I know that's not a popular opinion, but this is long overdue.
Venice used to be known for being spacious and peaceful when I was young. The first time I went there on a school trip, locals were happy to share their stories and talk to us. They sold weird masks which were horrendously expensive because it took weeks of manual work to make one.
The last time I considered going there, they had a government warning stating that they'll be deploying military to keep day tourists out. They also blocked cruise chips from stopping there. Also, the local economy was utterly destroyed by shops selling chinese-made $1 plastic replicas of the masks that the region was once famous for.
Nowadays, Venice is overcrowded, stressful, even claustrophobic. And they have a problem with trash everywhere and tourists peeing everywhere. And all the locals hate it, obviously.
So now that we've established that way too many tourists for a small city can be horrible, I believe it is easy to argue that they should limit the number of tourists.
Most cruise ship operators are of questionable morality (working conditions, environmental pollution) so in the end they might not have much choice to keep random unregistered visitors out than to either build walls or use video surveillance.
Venice used to be known for being spacious and peaceful when I was young. The first time I went there on a school trip, locals were happy to share their stories and talk to us. They sold weird masks which were horrendously expensive because it took weeks of manual work to make one.
The last time I considered going there, they had a government warning stating that they'll be deploying military to keep day tourists out. They also blocked cruise chips from stopping there. Also, the local economy was utterly destroyed by shops selling chinese-made $1 plastic replicas of the masks that the region was once famous for.
Nowadays, Venice is overcrowded, stressful, even claustrophobic. And they have a problem with trash everywhere and tourists peeing everywhere. And all the locals hate it, obviously.
So now that we've established that way too many tourists for a small city can be horrible, I believe it is easy to argue that they should limit the number of tourists.
Most cruise ship operators are of questionable morality (working conditions, environmental pollution) so in the end they might not have much choice to keep random unregistered visitors out than to either build walls or use video surveillance.