Visitors to Venice to Pay New Tourist Tax

Typical traffic along the Grand Canal. Courtesy Marisa Allegra Williams.

In its latest attempt to fund and fight for its survival, the city of Venice in Italy - an UNESCO World Heritage Site - will implement a new tax on tourists starting on August 24 of this year. Tariffs will vary according to high or low season. The millions of euros raised will go toward efforts to save the sinking city from rising sea levels and increasingly frequent winter storms. Also swamped by tourists, the city struggles with a daily deluge of travelers that matches or outnumbers the current population of just 60,000.Visitors staying at five-star hotels will incur an additional 4.50 euros per stay, while those crashing at less luxurious accommodations will be taxed on a sliding scale as the city inches closer to a long-advocated idea of an entrance fee. John Kay, a British economist, points out that a visitor tax makes perfect sense for a popular destination like Venice. If we regard Venice as one of the crown jewels of Western European civilization, the issue is how to accommodate, indeed to promote, such cultural tourism without letting tourists destroy what it is that people go to visit.Find great luxury hotels in Venice on Perfect Escapes.