lofty getaway enclosure that is a walks away from the famous Piazza San Marco.

The esteemed VERO and Essentia restaurants at the hotel are an exceptional way to be introduced to real Italian cuisine that involves savory seafood arrangements and hearty sophisticated creations.

Visiting the Ca’ di Dio’s cozy reading room full of mid-century colorful decor paired with a drink from the Alchemia Bar is a downtime "must" to gain some privacy during a walk-heavy tour of Venice.

When first entering the hotel’s opulent lobby, I was in a trance by a glimmering chandelier amalgamated with rustic-colored contemporary sofas underneath.  Through the wide doors, I was welcomed by suited-up and securely masked hotel staff who quickly made me feel at home. Once the coast was clear I was ushered up to my room on the second floor where I can catch an aerial view of the center quad that gets swarmed by vacationers during the summer.

Venice welcomes about 20 million tourists annually – a figure that is only set to increase.

One of Ca' di Dio's higher-ups quickly urges a young guest to put on a mask after they briskly cross through the hotel lobby’s main elevator doors. This is the reality for those looking to travel worldwide during this winter where fears of omicron and other variants rapidly mutating are circulating through the news. Even at a luxury hotel in Venice, the hospitality staff is on high alert but that doesn’t take away from the experience.

With fewer crowds of visitors to shuffle through and closer interactions with inhabitants who are privileged enough to call the canals their home, I can plunge myself into Venetian cuisine and culture. 

I unpacked my belongings into my hotel room overlooking the Venetian waterfront. The meticulously crafted suite has glass and wood paneling that is met with stylistic deep-toned textiles to make each glance at the interior more of an intricate experience to marvel at. After cleaning up in the serene red-marbled bathroom and taking a slight rest on the velvet couches in my quarters reminiscent of the oceanic hues that mimic those you can see through the windows. I took on the opportunity to do some independent traveling. 

I made a voyage by foot through the Arsenale neighborhoods, known as Venice’s design district. I became keenly aware of how effortless it is to cross through the busiest parts of this small city. 

Being an American wallflower, in a lively foreign space where people don’t notice your existence because they are so wrapped up in their lives, was purifying. These special moments that imaginatively suspend time feel rare nowadays but even more necessary. 

I arrived at a popular wine spot where consumers were tucked into the standing bar right in the midst of a Venetian street alleyway. 

There, I spoke to an Italian native named Mattia Cazzola who grew up more in the countryside and he told me about how Italy has gone under tight restrictions where he wasn’t able to even celebrate ringing in the new year. The juxtaposition of a packed local wine bar alongside a television tracking the staggering new cases rising in Italy was an unforgiving reflection of the confusing times we are all in. 

The floating Venetian oasis is known for its hundreds of gondolas, refreshing Aperol spritz, and my personal new favorite – Sarde in saor (a sweet-and-salty fried sardine, onion, and raisin dish).

However, the mighty northern island region is still recovering from the drop in tourism at the beginning of the pandemic.

Venice is a tourist hotspot, most destination dreamers and globetrotters try to flock to this European gem at least once in their lifetime. The tourist city that has a native population of 50,000 is dwindling every day and there will be future regulations of implementing an entry fee of 5 euros for visitors to diminish the likelihood of single-day trippers.

Outside of the on-and-off tourist cycle, the floating enclave’s sea levels are increasing and causing flooding in historic Venetian homes and many residents' stairwells are becoming submerged underwater.

The history behind Venice being a major merchant city can be felt through the many locals who live off of the earnings they make from their own home good boutique-and-antique shops.

The lack of influx of tourists has certainly impacted the city's economy but the Venetian culture has certainly thrived with less of a presence of internationals arriving in the region. More small gatherings happen in the late-night between natives instead of burgeoning tourists taking up too much space in the piazzas.

Being a Black tourist and sticking out like a sore thumb wasn't too bad when I was looking to get lost in the cultural fabric of another country, especially one as welcoming and surrealistic as Venice, Italy. 

It truly feels like a hallucination to immerse yourself in another culture while not being surrounded by tourists that normally fill up every crevice of Venice. Being able to get a sliver of authentic Venetian living when the anxieties of the pandemic have forced us to not indulge in certain freedoms we had prior is well worth it.

Malik Peay is an LGBTQ journalist focused on redefining Black art and culture through building more uplifting narratives for marginalized and overlooked communities. You can follow Peay on Twitter @malikpeayy . 

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A day trip to Venice will require a reservation — and a fee

The Associated Press

A tourist takes a selfie in St. Mark's Square in Venice, Italy, in 2016. Starting in January, the city will require day-trippers to make reservations and pay a fee to visit. Luca Bruno/AP hide caption

A tourist takes a selfie in St. Mark's Square in Venice, Italy, in 2016. Starting in January, the city will require day-trippers to make reservations and pay a fee to visit.

ROME — Starting in January, Venice will oblige day-trippers to make reservations and pay a fee to visit the historic lagoon city, in a bid to better manage visitors who often far outnumber residents in the historic center, clogging narrow streets and heavily-used foot bridges crossing the canals.

Venice officials on Friday unveiled new rules for day-trippers, which go into effect on Jan. 16, 2023.

