'Recipe for disaster': confusion and protests on first day of €5 visitor charge in Venice

For more than 160 years, visitors have been arriving at Venezia Santa Lucia railway station and disembarking straight into the heart of one of the world's most storied and beautiful cities - but until yesterday they had never been met by stewards in white and yellow bibs demanding to know whether they had downloaded their QR code. 

- Angela Giuffrida

On the first day of what the mayor of Venice has hailed as a bold experiment in reducing overtourism, day trippers faced a €5 (£4.30) charge.

The fee kicked in at 8.30am yesterday and will apply on 29 peak days until 14 July as part of a trial phase.

The scheme, which applies only to people visiting just for the day, is intended to help the city better manage the millions of tourists who come every year, although critics argue the relatively low cost is unlikely to prove a deterrent.

It appeared yesterday to have got off to a shaky start, bewildering many visitors and even drawing protests from some residents.

Most of the day trippers arriving at Santa Lucia had come prepared with a QR code proving they had paid the €5 toll, but the initiative caused confusion among people with hotel bookings who were unaware they still had to go through the rigmarole of confirming their exemption online.

Showing proof of a booking is not enough, as Yvonne McKenna and Ken Mehan, visitors from Ireland who had arrived on an overnight train from Vienna, learned. A steward guided the couple through the online process, which took about 10 minutes.