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"Venice in many ways has been a perfect lover, willing to give everyone what you want without asking for any commitment for the future," he told CNN.
"But it's time to rethink what Venice can be. It's time to finally solve this conflict between the two Venices, the one for tourists and the one for Venetians. It's time to finally commit to our future.
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Deserted Venice contemplates a future without tourist
hordes after Covid-19
Barbie
Latza Nadeau, CNN • Updated 16th May 2020
Venice is getting ready to re-open -- but for
who?
Venice,
Italy (CNN) — A few days before Italy is set to lift restrictions across much
of the country after being locked down since March 10, the streets of Venice
are starting to spring back to life.
There are
no tourists here just yet. Instead the noise is from vacuum cleaners and
sanitation crews inside stores that are getting ready for the grand reopening on
May 18.
But even as
shop owners prepare for whatever post-lockdown Venice looks like, everyone here
in this deserted tourist town is asking the same question: who are they
reopening for?
Every year,
as many as 30 million tourists from all over the world descend on Venice,
pumping up to $2.5 billion into the local economy, according to the Italian
Tourism Ministry.
But few are
Italians, who have never been as enamored with the lagoon city as the rest of
the world, according to Matteo Secchi, head of the tourist group Venessia, who
says Venice has always attracted far more international tourists than national
ones.
"When
the city reopens next week, it will still be much like it looks today," he
told CNN in an eerily empty Venice this week. "Tourists won't really start
coming back until the borders are reopened and international travel is
allowed."
Not
everyone wants things to go back to business as usual.
Jane da
Mosto, who heads non-profit group We Are Here Venice, has been fighting to get
policy makers to understand the advantages of sustainable tourism for the city
by launching campaigns to keep massive cruise ships out of the historical
harbor and studying the options for preventing flooding like the city endured
last fall.
She sees
the pandemic as a turning point for the city, and envisions a new Venice
emerging in the post-pandemic world.
"The
new Venice I dream of after this is like it is now, just with more
residents," she told CNN in an interview in Venice. "The problem for
Venice isn't the lack of tourists, it's the lack of permanent residents. And
with more residents, the city will reflect more the Venetian culture and the
wonderful lifestyle that this extraordinary city offers and future visitors to
the city will be able to enjoy Venice more."
A funeral
for Venice
In many
ways, Venice has lately become a victim of its own popularity in a worsening
struggle between overtourism, fed by the popularity and affordability of cruise
ships and low-cost air travel, and the steady decline of local residents who
have been fleeing the tourist invasion in record numbers.
The
population of Venice has dropped from 175,000 after World War II to just over
52,000 today.
Secchi's
group even helped stage a funeral for Venice in 2009 when the population
dropped below 60,000. Things have only gotten worse since then.
"The
virus shows just how tourism has massacred the population," Secchi, who is
also in the hospitality industry, says. "When the city locked down and it
was just Venetians here, you could see how few we really are."
Last
summer, that inner struggle with mass tourism came to a head when the
government, worried about the ecological effects of mass tourism on the city's
canals, threatened to ban cruise ships from entering the historical port by way
of St. Mark's Square, which is a highlight on any Venetian port call.
It was a
tough choice for Venetians since the massive cruise ship terminal employs
thousands. The plan was eventually scrapped when the government fell in August,
but the city was left with a tough choice: keep going the way they were and
risk destroying the city entirely.
Then, on
February 25, Covid-19 did what Venetians have not been able to do: make everything
stop.
As the
spread of the virus turned the surrounding Veneto region into a hotspot, the
annual Carnival celebration was canceled for the first time ever.
"The
shock of canceling Carnival really woke everyone up," Secchi says.
"It was like having the rug pulled out."
A turning
point
Many in
Venice now see the pandemic as a chance to do just what city governments have
failed to carry out in the past: rethink mass tourism and try to create a new
type of sustainable tourism for the fragile city.
Melissa
Conn, the director of the Venice office of Save Venice, an American cultural
heritage group that works to preserve the city's vast cultural heritage through
conservation grants, sees the pandemic as a turning point. "We are using
this time in a positive way," she told CNN in Venice.
They are
moving forward on between 30 and 40 urgent projects to help after Venice
suffered historic floods last year.
The group
normally has to work around tourists, but in their absence, they have been able
to work less hindered.
"What
will follow will be slow tourism, not mass tourism anymore," Conn says.
"We are confident that we can rebuild, reestablish and rethink Venice,
concentrating on helping the city withstand the elements and tourism."
Conn knows
that pulling the plug on the sort of mass tourism that Venice has experienced
in recent years will cause some businesses to close.
"We're
going to see empty shops," she says. "We are going to need to rethink
Venice, to bring it to a higher level."
But she's
not talking only about designer shops and luxury goods. "We don't want it
to become a Monte Carlo," she says. "We need to focus on the Made in
Venice brand, to promote local artisans and bring that Venice back and offer a
better quality of life to the people who live here and who visit."
She also
sees an opportunity in the vacuum created by the absence of mass tourism due to
travel bans instituted by the pandemic to lure academic programs back to the
city.
She
envisions the tourist apartments housing students and bringing new energy to
the city. "We feel more than ever that this is the moment," Conn
says. "Saving Venice is a very particular mission, but we are on a roll
right now."
After all,
this city has risen from pandemics before. The very word quarantine was born
out of the city's response to the Black Death more than 700 years ago when the
city was a powerful trading hub that brought merchants from around the world.
When the
plague hit, they decided the only way to protect the city was to isolate
incoming ships for 40 days, or quaranta giorni, which became known as the
quarantina, what we now call quarantine.
What
happens next in Venice is in the hands of the Venetians, perhaps for the first
time in centuries.
Mattia
Berto, who runs a theater company in Venice, believes the city can find the
right balance.
"Venice
in many ways has been a perfect lover, willing to give everyone what you want
without asking for any commitment for the future," he told CNN.
"But
it's time to rethink what Venice can be. It's time to finally solve this
conflict between the two Venices, the one for tourists and the one for
Venetians. It's time to finally commit to our future.
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