Tourists who choose not to stay overnight in hotels or other lodgings will have to sign up online for the day they plan to come and pay a fee. These range from 3 to 10 euros ($3.15 to $10.50) per person, depending on advance booking and whether it's peak season or the city is very crowded.

Transgressors risk fines as high as 300 euros ($315) if stopped and unable to show proof they booked and paid with a QR Code.

From the archives

With waters rising and its population falling, what is venice's future.

Roughly four-fifths of all tourists come to Venice just for the day. In 2019, the last full year of tourism before the pandemic, some 19 million day-trippers visited Venice and provided just a fraction of the revenue from those staying for at least one night.

Venice's tourism commissioner brushed off any suggestion that the measure would seek to limit the number of out-of-towners coming to Italy's most-visited city.

"We won't talk about number cutoffs. We're talking about incentives and disincentives," Simone Venturini told a news conference in Venice.

Tourists stroll in downtown Venice in 2016. On many days, the heart of the city is overwhelmed by visitors, who often far outnumber residents. Luca Bruno/AP hide caption

Tourists stroll in downtown Venice in 2016. On many days, the heart of the city is overwhelmed by visitors, who often far outnumber residents.

The reservation-and-fee approach had been discussed a few years ago, but was put on hold during the pandemic. COVID-19 travel restrictions saw tourism in Venice nearly vanish — and let Venetians have their city practically to themselves, for the first time in decades.

Mass tourism began in the mid-1960s. Visitor numbers kept climbing, while the number of Venetians living in the city steadily dwindled, overwhelmed by congestion, the high cost of delivering food and other goods in car-less Venice, and frequent flooding that damages homes and businesses.

Since guests at hotels and pensions already pay a lodging tax, they are exempt from the reserve-and-fee obligation.

With the new rule, Venice aims to "find this balance between (Venetian) resident and long-term and short-term" visitors, Venturini said, promising that the new system "will be simple for visitors" to manage. He billed Venice as the first city in the world putting such a system for day-only visitors in place.

As tourists crowd out locals, Venice faces endangered' list

The tourism official expressed hope that the fee-and-reservation obligation will "reduce frictions between day visitors and residents." In peak tourism system, tourists can outnumber residents 2-to-1, in the city that measures 5 square kilometers (2 square miles) in area.

Venice's resident population in the historic city numbers just over 50,000, a small fraction of what it was a couple of generations ago.

Exceptions to the day-tripper fees include children younger than 6, people with disabilities and those owning vacation apartments in Venice, provided they can show proof they pay real estate taxes.

Cruise ships contribute to the hordes of visitors swarming Venice's maze of narrow streets, especially near St. Mark's Square, when they disembark day-trippers for a few hours. Those visitors will have to pay, too, unless their cruise liner company pays a set fee to Venice.

Quatre pistes pour réinventer le tourisme post-pand émie

Doctorant en ethnologie et patrimoine, Université Laval

Disclosure statement

Marco Romagnoli a reçu une bourse d'études supérieures du Canada Vanier (2019-2022) pour ses recherches doctorales. Il mène des recherches sur le tourisme culturel et de masse, sur l'avenir du tourisme, ainsi que sur la diète méditerranéenne et les patrimoines immatériel et alimentaire de l'UNESCO.

Université Laval provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation CA-FR.

Université Laval provides funding as a member of The Conversation CA.

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Bien avant la crise sanitaire générée par la Covid-19, la situation du tourisme de masse, notamment dans certaines villes d’art comme Florence ou Venise, était hors contrôle.

L’activité touristique était tellement déréglée que les habitants de certains quartiers prisés — par exemple celui de la Boqueria à Barcelone ou du district Gion à Kyoto , connu pour la présence des geishas — donnaient le sentiment d’être dans une sorte de « safari humain » .

Un excès dans la « consommation touristique » était déjà reconnu avant la pandémie par les gestionnaires en tourisme et subie par les communautés hôtes, le tout se traduisant par une « boulimie de voyages sous l’emprise d’une voracité d’apparence » .

À l’aube de la prochaine saison touristique, l’enjeu véritable, tant touristique que moral, n’est pas de se questionner sur la possibilité de voyager. Il s’agit plutôt de savoir si l'on continuera à voyager comme on le faisait avant l’éclosion de la pandémie.

Si le contenu du voyage reste bien le même, c’est la manière de faire du tourisme qui pourrait changer. Saurons-nous adopter une façon de voyager qui soit plus responsable, écologique et humaine, tant pour le bien de la planète que pour les êtres humains qui l’habitent ? Dans la mesure où nous sommes toutes et tous des touristes lorsqu’on voyage, personne n’est exemptée de cette réflexion.

Doctorant en ethnologie et patrimoine à l’Université Laval, je mène des recherches sur le tourisme culturel et de masse, sur l’avenir du tourisme, ainsi que sur la diète méditerranéenne et les patrimoines immatériel et alimentaire de l’Unesco.

L’hibernation du tourisme

La Covid-19 a modifié et pourrait continuer de modifier les comportements humains. Mais en ce qui concerne les « comportements touristiques », l’industrie vit en ce moment une forme d’hibernation, notamment dans les villes, en raison de la fermeture d’hôtels et de restaurants.

