Venice tourism may never be the same after Covid – it could be better

Long before Venice became the destination of choice for millions of international holidaymakers, locals had a tradition of flânerie, an aimless stroll through the city’s calli, or walkways.

They would bump into acquaintances for a chat and the occasional drink, an ombra de vin, a “shadow of wine,” as it’s called in the lagoon. That tradition has been picked up again.

The coronavirus pandemic crushed tourism, curtailing the hordes of annual visitors that made flânerie a near impossibility, and now many residents – particularly those furloughed or laid off – have more time and space to enjoy the city’s slow pace and faded beauty.

But money is tight. Local taverns have begun accepting promises of future payments from regulars.

“People are like, I’ll pay you in September, when hopefully tourists will be back,” said Matteo Secchi, an unemployed hotel concierge. “If we don’t help each other, who will?”

Secchi, a native Venetian, started working in tourism when he was in high school, 30 years ago. “My first job was to escort tourists from hotels to Murano’s glass shops,” he said. “Since I can remember, tourism has been our only economy. We thought it was a bottomless well, like oil for the Saudis.”

A gondolier in Venice in February, when the Carnival period typically marked the start of peak tourist season. Picture: Francisco Seco / Associated Press

Venice certainly wasn’t alone. The economies of other European cities – Barcelona, Prague and others – grew to rely heavily on tourism, leaving them now particularly exposed to the side effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

But there’s a new feeling many residents and local travel operators share: the crisis creates an opportunity to make future travel to and within their cities and regions more sustainable. This crossroads is sparking conversations about how to make tourism less taxing on urban infrastructure and local inhabitants.

In Venice, residents and local leaders hope their city can develop an economy that doesn’t revolve entirely around tourism, one that would draw international investors, expand the footprint of the city’s two universities and turn its empty buildings into environmental research facilities.

Yes, the pandemic has shuttered Venice’s lodging industry, said Claudio Scarpa, the president of Associazione Veneziana Albergatori, a body representing 430 hotels in Venice, but “it is also a precious occasion to rethink tourism”.

“This is the time to reclaim this city,” he said, “or in a couple of years we’ll get back to complaining about overtourism.”

Other Venetians echoed that sentiment. “

We have to act now, before mass tourism will be back at full capacity, because we won’t get a second chance,” said Paolo Costa, a former mayor of Venice and an economics professor who also served as the dean of Ca’Foscari University of Venice.

Usually held every September, the Regata Storica celebrates Venetian rowing, with historical costumes and rowing races. Picture: Clara Vannucci / The New York Times

A commercial hub ebbs

The uniqueness of this Italian city has made it a worldwide attraction for centuries. Tellingly, Venice’s rise as a travel destination coincided with its decline as an economic powerhouse, said Ezio Micelli, an expert of urban transformation at Iuav University of Venice.

As a city-state, Venice thrived as a commercial and financial hub for much of the Middle Ages. Its location midway between Constantinople and Western Europe made it an ideal junction for the trade of spices, silk and salt. “It was the capital of capitalism,” Micelli said.

But as the centre of trade moved from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, Venice lost centrality, and by the end of the 18th century, when it fell under foreign rule, its decline was unstoppable.

It was then that wealthy Europeans started visiting Italy’s art-rich cities, including Venice, in a tradition known as “the Grand Tour”. Lord Byron and Stendhal were among the city’s earliest holidaymakers.

By the 19th century, Venice’s Lido became the place of pilgrimage for Europe’s well-off bourgeoise. But by the late 20th century, it became what economists describe as a “tourism monoculture”, borrowing the term from the risky agricultural practice of growing a single crop.

Crowds of tourists swarm Riva degli Schiavoni, by St. Mark’s Square. Picture: Susan Wright for The New York Times

‘Too many of them’

Before Covid-19, hotels in and around Venice hosted 10.2 million mostly international guests a year, according to Italy’s bureau of statistics. But this figure – an estimate at best – does not account for day-trippers from cruise ships, the train station and bus tours.

One estimate puts the actual number of tourists at 20 million annually – largely concentrated in an area of 3km² and 50,000 residents. They contribute €3 billion (about R57 billion) a year.

“Tourists grew gradually, year by year, and before we realised it, there were too many of them, just like a boiling frog,” Micelli said.

The mass tourism of recent decades was a result of globalisation, home-sharing platforms, cheap airfares and emerging economies.

Ryanair, easyJet and other low-cost carriers began flying into the Marco Polo airport, cruise ships alone brought in 1.6 million visitors each year, and the growing strength of Asian economies allowed new tourists to join the crowds of Europeans and North Americans.

Especially in the high season between May and October, and during Carnival in February, Venice was impossibly crowded – particularly in its narrow calli, just some two metres wide.

Tourism changed the soul of the lagoon. Grocery stores turned into souvenir shops, and rising housing costs and an increasing lack of services pushed residents out.

The city’s historical centre, consisting of two islands, had 175,000 residents at its peak in the 1950s. Today, the centre of the city has about 50,000 residents.

“Being a resident in Venice feels like being part of the resistance,” Giussani said.

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