Visitors to Pompeii will now have their names printed on their ticket. — Pixabay
The Pompeii archaeological park in Italy plans to limit visitor numbers to 20,000 a day and introduce personalised tickets in a bid to cope with overtourism and protect the world heritage site, officials said.
The move comes after what authorities called a record summer that saw over four million people visiting the world-famous remains of the ancient Roman city, buried under ash and rock following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79CE.
The park’s director Gabriel Zuchtriegel said visitors to the main archaeological site now exceed an average of 15,000 to 20,000 every day, and the new daily cap will prevent the numbers from surging further.
“We are working on a series of projects to lift the human pressure on the site, which could pose risks both for visitors and the heritage (that is) so unique and fragile,” Zuchtriegel said.
From now, tickets to access the park will be personalised to include the full names of visitors. A maximum of 20,000 tickets will be released each day, with different time slots during the peak summer season.
The park’s management is also trying to attract more tourists to visit other ancient sites connected to Pompeii by a free shuttle bus under the “Greater Pompeii” project, including Stabia, Torre Annunziata and Boscoreale sites.
“The measures to manage flows and safety and the personalisation of the visits are part of this strategy,” Zuchtriegel said.
“We are aiming for slow, sustainable, pleasant and non-mass tourism and above all widespread throughout the territory around the Unesco site, which is full of cultural jewels to discover,” he added.
Meanwhile, in Florence, the Italian city also took new measures to crack down on overtourism, just as the Italian government hosts the Group Of Seven tourism ministers.
Mayor Sara Funaro’s Cabinet approved a 10-point plan that, among other things, would ban key boxes on buildings in Florence’s historic centre as well as the use of loudspeakers by tour guides, a statement from City Hall said.
The keyboxes – small boxes with a digital pad that are used by owners of short-term rental apartments to easily leave keys for visitors – have become something of the symbol of local Florentine anger at tourists, whose numbers have rebounded after Covid-19.
In a recent protest, Florentines taped red Xs over the keyboxes, outraged at the transformation of the city centre and its magnificent palazzi and narrow streets into a collection of short-term vacation rentals that have displaced local residents and the long-standing businesses that served them.
According to national statistics bureau ISTAT, 2023 saw the most visitors ever in Italy with 134 million arrivals and 451 million people staying in hotels or other registered lodgings. The number of visitors opting for non-hotel lodging grew nearly 17% compared to 2022, ISTAT said in a June report.
Italy ranks fourth on the UN World Tourism Barometer of international tourist destinations, after France, Spain and the United States. The tourism industry contributed some 10.5% of Italy’s gross domestic product in 2023, according to Statista research.
Florence last year announced a ban on new short-term private rentals in the centre in hopes of stemming the exodus of locals. It has repeatedly pressed for a special regulation from the national government to cap the number of days a property can be rented out at 120.
To date, only Venice has been permitted to limit short-term rentals. The lagoon city has been drowning under overtourism for years and this year began imposing a day-tripper tax to try to regulate tourist flows.
Recently, Tourism Minister Daniela Santanche acknowledged some art cities were suffering from too many visitors. But she said that overall, Italy is hardly taking advantage of its tourism potential and needed 50 million visitors more a year.
Lamenting Italy’s fourth-place position on the list of the world’s top destinations, she said Italy needed to sustainably grow its tourism potential with quality offerings.
“We can grow much more, we can develop much more and the industry of tourism can truly become the leading industry of our nation,” she said. – AP