Parallèlement, on assiste à la saturation progressive des espaces naturels, par exemple en Gaspésie , où l’on assiste à un afflux de touristes attirés par les paysages balnéaires. Le maire de Gaspé a dit craindre que certains visiteurs campent où ils trouvent de l’espace, nuisant à l’environnement et dérangeant les habitants. Ce phénomène n’a rien de paradoxal, au contraire, il montre que la horde de touristes n’a pas disparu, mais s’est plutôt déplacée.

Au cours de 2020, plusieurs destinations ont souffert de l’absence de touristes. Cette « défaillance touristique » se voyait dans les titres des quotidiens : « Covid-19 : Venise se meurt » , « Tourisme : l’Espagne revient au niveau de 1969 » , « Désertée, la ville suisse de Lucerne nostalgique des hordes de touristes chinois » .

Read more: Tourisme en temps de pandémie : les villes délaissées au profit de la nature

Le sentiment de nostalgie éprouvé par les destinations où un tourisme de hit and run régnait semble paradoxal. Il s’agit là d’un type de tourisme particulièrement visible dans les villes considérées comme une destination de « journée » ou qui sont des arrêts sur les itinéraires de croisière. Dans le cas de Lucerne , en Suisse, les recettes touristiques allaient surtout dans les poches des commerçants de montres de luxe du centre-ville, populaires auprès des nombreux touristes chinois.

Au-delà de tout effet économique quantifiable, le tourisme n’est pas une activité exemptée des problématiques sociales. Bien que l’activité touristique soit plus félicitée que critiquée , il est impératif de se questionner quant à la possibilité d’un changement de paradigme dans ces pratiques afin de les réinventer. Nous proposons ici quatre pistes pour réinventer le tourisme de demain.

1. Le tourisme régénératif

Dans certaines régions du monde, on a remarqué pendant la pandémie que la nature avait repris ses droits. La faune est retournée en Thaïlande dans des lieux autrefois envahis par les touristes et la flore s’est régénérée grâce à leur absence. Ainsi, pour sauver la planète, devrions-nous arrêter de voyager ou, à tout le moins, voyager de façon à favoriser la régénération progressive des lieux (urbains, ruraux et naturels) ?

Les promoteurs de destinations devraient annoncer, conscientiser et faire respecter la capacité d’accueil d’une destination. Les touristes, de leur côté, devraient s’informer par rapport à ces limites et voyager en conséquence.

Comme le sociologue français Rodolphe Christin le propose, il vaudrait mieux partir moins souvent, plus longtemps et plus lentement, par exemple en s’offrant des vacances plus près de chez soi. Apprendre à devenir des « voyageurs du quotidien » permettrait, lors d’un voyage vers des destinations lointaines, d’appliquer la fameuse maxime de Jost Krippendorf, un des pères fondateurs du tourisme durable, « Ce sont vos vacances, c’est leur quotidien » , prônant le respect que les visiteurs devraient avoir du lieu visité et des individus rencontrés lors d’un voyage.

2. Le tourisme (en) durable

Durabilité est désormais un terme galvaudé, qui a perdu de son sens. Dans son acception, durable signifie «qui dure dans le temps». Mais quel est le caractère durable du tourisme ? Comment s’assurer de la durabilité de ses pratiques ?

La durabilité d’un système pourrait se mesurer par sa capacité de reproduire ses caractères essentiels , pensons à la nature. Il s’agirait de limiter les externalités négatives et de considérer tout effet qu’a un système, dont le touristique, sur les autres.

L’arrêt du tourisme, forcé par la Covid-19, représente une opportunité de revoir ce concept. Si rien ne semble arrêter la machine touristique, à l’exception d’une pandémie, un adoucissement de ses excès et de sa densité pourrait être une des solutions pour atténuer ses effets potentiellement néfastes.

Un exemple est celui du parc du Mont Wright à Stoneham-et-Tewkesbury, dans la région de Québec. La grande popularité de ce site naturel a conduit la municipalité à limiter l’accès aux sentiers à 225 randonneurs en même temps afin de protéger l’environnement.

3. Le tourisme analogique

Comme dans nos habitudes de consommation relationnelles (des exemples sont représentés par les échanges continus sur les réseaux sociaux ou par l’instantanéité des messages), nous avons projeté nos habitudes de consommation dans la sphère touristique (visite rapide d’une destination et impact majeur sur les communautés hôtes).

Et si nous retournions aux « relations analogiques » , celles à développer comme c’était le cas dans la technique de la photographie argentique ? Un tourisme ana-logique (du préfixe grec ἀνα — signifiant égal), donc un tourisme de « rapport égal » se développerait par la suite. Nous apprendrions de nouveau à profiter du moins, mais du meilleur (des voyages moins nombreux, mais plus longs et contemplatifs), bref d’un « retour aux sources » du voyage. La valeur de la découverte d’un lieu et de ses habitants serait au cœur du voyage .

Car la vraie différence entre le numérique et l’analogique est le temps : dans le monde analogique, tout a besoin de temps pour se développer, tandis que le numérique donne tout immédiatement.

4. L'éducation au tourisme

Qu’elles soient économiques, pandémiques ou environnementales, les crises ont le potentiel de nous ramener aux valeurs essentielles. Les changements radicaux sont souvent rendus possibles grâce à un choc externe et la Covid-19 est une véritable secousse.

Nous avons l’occasion de construire une nouvelle normalité post-Covid et de réinventer le tourisme pour recadrer ses pratiques et apporter un changement systémique.

