Tourists alarm Venetian conservationists

In Venice, the emergency is exacerbated by its unique geography — a lagoon city built on marshy land crisscrossed by canals. For decades, conservationists have warned about the impact of floodwaters on Venice. But now the warning is about the flood of tourists.

Their numbers are driving up real estate prices as palazzi get bought up and converted into tourist accommodations, driving native Venetians to the mainland and turning the city into a museum as stores that cater to locals’ needs disappear with them. By now, Venice is a city without a low season.

“It should be a sustainable tourism,” said Mieke Von Molle, director of the UNESCO-affiliated Association of Private Committees for the Safeguarding of Venice. “It is an important resource for the city, of course, but it becomes a bit oppressive. I hear the residents, the real Venetians, complaining.”

Von Molle says she has heard reports of up to 150,000 tourists in and out of the city in one day — more than double the city’s population of 60,000.

Besides day-trippers staying in nearby cities, the number of people arriving on cruises has surged in recent years, officials say, making common the surreal sight of enormous ships passing through the broad Canal Giudecca as if navigating among the city’s church domes and bell towers.

Alessandro Migotto, 47, joined the exodus of natives to the mainland seven years ago. He runs a delicatessen that caters to tourists 50 paces off St. Mark’s Square and said if his father hadn’t bought their store decades ago he never would be able to afford to stay in business with retail rents in the quarter as high as $16,188 a month. He said Venetians share the blame for the city’s problems.

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“It’s a culture of ’not-my-problem,”’ said Migotto. “I travel to Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and they tell people not to leave trash around. Here, no one says anything. It’s our fault.”

In the end, Venice will always beckon tourists, as it has for centuries. And for a visitor, there is nothing like sipping a beer and soaking up the view of St. Mark’s Cathedral across the pigeon-filled piazza. Yvon Guillevic, a middle-aged French traveler, offered the first swig to a stranger who had shared a bottle opener and unwrapped a bread roll — unaware that he risked a fine.

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Guillevic, in Venice for the afternoon on a break from a business trip, said he could afford $10.76 for a small beer in a cafe, but considered the price a rip-off when he could buy a large bottle of Peroni for just $2.29.

“For me, it is not possible to visit Venice and not see Piazza St. Marco,” said Guillevic. “My idea is to write a postcard, make a little poem.”

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