This all sounds very sensible. NPR’s Planet Money podcast went into some detail about the economics of fair allocation for the New York Marathon - they reference the solutions you mentioned and a few more as well! https://www.npr.org/2020/01/03/793488868/episode-962-advance...

Super interesting! Thanks for sharing it.

So you are suggesting to allocate tourist access to the city primarily to the wealthy, especially on the most desirable days such as weekends and holidays? The poor can visit on less desirable days?

I don't disagree with that, but we should be clear that this is what is being proposed.

That's what advance purchase tickets are for. "Think of the poor people!" is not always warranted. Visiting Venice as a tourist is a luxury. Do you think poor people should also be able to park their cars in Manhattan for free?

  > Do you think poor people should also be able to park their cars in Manhattan for free?

No, but I think that they should be allowed to enter Manhattan for free.

This is already not always the case, depending on which bridge they use.

Even ignoring all the overhead that would bring, it's not feasible for a local municipality to do background checks on the net income or wealth of foreign visitors in any way that would be reliable. It would be trivial to bypass this with fake statements.

So then rich people will pay poor people to buy the tickets for them. And that's if you can come up with a way for someone to declare their wealth reliably.

The burden of oversight for determining income would probably wash out any gains made from taxing higher income people.

When I went to Victoria Falls national park on Zimbabwe, the fees were based on which country’s passport you were presenting. Richer country passport holders had to pay more, poorer country passport holders paid less.

That's not a bad idea!

Like traffic fines in some European countries, but with a lottery system as well if the number of potential visitors is high enough, with no substitution of people to eliminate reseller market for lottery. Some national parks in the USA already have to limit visitors and state and county and local parks in California that I have seen during the pandemic had to put limits on people visiting and a lot of that was free. Most of the US solutions are based on first come first served or reservations with first come first served so equity of any kind is not addressed otherwise.

What I've seen in New York is that New York City and/or New York State residents get discounted or free entry (sometimes only on certain days) to various venues. So all these fees could be reduced or eliminated for Italian citizens, who are most likely to be the poor visitors you mention. I think it's fair to expect non-Italians flying or taking the train into Italy to pay more.

Different state. My drivers license says City A. But my taxes go to City B, (they provide police, etc) Geographically this makes sense.

All community centers, pools, camps, etc for both cities refuse to give in-city rates. Since either my license says the wrong city, or my taxes go to the wrong city.

Residents over tourists. It’s that simple.

Tourism at this scale is a modern day privilege, you can some some nice vacations without going to europe’s most crowded island. My best vacation were far from the most expensive one. And my most expensive was one of the worst.

In my town , lots of things are cheaper for the working class of the town. Is this also unfair for the poor tourist, on his break?

The prices he suggests are not actually expensive and wouldn't allocate tourist access primarily to the wealthy. Personally I would go higher than that.

Another aspect I'm thinking about is 'motivation'. High prices that require to really think about it and perhaps even to plan in advance also filter visitors according to how much they wanted to visit.

I'm sure some people really dream of visiting Venice once in their life and would be willing to save if needed be in order to do so. On the other hand, there are people who see that Easyjet has 30 euro flights at the moment so decide to go to Venice for the weekend just like that.

I prefer lotteries. There is probably less revenue to be made but we can't make the beautiful places of the world into rich man's paradises where regular people can't go. Although I am sure a lot of people in power want such a world.

Lotteries make planned travel insanely difficult.

Should locals or tourists pay for all the infrastructure to support the tourists? I think the tourists should pay for it

Probably. I just want to avoid a situation where prices go to a level that only rich people can afford.

That is the pure capitalist solution. Venice is a limited resource that is not being managed well at the moment. Over harvested one could say.

Adding a fee, at some point supply and demand will become balanced. The city will have the max number of tourist it can handle at the max price people are willing to pay. The resource will now be managed correctly.

If the income is absurdly high, then other areas may start expanding out into the sea to provide a similar experience. Giving tourist more options. See Islands of Dubai for example. At some point enough new tourist options are opened that Venice will need to lower fee until a new balance is reached.