Ce que je propose est une approche pédagogique du tourisme à travers l’enseignement du tourisme dans les écoles (du primaire au secondaire) afin de « former » les visiteurs de demain et les conscientiser à des pratiques touristiques régénératrices, durables et analogiques. Ce n’est pas la seule solution, mais elle peut en être une et représenter un timide début.

• surconsommation
• tourisme de masse

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Workers in Venice disinfected sites (the Rialto Bridge pictured here), a day after Italian Prime Minister Guiseppe Conte announced a nationwide lockdown on March 10, an unprecedented move to help contain the spread of COVID-19.

• CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE

What happens when a new pandemic hits an ancient city?

How Venice is coping—cautiously—with the coronavirus.

Until recently, the only modern-day contagion in Venice has been the plague of tourists, at least 23 million a year, that strains resources and infuriates residents of an improbable city—a mirage that lifts from a lagoon in the Adriatic.

But with the firestorm of COVID-19, an actual plague has emptied out the Piazza San Marco, St. Mark’s Basilica, the Doge’s Palace and other attractions in a city of gilded domes and lapping waves. In the wake of mounting affliction throughout all of Italy, La Serenissima—“the most serene one,” as Venice is called—is anything but. The latest number of confirmed cases in the country, more than 12,400 at press time, leaves Italy with the highest number of infections outside of China where the virus first broke out in December.

On March 8, at 3:30 a.m., Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte imposed a quarantine on the entire region of Lombardy and 14 other provinces including Venice, Parma, and Padua. As the infection statistics kept climbing, it was announced a day later that the red zones would be extended to include the entire country and its 60 million people. Schools, gyms, museums and other public venues are closed. Sporting events, which until recently, were allowed to be played in empty stadiums with no spectators, have been suspended and nearly all commercial activity has been halted.

Coronavirus coverage: Do travel bans really work?

Venice’s Piazza San Marco (St. Mark’s Square), usually teeming with tourists, was eerily quiet after emergency quarantine measures began restricting movement in and out of the city March 9.

Business owners in Venice started to close after Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced a “national emergency” March 9 due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Silent streets and piazzas

No one can leave the city, writes my Venice-based friend Antonietta (Tonci) Poduie, except for a health or work issue. Poduie is one of 54,000 residents who live in the historical center—the number drops each year as locals are squeezed out by rising costs and a diminishing stock of affordable housing. And now in addition to the routine flooding caused by the complicity of rising tides and sinking foundations, comes a viral pandemic with the malevolently regal name of corona (named for the pathogen’s crown-like form)—a wild card less predictable, infinitely more frightening, than the acqua alta .

Hugging and kissing are banned, Poduie writes. “Can you imagine asking Italians not to kiss and hug?” Like every other theater, La Fenice , the city’s gilded bonbonnière of an opera house, is closed, though last week a string quartet played on stage before an empty house and was live-streamed on YouTube. (An appreciative virtual audience responded, the New York Times reported, with “an ovation of handclap emojis.”) It was the proverbial collaboration of insult and injury. The Fenice had just recovered from damage caused by record-setting high tides several months before.

Last month, Carnival was stopped with just two days to go (“somebody said it was like canceling Christmas the day after”), Poduie reports. “We hear it is an influenza but a very contagious and aggressive one and we need to stay, as much as possible, indoors and—I would add, pray—but not at Mass (they were canceled).” Religious forbearance was not limited to Venice.

In Rome, the Pope live-streamed his Sunday audience and Wednesday afternoon prayer. Parishes have emptied holy water fonts, and, priests, until Mass was canceled, placed communion wafers in the hand rather than on the tongue.

Masked revelers were able to participate in the “Plague of Doctors Procession” during Carnival, before the annual festival was canceled Feb. 25.

Containment Italian-style

More aggressively than most countries, Italy is acting to contain the pandemic despite the crushing certainty of financial disaster on top of an already sluggish Italian economy . Italy being Italy, some tried to game the system. When whispers of an imminent lockdown in all of Lombardy first made rounds (the draft was leaked), there was a stampede to the train station in Milan to evade containment. “We must not try and be clever,” the prime minister implored. Now, with the whole country under lockdown there are fewer avenues for escape and cleverness is moot.

The approach to containment has historical resonance. Venice and other city-states including Milan were the first to use quarantine during the Bubonic plagues in the Renaissance. Several “ quarantine” islands sit in the Venetian lagoon as testimony to the past.

“Venice was at the crossroads of trade, with mixes of people, so to ensure commerce and well-being, it turned to a pragmatic approach,” points out Anna Marie Roos, a professor of the history of science and medicine at the University of Lincoln in the U.K. “City-states were small enough to allow for enough state control to initiate quarantine.” Buildings on the quarantine islands mostly housed the poor. The wealthy retreated to their country houses.

Plague doctors—who wore beaked masks containing aromatic substances, waxed coats, and gloves—were common during the bubonic plagues that struck Italy in the Renaissance period.

As depicted in this 16th-century painting, “Pilgrimage of the Compagnia del Crocifisso to Loreto,” of the plague of 1523, Italy is no stranger to viral outbreaks and quarantines. Several quarantine islands sit in the Venetian lagoon today as testimony to the past.

