The topic of discussion is long-standing: What happens in a tourist city if residents leave their homes to rent on Airbnb? How can you avoid turning city centers into an open-air hotel? There are many cities that have their own statutes and rules in this regard (one of the first was San Francisco, the birthplace of Airbnb, but Amsterdam and London also have rules in this regard). Now it does too Venice.
“The other cities are watching us” – said the mayor of Venice Brugnaro approving the idea of ​​a trial to limit short-term rentals that could be a general test, and that can trace a new path of coexistence between the city and tourism. With the post-pandemic and the resumption of travel, Venice has in fact returned to being in the sights of “hit and run” tourism, with peaks of 100,000 visitors a day, a situation that led – last week – to the announcement of a «Access ticket» to the city starting in 2023.
Online platforms (such as Airbnb or Booking) matter in Venice over 7,000 to homes for tourist use, which together with other privately rented properties have in fact brought more and more tourists to the city and fewer and fewer inhabitants. There is talk of about 50,000 residents for over 80,000 total beds, including hotels and rooms for rent. Now, with the “Venice amendment”the Municipality will have the right to place a limit on the number of properties that can be rented for short-term rentals. Each district will have a maximum number of houses available for short-term rentals And each house a maximum of 120 nights per year available for rentin order to favor long-term residential rentals.
“The most important problem of the city is the excess of tourism: 20,000 residents left the center between 2000 and 2019Said the prefect of Venice Vittorio Zappalorto in a hearing in the House Environment Committee. And he added: “If Venice is a World Heritage Site, we cannot continue to think that the use of these properties is fully available to private individuals”.
In short, tourism is changing, but the new experimentation in Venice is only one of the adaptations in progress. In truth, even tourists are starting to be tired of participating in the madness of “hit and run”, as reported by the statistics of Airbnb itself, which has seen an increase in requests for long stays, also spurred by the new possibilities of smartworking. Could the solution be to look for new inhabitants for our favorite destinations?
Source: Vanity Fair