Thus tourist have more options and lower prices overall. Wealth has been created.

>If the income is absurdly high, then other areas may start expanding out into the sea to provide a similar experience.

Is this the backstory for the next BioShock game?

Nothing to do with wealth but priority.

People will dine at fine restaurant as a treat. People will travel to the Bahamas as a treat. People will buy a SUV for comfort as a treat.

All those things are luxuries, and have nothing to do with wealth.

What in the world. They already pay probably more than 10x this to fly there.

Venice has been for the rich for 1000 years.

We live in a capitalist society. Anything that costs money pushes away those who don’t have money. The city needs money to support the non-tax paying tourists, you can think of the fee as a tax. I think it’s a good solution even when considering the downside that the fee is only significant for those with less money

My understanding is that there is no entry fee for overnight visitors because this is covered in the overnight hotel tax.

> The cost of tickets will vary from €3 to €10 depending on the season.

So there will barely be an entry fee for people coming for the day too. For a measure targeting people coming from thousands of kilometers away, I do not see how this is even going to make a dent in the tourist influx.

Looking for relatively similar cases like Machu Picchu or Tanzania national parks, I would have expected a fee between 50$ and 100$ to curb the tourism.

But if there are no more tickets to be sold because it's already full, then more people won't be able to get in, right?

I was lucky to visit Venice during the pandemic with few tourists around. But introverted me even sensed the crowd problem then, it must be hell during peak tourist season. But Venice is spectacular. Even a $100 entry would not stop most tourists. There would have to be a hard cap on how many people can visit and cruise ships and such should be discouraged.

  "The fabulously beautiful planet of Bethselamin was so worried by
  accumulative erosion cause by over ten billion visiting tourists per
  year that any net imbalance between the amount you eat and the
  amount you excrete while on the planet is surgically removed from
  your body weight when you leave; so every time you go to the
  lavatory there, it is vitally important to get a receipt." - HHGTTG

Living in a tourist destination is a mixed experience. On the one hand you have a beautiful city to enjoy. On the other hand you can't really enjoy it for 6 to 9 months of the year because your neighbourhood is over-run.

At a conference in Rome I met a Venetian who told me those cruise ships are the bane of their lives. She wanted to move out for health reasons, because the constant stinking miasma of marine diesel from dozens of ships. They are also HUGE, like floating cities, that literally darken the skyline. The tens of thousands of visitors dropping litter and blocking the pavement to take selfies are just a minor inconvenience.

Tourism saved Venice. Their glory days ended in the 18th century.

Also funny we never hear from the people who are making money from tourism? Only negative Nancy's.

> Tourism saved Venice

I'd wager that Marghera's refinery saved Venice much more than tourism did, at least economically speaking. Also, are you talking about Venice proper (the island parts) or the City of Venice more widely (including Mestre and Marghera)?

> Also funny we never hear from the people who are making money from tourism?

I can speak for that. My grandpa was one of the kiosks owner in Piazza S. Marco. After his retirement my uncles inherited it.

My grandpa used to make a lot of money from tourists buying souvenirs. In the last 20 years sales dropped, nobody buys anything from them anymore, they are now trying to sell sweaters and hats and (of course) they can't seem to sell those either.

But still, my grandpa complains both when there's plenty of tourists and when there are none.

EDIT: I forgot to type where this was going: my grandpa is against this entry fee.

/EDIT

It would be interesting to know who actually makes money in Venice.

Just my two cents: if the only people happy in a city are those that make money from tourism then it's not a city, it's a theme park.

Souvenirs seem like really tough business, constantly changing trends and all that.

A branch of the family owns two restaurants in Venice and they are making money hand over fist. The quality of the food is completely average for Venice, but the locations are good, the menu is optimized for consistency and tourist tastes (north american, southeast asia/chineese and european primarily), and most importantly (according to them) they spend a ton of effort optimizing their presence on food review apps like tripadvisor.

Not sayings restaurants are easy, but they are making a shocking amount of money from selling very average food.