The long shadow of plague spans centuries. There were, Roos says, about 22 outbreaks of bubonic plague in Venice between 1361 and 1528, another in 1576 that killed a third of the population, and another in 1680 that felled 80,000 people in 17 months. The memory of plague is summoned by a common masked figure at Carnival: Dr. Peste, the embodiment of the plague doctor , who wears a long black cape and a mask with a long beak stuffed with herbs as prevention against the miasma of sickness.

Read why plague doctors wore strange beaked masks.

The infectious culprit then was a bacterium, Yersina pestis, which lives in the guts of a flea. Measles, smallpox, flu, or typhoid could produce a spike in mortality, Roos adds, and were also called plague. In Thomas Mann’s novella, Death in Venice , where the whiff of disinfectant first signals that all is not well, the offender is cholera.

Tourism takes a hit

Tourism in Venice has evaporated. According to Claudio Scarpa, director of the Venetian Hoteliers Association , 80 percent of the city’s hotels (there are 400 in the association, which includes the surrounding area and municipality of Mestre) planned to close temporarily and 90 percent of the 8,000 employees in the sector were expected to stay home. To date, tourism hotel losses have reached a billion euros, which includes damage from the tidal flooding in November. Larger enterprises with more financial support will have more resilience.

Gondoliers, like other workers in Venice, saw a drop in business after the government shut down schools and universities March 5 in the wake of rising deaths from COVID-19. The country closed its borders March 10.

Smaller businesses will suffer most. On Tuesday, the day after the countrywide shut down, Giacomo Donato, an owner of La Feluca, a small family restaurant on the Calle della Mandola, had served lunch to a few nearby office workers. But with the sharply curtailed hours, it seemed hardly worthwhile; Italians eat dinner much later than the 6 p.m. restaurant closing time previously mandated.

Yesterday, March 11, the decision was made for him when Prime Minister Conte ordered all shops and restaurants shut with the exception of pharmacies and supermarkets after cases increased by 30 percent in a 24-hour period.

The virus has illuminated a sobering reality, even for those who find tourism so disruptive. “When I crossed the Rialto Bridge the day after the suspension of Carnival and saw the Campo Bartolomeo completely deserted, my stomach sank,” Poduie’s friend Silvia Zanon, who lives on the Lido, said. “Though the internet was full of Venetians smug with the satisfaction of reclaiming their city, I could not join the chorus. Venice is not meant to be deserted. Beauty is useless unless it is shared.”

Find out if warming spring temperatures will slow the outbreak.

“Beauty,” Venice’s former Mayor Massimo Cacciari once told me “is difficult,” and Venice, so lethally seductive, is beautiful and difficult beyond words precisely because of “overtourism,” as it is called. (The ratio of visitors to residents is about 370 tourists for every one resident.) Like it or not, tourism drives the economy. It generates billions, but exact figures mislead because so much business is done off the books. Perhaps, Silvia and Giacomo Donato suggest, when the pandemic abates, there will be room to rethink how Venice might accommodate tourism in a more sustainable way, but for now there are more pressing matters.

“Be ready,” Poduie advises, her tone unmistakably grim, adding in closing: “ Baci and a bbracci… the only kind allowed…through the internet.”

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• CORONAVIRUS
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Watch CBS News

As Venice welcomes Americans back, can the "capital of over-tourism" manage a full COVID rebound?

July 8, 2021 / 9:01 AM EDT / CBS News

Venice — The pandemic dealt a double blow to Italy's vital tourism industry . First there was the nationwide lockdown, and then as COVID-19 exploded across the U.S., a ban on Americans entering the country.

U.S. tourists have long been the biggest spenders in Venice. Now, for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, Americans are back. Direct flights from the states to Venice are finally landing again. 

Tabatha Watters and her family from Kentucky were among the first to touch down, and they were thrilled to be out exploring the world again.  

She told CBS News correspondent Chris Livesay that it felt "amazing."

"We've been stuck in the states for almost two years," she said. "I'm about to cry." 

The pandemic was particularly rough for Watters and her family.

"I lost a couple family members to it," she told CBS News. "My brother and a good friend. And I'm a nurse, so, it's been a really bad thing to get used to… Finally seeing the world get normal again is really good."

The feeling is mutual at Caffè Florian. Italy's oldest coffee house was left on the brink of bankruptcy during the pandemic. 

Now Americans like the Watters family are helping bring it back to life, along with the newly-reopened "La Fenice" opera house. Named after the mythical Phoenix, the opera house, like Venice itself, is rising from the ashes.

But to some, the absence of hordes of tourists in Venice gave the ancient city a much-needed chance to breathe, and any return to "normal" should come with a few lessons learned.

Environmental scientist Jane da Mosto told CBS News there was a lot of potential to make life in Venice, "a whole lot better, not just for us, but for nature and other organisms." 

When the tourists disappeared and the canal boat rides stopped, nature filled the void . Ducks, octopuses, even dolphins were seen in the Grand Canal for the first time in years. 

But with restrictions now loosened, those days are over, and the tourist footfall is rising by the minute. With such irresistible beauty on offer, who can blame people wanting to come and see the city?

"Venice has always been called the capital of over-tourism," Lorenza Lain, of the Venice hoteliers association, told CBS News. To her, the solution is clear — she believes Venice should charge visitors an entrance fee. 

