Venice residents clashed with riot police after the city introduced the world’s first tourist entry fee.

Venice became the first city in the world to charge tourists in an effort to ease the pressure of mass tourism and make the city more livable for its residents.

The pilot program will charge a €5 (US$5.40) fee to day trippers visiting Venice, one of Italy’s most beautiful and historic cities. The new fee has come into effect from Thursday.

Municipal workers were seen checking tickets for day trippers in front of the Santa Lucia railway station in the fragile lagoon city. Signs were posted to warn tourists about the payment program.

This charge applies to tourists arriving between 8:30 am and 4 pm local time, while access outside these hours is free. Day trippers who fail to pay the fee face fines between 50 euros (about US$53) and 300 euros (about US$322).

Overnight travelers staying within the municipality of Venice are exempt from the charge but must have a QR code to pass through gates located at the city’s main access points. A booth has been set up for visitors without smartphone access, Reuters reported.

Protesters on Thursday were seen clashing with riot police over the pilot program, with some trying to break through officers’ blockade in Piazzale Roma to enter the city.

Others carried banners reading “No to tickets, yes to housing and services for all” and “Venice is not sold, it is defended” as they rallied against the move. pulled out

Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro on Thursday said That the first objective of the charge, “of cultural transfer, seems to me to have been achieved.”

“With courage and great humility we are introducing this system because we want to give Venice a future and preserve this heritage of humanity for generations to come,” Brugnaro said in a Google-translated post on social media platform X. want to leave.”

On Tuesday, in a separate post on Brugnaro X said that, while Venice would be the first major city to experiment with a payment program, “overtourism is not a problem that only concerns the city.”

“Through this initiative we want to improve the quality of life in #Venezia, we want to make it safer, cleaner and with more services, to guarantee peace of mind to citizens and visitors,” Brugnaro said.

Venice has toyed with the idea of ​​taxing day visitors for years as one of several measures to curb overtourism. Locals have long blamed overtourism for driving up prices and turning the city into a souvenir theme park.

Residents, especially the estimated 50,000 who live in the city’s historic district, far outnumber the roughly 5.5 million who visited the city in 2019, according to Statista data. Many of these tourists disembark from cruise ships in their thousands to take photos of Venice’s famous canals and city squares.