I live in a tourist destination, where a lot of the money is being siphoned off elsewhere in the state. The people making money off of it are fabulously rich and do not want to be heard from in discussions like this; they are heard from when a politician who took a bunch of money from them acts in ways that ignore the concerns of the people living in the city in favor of whatever makes the most money for the rich folks.

If you visit Venice and take a few tours and/or speak to locals you'll hear a lot more about how important tourism is. But there is a lot of thought put on the 'kind' of tourism they want and get.

Most probably the locals that remained are tied in to the business industry, and, as such, you'd expect that sort of discourse coming from them. But the majority that left (~175k down to ~50k, as a fellow HN-er said above) probably had a different opinion about that.

It’s probably the case that there’s a reasonable middle ground somewhere between zero tourists and several cruise ships per day of tourists.

The middle ground is to encourage longer vacations, rather than cruise ships full of people who just hit the most popular destinations for a day and then leave for the next city. When tourists take longer trips they spread out to different places and don't all concentrate in one area.

You really can see everything worth seeing in Venice in a day or two. Like, Berlin, Amsterdam, Prague? Sure, spend a week, or more. Venice, not so much.

I assume a lot of the people making money don’t live in Venice. Also perhaps the money makers are a small minority

The cruise ships are large, but hardly "darken the skyline". They dock in the industrial part of the city, and you can't see them from most of the city.

> They dock in the industrial part of the city

They do now. Up until last year they docked at Tronchetto (https://www.google.com/maps/place/terminal+msc+venezia/@45.4...) traversing the Canale della Giudecca to get there (that big canal between the main island and the Giudecca island in the southern part).

The people those cruise ships bring are a problem

Surely they could just ban cruise ships. They are an environmental disaster anyways.

I wonder if a 50 EUR entry price will really deter many visitors. Venice itself is a huge attraction, people travel there specifically at a significant cost in time and money. That 50 Euro sounds like a drop in the bucket to me, it will simply be priced into the whole cost, just like millions of people happily pay expensive entrance fees for other global attractions like certain amusement parks.

Will certainly have some effect, and at 5 million tourists a year thats $250M yearly into the governments coffers.. could come in handy

I've visited venice twice last year and I wouldn't pay 50€... (I do live close so I only have to pay ~20€ for a train ticket)

I imagine if you're paying $1000 for a flight there + $$$ for hotels the 50 euros is a drop in the bucket...

It's not a drop in the bucket if you are living somewhere close, is the point, if I understood correctly.

When I was a broke guy in my mid-20's backpacking around Europe €50 was most of a day's budget. Inflation would change that but all the same it'd be enough to make me just spend more time in Florence. But maybe that's the point; I wasn't doing much for the local economy.

Well, JFYI, the mayor of Florence is all over newspapers here in Italy because seemingly Venice could introduce this "access ticket" whilst his own similar proposal (for Florence) last year has not been approved.

As someone noticed earlier the introduction of a ticket to access a city (be it Venice or Florence) will probably only make a dent in the total amount of people visiting it (which is the actual problem, they are simply too many) while making a difference between the "wealthy" and the "poor".

If the issue is too many people, the only solution is to limit the number of people (within reason and using some common sense in the way these hypothetical limits are set and enforced), introducing a ticket won't make any difference if not - possibly - provide the municipalities with money to cover the expenses these tourists create (the first thing that comes to my mind is litter, but there is also water, street and bridges maintenance, etc.).

As someone else noted, it's probably some deterrent to people living fairly nearby who take casual day trips. But that's only about half the price of many museum admissions to say nothing of, as you say, theme parks.

The parking thing could be done just like London does, charge everyone that enters the center by car a fixed (high) fee per day except for taxi's.

I don’t think you can drive into Venice, it being a city built on a flooded lagoon.

You can, there is a small part accessible by cars via bridge which is basically only expensive parking and bus terminals.

And that implements GP's suggestion, but it turns out this is not enough to limit the number of daytime visitors.

