Carnival time in Venice is renowned for dazzling parades, outré costumes and colourful masks. This year, however, only 11,000 lucky visitors joined the celebrations as mayor, Luigi Brugnano, has finally introduced a cap on tourist numbers. With 20,000 fewer than last year, the city is now breathing again.

 

When in Venice vacationers tend to leave good manners at home. Remember when Venice’s former mayor, Massimo Cacciari, caught a Portuguese tourist urinating in one of the city’s Byzantine canals? The touristic misdemeanours include defacing historical palaces, sunbathing naked on the canals’ banks and picnicking in forbidden areas. Venice doesn’t belong to Venetians anymore. The famously sky-high tourist prices for gondola trips and food have impoverished locals as well. Living in Canal Grande is now a matter of survival. Of the former 175,000, only 55,000 residents can still afford to live in the city’s historic centre, and the number’s rapidly dwindling.

 

Introducing a cap on tourist numbers is thus a matter of dignity, as well as the only reasonable measure to make Venice accessible again for both tourists and locals. A fair, equal system of online booking will give everyone the same opportunity to visit the city. With no entry ticket required, there’s no risk of millionaires taking the floating city hostage. Indeed, this measure will also challenge the monopoly of huge cruise ships that are mainly responsible for the lagoon’s water pollution.

 

Of course, a cap won’t educate undisciplined vacationers into showing respect. Neither will it prevent Venice from sinking in a hundred years: tidal movements in the Adriatic Sea, polar ice caps melting, and climate change are responsible for that. It’ll just make clear that Venice is a gem to preserve at all costs. Stop considering it an All-You-Can-Eat, when it’s clearly more of a Michelin-star restaurant.