Venice combats overtourism by tracking visitors | Hacker News Reader

Venice combats overtourism by tracking visitors

edition.cnn.com

57 pointsTriv88852 comments

Was in Venice summer 2017, and having never been prior, my wife and I were surprised at how empty it was after 5pm. How could this be? It was wall-to-wall people all day -- many in tours that would sometimes just stop in the middle of a narrow corridor. We realized what this and all the other articles about Venice tourism describe -- that most tourists only come for the day.

The evenings and nights there were the best part of the day -- not only because the temp dropped, and the light was beautiful -- but because it became an entire different city without the droves of people. It became trivial to sit down at random restaurants and find quiet.

It's a good start they're going to start charging for entry to the island for the sake of the residents and preserving the city. Though not sure they need all this infra for tracking within the island itself to accomplish their goals.

I had the privilege of visiting Venice over Christmas and New Years of 2019 and just wandering around an almost deserted island. It was otherworldly.

If you read the article it says most of the overcrowding is caused by day trippers, esp those on beach holidays when it isn't good beach weather.

Thats the effect of the enormous cruise ships depositing thousands of tourists in the morning and picking them up again later that day.

I vacationed in Barbados, and when then cruise ships would pull into Bridgetown it was remarkable. They towered over the town like a skyscraper over a suburban apartment. The area around the docks, full of hawkers and stalls selling terrible cheap food, pulsed with tourists like a vein throbbing in a forehead. A few hours later they would be gone and the ship would depart, leaving eerie silence behind. We quickly learned to stay well away if anything was docked.

Out of seasons was even better. I've been literaly alone (just with my life partner) on Ponte Vecchio in Florence in the early morning out of season.

I'm a little surprised by the reactions to this. I mean, your location data is already sucked up by so many sources and re-sold [0]. That is what we should be fighting, not systems meant to help preserve a city that is deteroriarhting.

[0] - https://www.wsj.com/articles/your-smartphones-location-data-...

The headline isn't really misleading but it implies a slightly different problem from what seems to be real crux of this (or so they say):

"As you can see, the number of daytrippers -- is steep," says Bettini. This is crucial information, because these "hit-and-run" tourists are usually charged with causing the most damage to the struggling city. They tend to come in from other parts of Italy -- often from beach resorts on a bad weather day -- and rarely spend money, bringing their own food and eating illicit picnics on bridges and on waterfronts. But since they don't stay overnight, they cannot be counted by the authorities -- until now.

I don't understand exactly why not staying overnight means they can't be counted, and another quote does mention too many visitors in specific areas, but the problem is apparently bored domestic travelers who can't go to the beach, not over-tourism in general. Maybe a messaging based approach would work better than this rather intrusive tracking system but who knows, I'm not Italian. I've been to Venice though, it's really nice, if you get the opportunity you should take it (respectfully), even if you have to agree to be tracked.

Also - not sure if commenters are aware of this, but I'm pretty sure every hotel in Venice already keeps passports and IDs on file and reports who is there every day to the local authorities.

As someone who has had the opportunity to go, I would gladly accept the tracking / privacy intrusion for a short visit. Well worth it IMHO, and happy to support making travel to these sort of rare gems more sustainable and possibly even more enjoyable. My pro tip: go in the winter. You’ll have the place mostly to yourself.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/x4c73z3xi3ca630/IMG_8157.JPG?dl=0

Some things that used to be exclusive are no longer exclusive.

And they scale poorly.

Every museum and monument in Western Europe suffers from this problem.

Sometimes there are tricks. If there's a "City Pass" that lets you skip lines, it can be a great value. Sometimes showing up early in the morning or late in the evening is a great strategy. It sounds like the latter is the case in Venice.

The tour operators are often in cahoots with the venue, so paying 3-5x for that can skip the line too.

Well, the usual solution to that is to just auction the tickets off. People can decide for themselves how much they are worth.

Leave your phone in your hotel room? Faraday cover? a cheap second phone and leave your smart phone at home?

What for? What's the end game?

Stop being tracked during your time.

Sold!

>The system not only counts visitors in the vicinity of cameras posted around the city, but it also, in conjunction with TIM (Telecom Italia, Italy's largest telecommunications provider), crunches who they are and where they come from.

>The authorities can see where these new arrivals are from by analyzing their phone data (the information is all aggregated automatically, so no personal details can be gleaned).

In case anyone wanted to know only the "how"

Huh, I guess I’m unusual in traveling with my phone in airplane mode? It’s not inexpensive to obtain cellular abroad (from the US).

I would presume most visitors are from Europe and the EU has mandatory free roaming.

Usually its cheaper to get a local sim card. Which I guess breaks their stats.

Yeah. Coming from the US, I usually get an international data plan from my carrier and use it sparingly. (And it's often expensed anyway.) But for longer trips on my own nickel, I'll get a local SIM card.

I've started renting wifi hotspots instead. A new sim screws up iMessage too much.

When I use a local SIM, it goes into an old phone and my regular phone stays like it is. (I don't actually do a lot of texting anyway. The data is mostly for things like maps and directions.)

Local SIM cards in Europe have to be registered with your name and an identity document.

