‘Yesterday Naples, today Rome. Where are we going tomorrow?’, Ron Cicchinelli (72, ‘out upstate New York”) from a white marble bench to his tour group, who, like hundreds of other tourists, are concentrated on shooting the perfect photo in front of the Trevi Fountain. “Pisa, or no, Florence?” answers one of his friends hesitantly.
When the coin is tossed over the shoulder, Cicchinelli’s felt-turquoise baseball cap and backpack merge back into the tourist crowd. The good-humored American retiree is not the only one gasping for Italian air after two years of pandemic. Since Easter, visitor numbers in cities such as Rome, Venice and Florence are slowly approaching prepandemic levels again.
Cheap tickets
In the meantime, Olivier Müller (53, from North Brabant) has lifted his daughter onto his back in front of the fountain. In this way she can look over an almost endless group of Polish elderly with matching keycords and still see something of the world-famous artwork through a jungle of selfie sticks.
Among the street vendors trying to make up for the lean years by loudly touting their yellow slime balls and fake Burberry scarves, you’d almost forget that many people were overflowing with good intentions at the start of the pandemic, enraptured by the bright blue skies without airplane stripes. After Covid-19, mass tourism would be a thing of the past, we would really value holidays again and travel would become more sustainable and less superficial, it was often said. Also in Italy, which economically relies heavily on tourism, but at the same time sees city centers perishing.
Well, Müller concludes, while fellow tourists pass him left and right, if you look around you, the new tourism does indeed look suspiciously like the old. He works at bicycle company Shimano, thinks about sustainable mobility and would rather fly less himself. “But as long as tickets are cheaper than the cost of petrol and tolls even for our family of four, nothing will change.”
More sustainable tourism
Italian cities can do little about low ticket prices, but Venice did announce after the crowded Easter weekend that it was now realizing a plan against overtourism, devised years ago. From June, the city will experiment with entrance gates for day-trippers, who must reserve a ticket for a maximum of 10 euros to visit the symbol of mass tourism.
“We don’t need mass tourism,” said Tourism Minister Massimo Garavaglia recently. ‘What does a tourist get us who sleeps outside the center for a tenner, buys prepackaged food and a souvenir produced in China, except for waste?’
Not the numbers, but the quality of tourism must be improved. That is the idea that will also be central to a strategic plan by the Italian government to be published in October. The Roman print seller Pino (61, ‘prefer no last name’) fully agrees. In the thirty years that he runs the stable between the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon, he has seen tourism change before his eyes, he grumbles from under an impressive brush mustache. Pay attention, Pino points out, while the endless stream of people passes by: hardly anyone has a bag in their hands.
Yes, they queue further up at McDonald’s, drink an espresso and get an ice cream, but the high-quality artisan products that tourists came to buy in Rome thirty years ago, according to the print seller, are becoming less and less popular.
Distribution of tourists
“We are in a transition period,” says Gaia Ferrara optimistically. De Roman is a consultant in the travel sector and works for Simtur, a non-profit organization that promotes more sustainable tourism in Italy. “This is the aftershock of the pandemic, people now want to make up for the missed trips.” Yet Ferrara remains positive about a trend that she believes had already started before the pandemic, towards more unknown destinations and local, authentic experiences, off the beaten track.
In a city like Rome, the biggest problem is the lack of mobility, says Ferrara. Because public transport works poorly and the chaotic traffic is not designed for cyclists, tourists usually linger around the well-known attractions in the small historic center. While the municipality of Rome is almost as large in area as the province of Utrecht and there are also all kinds of monuments outside the center. But do tourists want to go there? “It’s a matter of promotion,” Ferrara says. “And of better connections.”
At the Trevi Fountain, the spreading of tourists is still a thing of the future, overtaken on all sides by the harsh reality. The next items on the American Ron Cicchinelli’s program are the equally crowded Colosseum and the Vatican. He is not concerned about sustainability or mass tourism. Gesturing to the fountain: “Isn’t that what this place is for, to be seen?”
A few meters away, Llinos Jones (31) and Dan Lloyd (32) from England enjoy their view less carelessly. It is much busier than expected, says Lloyd. And yes, they are actually trying to fly less, the thirty-somethings say guiltily. ‘But if you live in Brighton, you also want to see the sun sometimes,’ says Lloyd. ‘And a different culture’, adds his girlfriend. “It’s a dilemma.”