According to recent reports, the city of Venice has decided to wait until 2019 to implement its plan to implement a new fee for tourists to pay in order to enter the city of canals. According to Euronews's reporting, the fee, which was supposed to go into effect this summer as a measure to combat the negative effects of overtourism, will now not be put into place until the beginning of 2023. The purpose of the new tax is to reduce the number of tourists who only stay for the day.

The fee won't apply to locals, students, or commuters who live outside of the city. As they are already required to pay a €5 ($5.33) per night tax, overnight visitors who book a hotel stay will also be exempt from paying the tax. It is anticipated that the new fee will shift depending on the time of year. During the busiest times of the year, visitors may be required to pay a fee of up to €10 ($10.66), while the same fee will be reduced to €3 ($3.20) at other times.

According to Euronews, which cited the Venice town council as its source, the new go-live date for the booking and payment system is now expected to be on January 16, 2023. In response to a request for comment that was made by Travel + Leisure, a representative for the National Tourist Board did not immediately respond.

The city of Venice, which before the COVID-19 pandemic saw more than 80,000 tourists per day and approximately 25 million visitors per year, has been working for years to find solutions to the problem of overtourism. The city first broached the subject of dordle imposing a fee in 2019, but the process was slowed down, in part because of the pandemic.

As a result of the pandemic, tourism in Venice came to a halt, which led to an almost immediate improvement as the city's famous canals began to clear up. The lagoon basin close to St. Mark's Square and the Giudecca Canal is off limits to large cruise ships ever since Italy declared the waterways surrounding Venice a "national monument" the year before. The entrance to the Venice lagoon is still open to boats of a certain size.

Because of the measures that were taken to limit the number of visitors, Venice was spared from being placed on the UNESCO World Heritage in Danger list.

According to the National Tourist Board, in order for travelers from the United States to enter Italy, they must either provide evidence that they have been fully vaccinated within the past nine months or that they have received a booster shot; provide evidence that they have contracted COVID-19 and recovered within the past six months; or provide evidence that they have had a negative COVID-19 test (either a PCR test taken within 72 hours of a trip or a rapid antigen test taken within 48 hours of a trip).

In the beginning of this month, the nation did away with its "Green Pass," which required tourists to present proof that they had been vaccinated before entering establishments like restaurants, bars, and museums.