It's a tricky situation. They definitely need entry tickets. You could raise prices until only very rich people can visit. This would probably also produce a lot of income. Or you can handle things with a lottery so everybody can give it a try. There is probably less money in that but it seems more fair.

I don't think the parking is gonna make much of a difference, as you can just park on the mainland and take one of the very frequent, cheap, and quick trains over the bridge.

But if you take a train you are susceptible to being taxed for entry to Venice, since they can just add some fee to the train fare, to either pay for maintenance of the city or simply to reduce numbers.

Kinda like a toll booth would make you susceptible to the same thing on the bridge.

The problem with both of those schemes is that there are a number of exceptions: people who live in the region, people who spend the night in the city... You don't want to place the burden of checking your hotel reservation on a train employee during a 5 minute ride or at a toll booth.

It seems like you can handle this simpler by just adding a parking tax and a disembark tax. There is already taxes attached to the hotel stay.

They also need a way to limit number of visitors

Venice is a great place. It's sad what is going on. I just wish I could go back there one day.

I think Acadia is in a similar situation.

OT but why did you move back?

>> Entry tickets, if handled properly, could be a great way to fix the issue.

I disagree.

This seems like a "great way" to damage the tourism industry in Venice. In other words, I think this is a terrible way to deal with tourists who are visiting Venice, yet aren't spending enough money in Venice.

I think it would be better to require every adult tourist to buy, say, €10 worth of "Venice Money" which they could spend at any restaurant or shop in Venice during the day they are visiting. Too many tourists? Then increase it to, say, €15. Too few tourists? Then decrease it to, say, €5.

Part of the goal is to require tourists to spend a minimum amount of money while visiting Venice. Charging an admission fee seems too heavy-handed. Sure, I realize that my suggestion is tantamount to an admission fee, but it's likely to be more palatable to tourists. The goal isn't merely to get tourists to spend a sufficient amount of money in Venice; part of the goal is to make tourists happy to do so.

Tourists are notoriously fickle. Furthermore, they have myriad places in and around Italy, Europe, and, well, the world where they can spend their money. The current problem of too many tourists could very quickly turn into a problem of a dearth of tourists.

"Killing the goose that lays the golden egg" would obviously be foolish. I presume the economy in Venice benefits immensely from tourism. This is precisely the sort of measure that people tend to look back at in hindsight and exclaim, "How could we have committed such a blunder! What were we thinking?!?"

Having opined all of that, sure, I can see why denizens of Venice would welcome a measure that would decrease the number of tourists generally, and particularly the number of skinflint tourists who visit Venice, yet don't spend a single euro in Venice.

Also, frankly, I think it would be perfectly reasonable for Venice to enforce dress codes and behavior codes. For example, nobody wants an endless "parade" of motley dressed drunkards wandering around their neighborhood.

Personally I happily shop at Costco, but haven’t set foot in a Walmart in perhaps 20 years. I detest Walmart. Why? Part of the reason is this: Costco has a “greeter” standing at the enterance. Ostensibly the greeter’s job is to verify that people entering are members. In fact, that greeter is also eyeballing each person who enters and is empowered to deny enterance to people who don’t meet Costco’s minimum standards (which aren’t very high, but are still much, much higher than Walmart’s standards).

Similarly, one of the "secrets" to the success of Las Vegas strip is this: although they allow a lot of rowdy behavior, frankly, they actually keep a tight lid on things: a very, very, tight lid, which I presume you would have noticed if you’ve ever actually been there and paid attention.

It's a delicate balance which requires discretion bordering on sophisticated and subtle diplomacy.

For example, when dealing with "drunk idiots" the Las Vegas police tend to use kid gloves as much as possible. Why? The powers that be in Las Vegas want "visitors" (tourists) to tell their family, friends, and associates they had a great time on the Las Vegas strip. They also want most of the tourists themselves to return over, and over, and over again.

The same is true for a myriad of tourist destinations around the world.

I live in historic city center with the exact same issue.

This is about creating a livable city, and this implies balancing commercial interests with the interests of the larger local community. Tourism isn't unethical or bad, but it does become an issue as far as the locals are concerned when unchecked growth and a focus to maximize tourist spending pushes everything else out. That's when a city stops being a city and effectively turns into a theme park.

