Venice is preparing reservations for entry to the city center for this summer.

Venice – The Italian city of Venice will launch a reservation system with the start of the new tourist season to limit crowds in the historic center. This was announced this week by the city's mayor Luigi Brugnaro after around half a million people visited Venice during the Easter holidays. The start date for the reservation requirement to visit the center of Venice will be announced by the local authorities with further details in the coming weeks, according to the newspaper Corriere della Sera.

"This is the right way. We are the first in the world with this difficult experiment," said Brugnaro. According to him, the city hall will know how many people are in the historic center at any given time and will be able to respond accordingly.

Brugnaro announced that the city hall will soon launch a special website where tourists wishing to visit the city center must register. This will not apply to those who book accommodation in Venice. The mayor stated that failing to comply with the reservation requirement will not be penalized for now. However, those who register in advance will have priority, for example, at museum ticket counters or when purchasing public transport tickets.

Starting in summer 2023, the Venice city hall plans to charge an entry fee to the historic center, as was announced last year. Tourists who book accommodation in the city will not have to pay, nor will local residents or their relatives. According to last year's reports from local media, turnstiles were to be placed at the main entry points to the historic center, and the entrance fee was expected to be around three to ten euros (approximately 75 to 250 CZK) depending on the season and the number of visitors.

Venice has about 250,000 residents, with around 40,000 living in the center. However, during the Easter holidays, the city saw over a hundred thousand visitors each day, with 160,000 on Saturday alone. This led to long queues at the entrances to the so-called vaporetti, boats that provide public transport in the lagoon city, as well as before museums and the entrance to St. Mark's Basilica. The chaos was such that local police chief Marco Agostini described it as "delirium," according to the Corriere della Sera newspaper.