Don't generalize across Europe when you aren't certain.

At least in Denmark, it's not a requirement to register a SIM. Anonymous SIMs are available from vending machines at the airport, kiosks and by post.

I was pretty sure it was a EU requirement because it's been presented as such in my country, but I'm not surprised to learn that the EU has only been used as an excuse for implementing such a measure, of course.

Yeah, my parents do that when they return to Scotland (retired, so they can stay a while).

But, for my normal 1-2 week vacations, it never seemed worth it. I just pay the $10/day Verizon charges, but only use it when I can't get wifi (which is rare these days). I think the last time I used the plan for more than a day or two was in Iceland and that was only because I forgot my SatNav, so used the phone.

Vast majority of visitors would be from the EU.

I guess I'm even more unusual in travelling entirely without a phone. Can't be bothered as the advantages are insignificant to me. I love the feeling of being "untethered". Isn't that what holidays are for?

I'd also love to, except I feel I need it for photos, a map, and finding a good restaurant instead of a tourist trap..

Or,... just ask a local?

Depends where you're coming from. Visitors from other EU countries (and the UK, for now) will use their existing data plan, since the EU enforces free roaming amongst member countries. If I was coming from elsewhere, I would likely do the same, unless I'd be there long enough to justify buying a local SIM card.

And now to tell people never to go there cause fuck that.

I think that's part of the idea.

As a near-local, I see the Venetian problem (as the article explains): day trippers are destroying the place, without contributing. Even the low US phones registered are probably from the two bases nearby, and some that aren't. If you exclude Venice for the tracking aspect, then stay out of malls, watch it in airports and add in the UK and a bazillion cameras. I went to Venice one time, I didn't really enjoy it as I got caught in the evening rush to gtfo. As a lot of persons have already given their privacy away, adding in the ability for the local cops to maybe* block an avenue or two, and open others to ease studied congestion patterns may not be a bad idea.

Yeah, this actually removes Venice from my "places to go and see" bucket list.

As this is meant to combat overtourism, mission accomplished it seems.

So, to combat overtourism, they feel obligated to breach visitors privacy? I am shocked.

In one sense, how do else do you keep people away in a society with the right to roam freely? You make it unpalatable.

You could restrict tourist visas but then that impacts other parts of Italy and had to be done at a national level when this is a local problem. You could add conditions to the visas that preclude visiting Venice, assuming the national government went skiing with it, but now you need to enforce the movement of tourists within the country which seems difficult if not impossible. And that's not even considering visitors from within the EU who can travel freely anyway.

Not a fan of this particular technique, but as a rule surely the right of Venice to ensure its dwindling population's home isn't trashed ranks higher than anyone's right to have it on a bucket list?

If they lose the tourism economy, the population is going to dwindle even faster. That being said, I think it's completely fair to charge tourists for entry, and use that money for maintenance.

> If they lose the tourism economy, the population is going to dwindle even faster.

I bet it’s not.

Venice is losing its permanent residents for many reasons. Increased tourism is a cause, not a potential cure.

http://www.veniceandlagoon.net/web/en/management_plan/macro_...

https://veneziaautentica.com/impact-tourism-venice/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/01/venice-populat...

Great result then.

Edit. I'm facetious, it probably isn't a good result, the article says they want tourists who stay in the city and spend money. I think the technology is pretty common, I think US shopping malls and big box stores all do similar tracking than this.

Yeah treat tourists as cattle they're going to love it...

It seems COVID is the great excuse to let all the Orwellian bs loose.

The state of the world is hopeless, especially when witnessing the apathy of the masses that will accept anything.

They've been using wifi/cellphone data to track tourists' flow for at least a couple of years.

What seems new is the control tower thingie (Orwellian af) and the tracking of the tourists' origin.

I somehow doubt that they do all of that without ever storing sensitive data/personal identifiers. Anyhow, I suspect some italian journalist is gonna send some FOIAs soon (:

Venice's problem is that it has too many tourists, so them not loving it would be a plus in this scenario.

If the amount of guided tour groups is any indication, tourists do love being treated like cattle. In fact, they pay a lot of money for the privilege. Anyway Venice isn't really a city any more so much as it is an amusement park for wealthy tourists, so it's not too surprising that they're running their city like a business.

I went in 2018 and spoke with some of the employees working there. It’s very true. Almost no one lives in the city proper anymore; everyone commutes from outside.

On a related note if you decide to go: the city proper is very much a tourist trap. The food is not good and everything is overpriced. If you decide to go I wouldn’t spend more than a day inside the city itself. I had a much better experience taking the water taxi to the surrounding islands. The food is better, people are nicer, it’s way less crowded and the sights are just as good.

Now around 50,000 people live in Venice. It not so empty. In Rome, Florence it is the same a lot of people have moved in the suburbs. Mestre, the city near Venice, has 88,552 resident. I lived in Venice for about 30 years.

Did you read the article? It’s anonymous data about where tourists are in the city that only checks their cell phone’s country of origin. They are using it to manage crowds, not monitor individuals.

> It seems COVID is the great excuse to let all the Orwellian bs loose.

Any new excuse is good to tighten up the grip.

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