When it comes to local politics, it's clear to everyone that tourism is a cornerstone of our local economy. But at the same time, having millions visiting one's city does come at a cost regarding pollution, noise, mobility, safety, prices of goods and services, upkeep of public infrastructure, etc. Tourism is an industry and it needs to be treated as such in terms of policies and regulations.

Externalizing all of those costs to the local population simply won't do. Taxing tourists is just one tactic to do just that. Other strategies include toning down city marketing, adapting fiscal / grant policies for commerce and hospitality, a permit stop for hotels / airbn'b / B&B's, banning cruise ships from ports, limiting admissions to public venues (museums,...), regulating guided tours, regulating bars / restaurants (closing hours, terraces, signage,...)

At the same time, it's the responsibility of a city council to also enact policies / investments in alternate industries to ensure a healthy mix which makes it attractive enough for a diverse population to stay and live there e.g. invest in research, tech, higher education, local economies, etc.

If you did this you would have to make the amount of money required very high (hundreds of Euro) before it would tip the balance on the number of people there at peak season. Then you would exclude budget-conscious travellers without raising any revenue for city services which tourists consume.

I travelled to Venice as a student. My girlfriend was from Australia, that was the one chance in her life to go to Venice. We lived on low 10s of Euro a day and would have been eating sandwiches we made in Venice and pasta we cooked for dinner. We could have paid 10-20 Euro as an entry fee (as we did for the Uffizi, the Vatican museum, etc.) but not 100 Euro, even for 'Venice Money'.

The other thing this measure would encourage is higher prices and scams. People waiting near the train station offering to change Venice money for real money. Shops selling cigarettes and other high-value stuff at a markup for Venice money. Low-quality art and souvenirs being targeted at tourists who haven't spent all their money on the way out (as used to happen in Warsaw Pact countries which had currency controls). Higher prices on basic food and drink as cafes know that tourists will have a 'sunk cost' feeling.

Some of the problems are solved by modest ticketing. As mentioned if you have 5 million visitors a year and 50 euro tickets you make 250 million in revenue. For the city proper being down to 50,000 people that’s $5,000 less in property tax per year if each person has one property. Given multiple people per property you could probably lower property taxes to zero and offset the higher cost that comes from tourist prices with reduced taxation.

It really sounds like you have not been to Venice. Venice is not some random tourist place, people will go there regardless as it is the most stunning city in the world. The gondolas are full even though they are like $100 for 15 minutes. As are the restaurants. It is not a problem that tourists are not spending money there.

>>>people will go there regardless as it is the most stunning city in the world

I think that's overselling it. Greatly. I took a day trip to Venice from Ljubljana to meet family there. The whole place reeked of sewage, and the crowds of aimlessly meandering tourists were stifling. Like most tourist traps, it felt shallow, with little to offer beyond staring at old buildings, tons of shops selling worthless trinkets, and pricey restaurants. I wanted to try mingling with the locals more, but wasn't able to quickly find information on nightclubs/raves/etc. in the immediate area.

I took some nice pictures, rode in the gondola, went to dinner, then returned to LJ. I actually wish I had spent more time in Trieste, Zagreb, or had linked up with a casual acquaintance all the way in Zurich. My dad paid for everything we did while IN the city, but if I was spending my own money I would probably never return to Venice. So an entry tax is definitely a "nope" for me.

Sounds like the entry tax is working as intended, then (since it's intended to reduce how many people go).

What did you like about Trieste and Zagreb (I've never been and I'm not familiar with them)?

Trieste seemed like a quiet coastal town. It has enough "old stuff" if you want to take day trips examining such but without it being overwhelming or overhyped. It's off the beaten path despite having decent international transit links. I also saw more than a few nice-looking ladies and I generally prefer women from mid-tier cities over the more cosmopolitan types.