"Venice is not Disneyland, it's a living city," she acknowledges. "But, as [with] other sites in the world, you pay to get in…. Let's limit the daily people." 

Limit the number of cruise ships that pull in, too, she says. The hulking vessels not only dwarf the city, they've been known to crash right into it . 

It's just one more challenge for Venice's leaders as they try to strike a post-COVID balance for both residents, and visitors alike. 

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Venice in times of COVID-19: Relaxed and unique

Tourists are returning to Venice, but far fewer than in recent years. In this coronavirus pandemic summer the city has sorely missed its visitors. But the city is also looking for new approaches beyond mass tourism.

The queue of visitors in front of St. Mark's Cathedral once again extends around the corner to the ferry boats.

At first sight, it looks almost like it always does. But only for a moment. Then it becomes clear that the people are not standing close together as usual, but at a distance.

Venice seems somehow relaxed, even in the middle of summer. The numerous tourist groups that normally cross St. Mark's Square are missing. There's a clear view of the cathedral and the Campanile, the bell tower towering above the city. The piazza can finally be seen in all its beauty.

Ralf Müller, a German tourist from Wuppertal who is visiting Venice for the third time, says the city is "alarmingly empty." He has just arrived from the Lido, "also empty." There the restaurant owners complained to him about the lack of visitors. On the other hand, the passionate photographer is enjoying the "different" view of the sights. "You don't just stand in front of them and take pictures, you can explore them more deeply," he enthuses. German can be heard everywhere these days, some French and of course Italian.

Tourists from the US and China still aren't allowed to enter the country. But many Italians come to the lagoon city for a short vacation. Four visitors from Verona, enjoying an evening Aperol spritz aperitif next to a tributary of the Grand Canal, say they had expected even fewer tourists.

It's true; it's not really empty. Since the opening of the border at the beginning of June, the number of tourists has been increasing. But it's no comparison to the past few years.

Venice at a breaking point

With 12 million overnight stays last year and twice as many day-trippers, Venice was on the brink of collapse. Astronomical rents and a lack of living space, due in part to the rapid spread of Airbnb accommodation, led the local population to shrink to 50,000. Some 10,000 Venetians have abandoned the old town. Citizens' initiatives such as Generazione 90 have been fighting for years for affordable rents for residents and sustainable tourism.

At the beginning of July, the city planned to introduce a tourist tax that would cost between €3 to €8 ($3.50 to $9.50). But now, with the lack of visitors and the absence of cruise ships, this regulation has been postponed until next year.

We've never faced a situation like this before," says Fabio Pilla, who has worked as a gondolier for 40 years. "We have been punished twice in Venice. First  the big flood in November and then the lockdown. I'm making 10% of what I normally earn." Many gondola terminals no longer operate at all. Change jobs? No, that would be out of the question. And what could he do in a city that depends mainly on tourism?

Venice is a vibrant city

This is exactly the problem, says Giovanni Leone. The architect is chairman of the DOVE initiative, an association of businesses, trade companies and residents of Dorsoduro, a district near the university. "Venice is a vibrant city," he says, but many people, even the locals, are hardly aware of this, given the masses of tourists in recent years.

"During the lockdown, where we were restricted to our immediate neighborhood, it suddenly became clear that we actually have everything we need here, even without tourists," Leone says with a wry smile. "We have an extremely well-developed, fast internet connection, so why don't we motivate more young people not just to come as tourists, but to stay here longer and work in the digital sector?" With the initiative DOVE, he wants to strengthen the solidarity in the quarter and develop  an alternative concept to mass tourism.

Slow tourism a possible alternative 

"Venice is not a theater stage. You should come here and immerse yourself, meet people and experience for yourself what life is like here," says Luisella Romeo, a charming Venetian with a stylish hat. She works as a city guide and supports DOVE. Dorsoduro is her neighborhood — this is where she studied and knows a lot of people, including many artisans with small stores and workplaces.

"When I bring tourists to them, they are always delighted. They can talk to the locals and try out one or the other technique, like glassmaking," says Romeo, who sees this as a kind of "slow tourism" that benefits both sides and enhances the traditional handicrafts.

During the lockdown, she created digital tours. They were so successful that she is continuing them. "At the moment everything is going a bit slower anyway," she says. "In return, the tourists can discover the city in a different way."

No one in this neighborhood wants to go back to the status quo, with masses of visitors. Even the salesman from Bangladesh, who works in one of the "classic" souvenir stores, is fed up. Sure, he currently sells much less, "but the cruise tourists, especially the Chinese, come in, take pictures and leave again." He can happily do without that, he adds.

On the Rialto Bridge, one of the "must-see" sites in Venice, the atmosphere is quite different. Normally there is no getting through on the stairs of the bridge; now you can walk up comfortably and enjoy the view of the Grand Canal from both sides.

Some stores on the bridge are closed, however. The owner of a small but high-quality shoe store in the area says that he does not know if he will survive the year.

The situation is also critical for the hoteliers. Andrea Meanna runs a small hotel near the ferry station St. Toma. Bookings have been steady since it reopened in mid-July — partly because he reduced prices. "We are earning 15% of what we did last year," he says. He still has a winery and sells prosecco, but that can't make up for the deficits.

