Blue Lagoon has been experiencing a recovery in guest bookings after repeated closures due to volcanic activity in southwest Iceland.
10.09.2024 - 19:24 / skift.com / Alessandro Onorato / Dawit Habtemariam
Rome is looking to clamp down on overcrowding and tourist misbehavior at the Trevi Fountain, one of the world’s most iconic and popular attractions, with a reservation system.
“When they arrive at the Trevi Fountain they have to deal with total chaos,” said Alessandro Onorato, deputy mayor of tourism for Rome.
The disorder at the fountain is a consequence of Rome experiencing its biggest tourism year on record. The city is on track to surpass 50 million visitors this year.
But overtourism is putting stress on one of Rome’s most popular attractions and resident quality of life. “The challenge now is to make it sustainable and compatible with the city and the life of residents,” said Onorato.
Like Venice, Amsterdam and Greece, the city has been trying to find a balance between preserving local quality of life and growing tourism.
Onorato wants to introduce a ticketing reservation system around the Trevi Fountain to manage the flow of visitors.
“We want first of all to enhance an extraordinary monument, and then we want to guarantee a unique, special and serene experience for all tourists,” said Onorato.
The reservation system would start before tourists go down the steps. “We would like to introduce an entrance with a reservation to go down the steps, organizing the flow with a mandatory entry and exit, plus a safety route,” said Onorato.
Roman citizens get in for free but tourists would have to pay a 2-euro “symbolic fee.” The funds collected will be used create hiring stewards and hostesses to manage the flow of visitors and protect the monument.
Under the system, tourist behavior would be better managed. Food consumption and tourist activities like jumping into the fountain would be easier to prevent.
A top priority of Rome’s city government is to regulate short-term rentals, the rise of which have made the city less affordable for locals. In the last five years, the number of short-term rentals have doubled to over 30,000 units.
Rome has been conducting a crackdown illegal listings. “In the last two years alone we have carried out over 10,000 checks, more than had been done in the decade before our arrival,” said Onorato.
To slow down short-term rental openings, the city has put in registration and building code requirements and other technical implementation standards. “We will make life difficult for those who want to open in a wild manner,” said Onorato.
The deputy mayor would like to see ban all non-hotel facility openings in Rome, at least the historic center, for at least one or two years.
But the city can’t go that far because it doesn’t have the authority. In Italy, there’s no law clarifying the authority local governments have when it comes to regulating short-term rentals.
“We need
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For those who have visited Rome’s immensely popular Trevi Fountain, here’s a bit of news that may seen long overdue.Leaders in Rome are contemplating limiting access to the historic fountain, which is not only a baroque masterpiece, but also a magnet for hordes of rank and file travelers, Instagram influencers, TikTokers, and more.The plans being considered would involve visitors making a reservation in advance to visit the fountain, according to a report in The Guardian.“Personally I would be in favour of looking at a new form of access, limited and timed, to the Trevi fountain,” Alessandro Onorato, the city councillor responsible for tourism, told the newspaper Corriere della Sera, per The Guardian.Residents of course, would still be allowed to visit the fountain and do so for free. But everyone else would be required to make a contribution of one to two euros in exchange for the ability to spend time taking in the masterpiece.The goal of the entrance fee is not to raise money, but to use the new system as a mechanism to control the crush of people that surround the fountain from sunup until sundown, and long into the evening. The new system would also (hopefully) bring an end to such disrespectful behaviors as snacking on pizza and gelato while perched on the fountain.The paid reservation system is merely one of the options the city is considering to protect the historic site.Rome’s mayor, Roberto Gualtieri, said measures to curb tourist numbers were “a very concrete possibility,” adding that a handful of possible solutions are under review.“We’ve decided to study and investigate this because the situation is becoming technically very difficult to manage,” he said. “Local police officers tell us this all the time: there is a concentration of people that makes adequate protection of the monument difficult and is also often a source of degradation.”The discussion surrounding how best to protect the fountain is especially pressing as the city prepares to host the 2025 jubilee, which is a year-long Roman Catholic event that is expected to bring more than 30 million tourists and pilgrims to Rome.But this latest move, which is among a growing number of efforts to curb overtourism around the world, is also prompted by a history of tourists behaving poorly at the fountain.In 2017, for instance, the city rolled out fines for bad behavior at the site after tourists began frolicking in the fountain water. And in 2018, an eight-person fight broke out over, of all things, the perfect selfie spot.
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Rome could soon launch a ticketing system to enter one of its most iconic sites.
Tourists heading to Rome may have to reserve their visit to the Trevi Fountain as a way to address overtourism ahead of the city's 2025 Jubilee celebration, according to Roman officials.
Tourists may no longer be able to see Rome’s iconic Trevi Fountain whenever they want or for free.
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