I was only in Zagreb for a day. I took a train from LJ, then walked several kilometers to scope out a university with a Masters program that I was curious about. The city felt a little "rough", reminding me of Philadelphia but with much less urban decay. The staff and the students at the university were stacked with attractive and curious females. Being the only black guy in a 3-piece suit in probably a 1000km radius may have been a factor.

"unpolished, quiet, probably a little dangerous, but FULL of beautiful women". The Former Yugoslavia is kinda like the Thai or Philippine countryside, but with better infrastructure and weather.

Sometimes I wonder what my life would be if I had applied to the Bled School of Business, setup shop as a defense consultant in LJ, and rotated through a circuit of bachelor pads in LJ/Trieste/Zagreb....

The problem isn't primarily "tourists who are not spending enough". It's too many tourists in general to the point that the city infrastructure can't actually support that many people and is overcrowded making it horrible for anyone who is trying to actually live there.

Another point is that overcrowding also makes it less pleasant for the tourists themselves. If you charge people €10 and they find it more pleasant, don't have to queue for drinks or to take selfies, and can get help if they need it, they might consider it well worth it.

I wonder what percentage of tourists that visit Venice would see it as "bucket list" or "once in a lifetime" type opportunity to the point that even a €500 entry ticket wouldn't make a noticeable dint in numbers. A lottery system seems a better (and fairer) bet, and those that miss out would just have to try their luck finding accommodation (which actually wasn't that hard when we tried 11 years ago, and personally I don't believe you can meaningfully take in a city like Venice in a single day - or even two for that matter).

It costs $200 per day (low season) and $250 per day (high season) to visit Bhutan (https://www.tourism.gov.bt/plan/faq ), bringing in over $120M per year (https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/BTN/bhutan/tourism-sta... ) from about 250,000 tourists (https://thebhutanese.bt/tourist-arrival-increased-by-13-till... ). The fee includes room and board.

I'll suspect more people have Venice on their bucket list than Bhutan, so that would be a minimum bound answer for your question.

Do or do not EU citizens have freedom of movement within the EU as a fundamental right?

No, it is called ```Freedom of movement for workers in the European Union```.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_for_worker...

That allows Europeans to migrate to other EU countries to work without requiring visas. It doesn't give them free entry into tourist attractions.

I believe this wouldn't matter. The right to charge toll is well-established, this has always included docking fees, and Venice is an island.

They can also regulate the amount of traffic, that's included in the sovereign rights associated with docks.

This means they can both charge entry, and limit access in a given day. I expect flatly refusing entry to specific people would be a different story.

Like what?

Increasing hotel fees doesn’t stop day visitors. Venice also has plenty of Airbnb available, which in my uninformed opinion ruins any control the city has (maybe they require permits and tax?)

Increasing food prices hurts the locals, and just means many tourists will skip eating out.

Like stuff day tourists do.

Those gondolieres? Standard Venetians usually don't use them. Entry to palazzos? Ferries? Street coffees? Raise the damn prices! (Offer a highly discounted year pass to not affect locals).

> Like stuff day tourists do.

Like come into the city? People aren't necessarily riding gondoliers. These are all independent businesses pricing things according to their own interests (as they can and should). The stated problem is that there are too many people coming in so they are directly addressing that behavior.

It is legitimate to tax consumption of goods and services, e.g. make gondolieres pay an extra 10 Euros of taxes per trip. It is not legitimate to tax people based on race, sex, or country of origin - in fact, the entry fee scheme probably violates European Law, if unevenly applied (e.g. residents are not forced to pay).

See also: the German "foreigner's toll road" scheme.

How is that not locking people out also? It’s the same concept applied with a different metric. Not to mention raising prices broadly hurts locals and not just visitors? Entry fees are a pretty simple solution, I hardly imagine it being bureaucratic.

Tourism always was for the rich until the 1970's. That's when travel became so cheap that everybody started doing it.

I don't know how you decided where to draw that line.

Tourism for the masses started in the 1800s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism#Mass_tourism .

Atlantic City was a popular tourist city in the 1920s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_City,_New_Jersey#Proh...

