Venice on Sunday wraps up a pilot program charging day-trippers an entrance fee, more than two million euros ($A3.3 million) richer and determined to extend the levy, but opponents called the experiment a failure.

Several dozen activists gathered outside the Santa Lucia train station overlooking a teeming canal on Saturday to protest the five euro levy that they say did little to dissuade visitors from arriving on peak days, as envisioned. 

“The ticket is a failure, as demonstrated by city data,” said Giovanni Andrea Martini, an opposition city council member.

Over the first 11 days of the trial period, an average of 75,000 visitors were recorded in the city. Martini said that is 10,000 more each day than on three indicative holidays in 2023, citing figures provided by the city based on mobile phone data that tracks arrivals in the city.

Venice imposed the long-discussed day-tripper tax on 29 days this year, mostly weekends and holidays, from April 25 through mid-July.

Over the last two-and-a-half months, more than 247,000 tourists have paid the tax, raising revenues of some 2.19 million euros, according to AP calculations based on data supplied by the city.

Officials said the money would be used for essential services, which cost more in a city traversed by canals, including garbage removal and maintenance. 

The levy was not applied to people staying in hotels in Venice, who are already charged a lodging tax. Exemptions also applied to children under 14, residents of the region, students, workers and people visiting relatives, among others.

The city’s top tourism official, Simone Venturini, has indicated the levy will be continued and reinforced. A proposal to double the fee to 10 euros is being considered for next year, a city spokesman said. 

Opponents of the plan say it failed to make the city more liveable for residents, as intended, with the narrow walkways and water taxis as crowded as ever. They want policies that encourage repopulation of Venice’s historic centre, which has been losing residents to the more convenient mainland for decades, including placing limits on short-term rentals.

There are now more tourist beds in the historic centre than official residents, whose numbers stand at an all-time low of 50,000.

“Wanting to raise this to 10 euros, is absolute useless. It makes Venice a museum,” Martini said.

Many of the banners at Saturday’s protest also indicated growing concern about the system of electronic and video surveillance that the city introduced in 2020 to monitor mobile phone data of people arriving in the city, which is the backbone of the system to control tourism. 

“The access ticket is a great distraction for the media, which only speaks about this five euros, which will become 10 euros next year,” said Giovanni Di Vito, a Venice resident active in the campaign against the tourist tax.

“But no one is focusing on the system for surveillance and control of citizens.”

This post was originally published on Michael West.