What will the future bring? It shouldn't be like before, believes Meanna. "We don't need cruise ships. They're useless, they'll only wreck the lagoon." He also does not agree with a kind of "tourist entrance fee." Venice should be open to everyone, even those who don't have much money. The biggest problem is that all of Venice has become a kind of extended hotel, thanks to Airbnb. This must urgently change, he says.

Venice is redefining itself

Nevertheless, everyone is longing for tourists to return to Venice, including cultural institutions. The museums have opened again, the architecture and art biennales have been postponed to next year and the year after. In the Giardini, the center of the art biennale, there is now an exhibition on the history of all biennale sections, art, architecture, dance and film. And every day there are guided tours, full of visitors, on the history and architecture of the national pavilions.

Such an unobstructed view, without the bustle of the art world, will probably not be available again. Venice is in the process of reinventing itself; it seems, defining itself between mass tourism and slowdown. What is clear though, is that Venice this year is unique.

Adapted by: Susan Bonney-Cox 

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Venice returns to normal after COVID as satellite images show canals filled with boats

Watch: Satellite images show Venice's canals thronged with boats as tourism returns

Tourism in Venice has returned to pre-pandemic levels as the latest satellite images show its waters filled with boats.

The Italian city is renowned for its constant battle over how many visitors it should allow to walk its famous streets.

During the coronavirus pandemic , those streets and its canals were empty as lockdown kept tourists away.

But recent images from above the city show that traffic in its waters is as busy as ever.

On Sunday, a time-lapse video posted on Twitter by Iban Ameztoy, from the European Commission's EU Science Hub, showed hundreds of boats powering around Venice's canals.

The video was recorded between July and August and showed, according to Ameztoy, "busy channels in Venice which is back to pre-COVID tourism levels".

In the clip, the boats are seen from above as little white splashes, constantly moving around the waters of Venice.

The city was left virtually empty at various stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, as early as February 2020 and then again in March 2021.

Venice has always had a love-hate relationship with tourists, welcoming the income they bring while trying to make the city manageable for its residents.

Last month, in an unprecedented move, officials said they will make day visitors pay to visit the city .

The controversial plans will come into force from 16 January 2023 and will mean those not staying in Venice overnight will have to reserve a visiting slot and pay a fee ranging from €3 (£2.53) to €10 (£8.44), depending on the crowds.

Read more: Venice asks tourists to drink from water fountains instead of plastic bottles

Visitors could be fined as much as €300 (£253) if stopped in the city and are unable to provide proof they have booked and paid for a slot with a QR code.

It is estimated that four out of five of Venice's tourists only come for a day trip. About 19 million people visited Venice just for the day in 2019.

Venice is thought to be the first city in the world to put in place a system to charge day-trippers for entry.

The move comes as locals said they fear becoming like "relics in an open museum" as the population of the city fell below 50,000 for the first time.

More than 120,000 residents have left Venice since the early 1950s.

The Venessia.com activist group said that last week the population fell to 49,989.

Matteo Secchi, head of the group, told The Guardian : "The danger is that we are becoming extinct, soon we will be like relics in an open museum.”

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Venice Glimpses a Future With Fewer Tourists, and Likes What It Sees

Can a city whose history and culture drew tens of millions of visitors a year reinvent itself? The coronavirus may give it a chance to try.

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By Jason Horowitz

VENICE — For a change, it was the Venetians who crowded the square.

Days before Italy lifted coronavirus travel restrictions on Wednesday that had prevented the usual crush of international visitors from entering the city, hundreds of locals gathered on chalk asterisks drawn several feet apart. They had come to protest a new dock that would bring boatloads of tourists through one of Venice ’s last livable neighborhoods, but also to seize a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to show that another, less tourist-addled future was viable.

“This can be a working city, not just a place for people to visit,” said the protest’s organizer, Andrea Zorzi, a 45-year-old law professor who frantically handed out hundreds of signs reading, “Nothing Changes If You Don’t Change Anything.” He argued that the virus, as tragic as it was, had demonstrated that Venice could be a better place. “It can be normal,” he said.

The coronavirus has laid bare the underlying weaknesses of the societies it has ravaged, whether economic or racial inequality , an overdependence on global production chains, or rickety health care systems . In Italy, all those problems have emerged , but the virus has also revealed that a country blessed with a stunning artistic patrimony has developed an addiction to tourism that has priced many residents out of historic centers and crowded out creativity, entrepreneurialism and authentic Italian life.

During the lockdown, Rome’s center became as sleepy as a ruin , while the surrounding neighborhoods remained vibrant. The mayor of Florence said he would tour the world, starting in China, to raise private funds for a city hollowed by the lack of tourists. But it is Venice , a city threatened by inundations of tens of millions of tourists as much as it is by high water , where things changed most drastically .

For months, the alleys, porticoes and campos reverberated with Italian, and even with Venetian dialect. The lack of big boats reduced the waves on the canals, allowing locals to take their small boats and kayaks out on cleaner water. Residents even ventured to St. Mark’s Square, which they usually avoid.

Venice, which gave the world the word quarantine during a prior pandemic, has undergone many transformations in its roughly 1,500-year history . It started as a hide-out for refugees, became a powerful republic, mercantile force and artistic hub.

Now, it’s a destination that largely lives off its history and a tourism cash cow worth 3 billion euros, or about $3.3 billion. But with the money comes hordes of day trippers, giant cruise ships, growing colonies of Airbnb apartments, souvenir shops, tourist-trap restaurants and high rents that have increasingly pushed out Venetians.