In the UK at the same time, Blackpool "claimed around eight million visitors per year, three times as many as its nearest British rivals, still drawn largely from the mill towns of East Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackpool#Towards_the_present

My grandparents drove their entire family to the Grand Canyon back in the 1950s, and they were farmers/blue collar workers.

Then let’s say cultural tourism has been for the wealthy (until the post WWII era of affordable tuition led college students to travel on the cheap). The “grand tour” was for the wealthy, and Venice was certainly on that itinerary.

Instead of money, cultural sites could use knowledge to gatekeep. Require prospective visitors to pass a nontrivial quiz on the history and cultural significance of Venice to be able to enter. Take a short college course on the City and receive a lifetime pass. Those who expend the preparatory effort to truly appreciate Venice are permitted to physically visit the City, and the rest get access to streaming videos and stock photos into which to edit themselves.

Some sort of access control is needed. If you think today’s Venice is bad, wait until the Chinese tourists, with their exceptionally high tolerance for crowded conditions, start arriving en masse by rail. Congestion effects are nonlinear…

Your "cultural tourism has been for the wealthy" has a tautological component.

That is, the culture you likely refer to is the 'the culture of an upper class (an aristocracy) or of a status class (the intelligentsia)', quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_culture .

In the 1920s people went to Nashville to visit the Grand Old Opry and hear country music. People went to the Catskills to see vaudeville. How are these not examples of "cultural tourism" by the non-wealthy, pre-dating WWII?

19 million people went to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904. How is that not mass tourism?

> cultural sites could use knowledge to gatekeep

They certainly can. But there are many such ways to gatekeep. The article mention cash. What about "Tourists to Venice must be able to read and write Venetian"? The very choice of how to gatekeep reveals much the gatekeeper.

A question like "Which James Bond films were filmed in Venice?" focuses on a different culture than "What famous club-footed author swam the length of the Grand Canal and across the lagoon to the Lido?" (And both question set the focus on foreigners, rather than locals.)

A more practical set of gatekeeping questions might include: "It is illegal to feed the pigeons on St. Mark's Square. What is the fine? A) 50 euros, B) 100 euros, C) 200 euros, D) 500 euros".

> wait until the Chinese tourists ... start arriving en masse by rail

The xenophobic comment is uncalled for. Just how many Chinese people do you think will travel several days by train from China to visit Venice? And why Venice, when there are so many other places to visit which are closer?

> exceptionally high tolerance for crowded conditions

Quoting "Are neighbour tourists more sensitive to crowding? The impact of distance on the crowding-out effect in tourism" at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026151772...

] Some researchers claim that tourists from Asian countries, whose places of residence are commonly characterised by congestion, are more tolerant of crowding than those from Western countries (Pearce, 1995), yet contradictory findings are suggested by emerging studies. For example, Chinese tourists show unexpectedly sensitive attitudes and low tolerance of tourist crowding in China compared with Westerners (Jin & Pearce, 2011). In addition, in Taiwan, tourists from Japan, Korea, Singapore and the US have been found to be negatively affected by the large numbers of mainland Chinese tourists, while no significant impact has been found among tourists from Hong Kong, the UK and Australia (Chou et al., 2014; Su et al., 2012). These contradictions imply that the influence of cultural distance is more complicated than previously noted (Bi & Lehto, 2018).

Chinese tourists may be more likely to avoid a crowded Venice than American tourists.

.. incidentally just around that time tourism became a problem, especially in places like Venice.

My parents went to Venice on holiday a few times in the 1970s. No, it was not overburdened with tourists. I have seen many photos and heard good stories. The insane levels seen in Venice and Amsterdam only started in the last 10 years.

I don't think that's coincidence. Cheap air travel opened a window on the world and absolutely ruined a lot of places. To the point that if you haven't visited Machu Picchu the consensus is that you haven't really lived. Tourists are roaches, they bring some much needed income to some places but they utterly ruin others, crowd out the locals, cause living spaces to be converted into hotels and make it impossible to buy food and drink at normal prices for the people that live there.

And also provide a considerable to major contribution to the GDP of affected countries. We like it or not it is an export.