‘Wish you weren’t here’: Postcard from Venice, Canary Islands…
Venice, La Serenissima, has moved decisively against becoming a so-called “Disneyland on the Sea”.
On Thursday, April 25, it began experimenting with a €5 charge on visitors. That’s not much of a penalty in the grand scheme of things. And certainly not very much at all for determined holidaymakers, armed with selfie sticks and snacks.
But still, a €5 levy just to set foot in Venice sends a message.
We know what that message is:
“Wish you weren’t here”.
“Thanks for not coming again”.
“Please let everyone you know, know that we’re closed for business — to casual visitors”.
“It’s not like we’re not staying afloat (really…truly) but we just don’t want three million of you every year”.
I made up the above four, but the €5 charge does give us enough to read the mood music. Or perhaps in the case of Venice, the beat of war drums against people who insist on visiting.
For years, the island city has paid increasingly militant attention to the hordes of visitors wandering over its 391 bridges.
In July 2017, Venetians were marching against the tourism industry. (Full disclosure: I’d been in Venice just weeks before and therefore managed to miss this decisive opinion poll on the presence of people like me in that most beautiful of cities, which remains much like a Canaletto painting.)
In mid-2018, the mayor of Venice announced measures to reduce the strain of having tourists in the city. This resulted in some Venetian streets actually restricting visitors’ access.
And so it continued. There was more along the same lines but it’s the newest hardline step — that €5 charge — which marks the new militancy of locations that are victims of their own success.
Many parts of the world are watching the fallout from Venice. Florence. The Canary Islands. In both places, tourism is increasingly seen as a blight, not a blessing. A mayoral candidate in Florence has complained the city’s iconic heart is besieged by vulgarians, namely fast food-munching crowds from elsewhere. And just days ago, the Canary Islands had their first ever mass protest against tourism.
It’s unclear what happens next, in Venice or any other ‘dream destination’ fed up with mass tourism. But Venice — leader of the ‘wish-you-weren’t-here’ pack — may yet find its pioneering status a problem. What if it starts to attract another kind of visitor — thinkers, activists and academics — all bushy-tailed and bright-eyed about learning how Venice managed to keep everyone else away?
Originally published at https://www.rashmee.com