That lucrative model is likely to return. But longtime proponents of a less touristy city are hoping to take advantage of the global standstill.

“This is a tragedy that has touched us all, but Covid could be an opportunity,” said Marco Baravalle, a leader of an anti-cruise-ship movement who called the absence of big boats “magnificent.”

He said he feared that the city’s mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, backed by powerful boating and tourism interests, would turn things back as soon as possible. “It’s going to be difficult,” Mr. Baravalle said. “But it’s our best chance.”

If tourism critics are in agreement that there needs to be a different vision for Venice, they are less clear on how to bring about a renaissance.

There is talk of a proposed international climate change center, of lower rents drawing local artisans and factory workers back to the islands from the mainland and of a creative community of artists, designers, web producers and architects.

In this floating field of dreams, people will come, just other kinds of people. The tourists would be more like the arts crowd that flocks to the Venice Biennale, and they would carry canvas tote bags and be interested in Venice’s heritage, its museums and galleries. Students would stay and become young professionals, draw start-up investors, and replenish an aging and diminishing population. Good restaurants and natural wine bars would push out the awful ones.

“The type of people you attract to Venice depends on what you offer,” said Luca Berta, a co-founder of VeniceArtFactory, which promotes new art in the city, as he stood in his exhibition space.

Alberto Ferlenga, the rector of the Iuav University of Venice, one of several colleges in the city, said his goal was to make Venice more a university town, with students and professors making the city their campus.

He said he was working on a project with the city, powerful Italian banks and Airbnb that would allow thousands of students — including international ones — to live in Airbnb apartments, which are now empty, instead of commuting from the cheaper mainland.

“Common sense says, ‘Let’s take advantage of it,’” Mr. Ferlenga said of the available housing. Students who stayed and built careers and families in Venice could prove as economically viable as the mass tourism market, he argued. “It would change everything,” he said. “In this moment, there is a temporary window.”

But as advocates of change talk of motivating long-term lending through housing-tax breaks, low-interest loans, and a restricting of infamously generous squatting rights , the window is already closing.

In recent days, the city was opened only to those in the surrounding Veneto region. The place was still jammed.

But the city was offered a sense of what was, and what could be. Only Italian — and Veneto-accented Italian — could be heard over the spritzes and plates of black squid ink spaghetti.

“We thought we’d take advantage of this last chance to see Venice when it is only for us, alone,” said Matteo Rizzi, 40, from nearby Portogruaro, whose children carried cameras as he crossed a bridge into the city from the train station. “It’s like having the museum to ourselves.”

Toto Bergamo Rossi, director of the Venetian Heritage Foundation , who lives in a palace not far from the train station, said the hordes had rudely waked him that morning.

“I was really sad, and at the same time, really angry,” said Mr. Bergamo Rossi, whose 15th-century ancestor is depicted in an equestrian statue high above the square where the residents had protested. “We don’t want to go back to that. I want my city to be a real city.”

“Airbnb is like our Covid,’’ he added. “It’s like a plague, and it turned us into a ghost town.”

His organization has prepared an open letter on behalf of “citizens of the world” that he said he would send this week to leaders of the Italian government.

Co-signed by museum directors and academics, and also by Mick Jagger, Francis Ford Coppola and Wes Anderson, the letter presents “Ten Commandments” for the new Venice, including stricter regulation of ‘‘tourist flow’’ and the Airbnb market, and support for long-term rentals.

Supporters of the status quo are quick to dismiss such proposals as noise from the out-of-touch rich and famous. And local tourism workers said they hoped things would switch back soon.

“It’s been a bad period. But I think it will go back to how it was before in about two or three months,” said Jessica Rossato, 28, from nearby Camponogara as she stood outside the Banco Giro bar by the Rialto Bridge. “And that’s an absolutely good thing.”

But it’s not only Venice’s upper- and professional-class residents who hunger for a more livable city. A couple, who have a baby on the way and who were visiting from the mainland, said the rents, even in the more working-class districts, were too high for their salaries.

“We’d love to raise our child here,” said the pregnant woman, Sara Zorzetto, 30, who works with the handicapped and whose husband is employed at a nearby chemical plant. “But there’s no way.”

That is why the protesters in the square were arguing that something had to change. As they held their signs over their heads and applauded, Mr. Zorzi told them that their “common battle” during the period of lockdown “would not be in vain.”

A fellow demonstrator asked him if they would still march down to the new tourist port as planned. He explained that the police had nixed the idea out of coronavirus concerns.

“They say there are too many of us,” Mr. Zorzi said, shaking his head.

Jason Horowitz is the Rome bureau chief, covering Italy, the Vatican, Greece and other parts of Southern Europe. He previously covered the 2016 presidential campaign, the Obama administration and Congress, with an emphasis on political profiles and features. More about Jason Horowitz

Venice's 'Carnival of hope' kicks off as COVID worries ease

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Covid-19: travel information

Considering the epidemiological situation, Italy has foreign travel restrictions in place depending on where you are travelling from/to. 

An interactive questionnaire is available from https://infocovid.viaggiaresicuri.it  to check the rules currently in force regarding travel to and from Italy.

Please find below a list of other useful web pages:

• Covid-19 Information for travellers  
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