Future visitors to the stunning lakeside city of Como, northern Italy, may be asked to pay a tourist tax.
This 14.34 square miles city nestled between the beautiful Lake Como and the Alps has increasingly become an attractive destination for tourists.
While the lake has always been well-known among Italians, wealthy celebrities have placed it on the map for many tourists from around the world in recent years.
In 2002, Hollywood actor George Clooney bought a lakefront mansion in the village of Laglio, part of the Como area, boosting the popularity of the whole region and the city of Como.
The increased arrivals in cities and towns by Lake Como, the third largest in Italy, has bolstered the local tourism sector but also strained local infrastructures and services and made the daily life of residents more difficult.
To try and make the flow of tourists more manageable, the mayor of Como is now considering introducing a tax for daily trippers.
Mayor Alessandro Rapinese told The Times: “We are already discussing the idea [of a tourist tax]. Revolutions begin with concrete measures and we are ready for this long journey.”
The official added it is “difficult to be mayor when you are fighting tourism”.
Daily visitors to the city of Como, rather than the whole lake, would be required to pay the fee if the mayor succeeds in pushing through his plans. Mr Rapinese hasn’t shared how much the tax would be, who exactly would be required to pay it, and when it could come into force.
A similar tax for day trippers is being introduced next week in Venice, another Italian city overwhelmed by tourists.
The current model is being trialled from April 25, and will require tourists entering Venice before 4pm local time on the busiest days of the spring and summer to pay a £4.29 (€5) fee.
The area of Lake Como sees as many as 1.4 million visitors yearly. Such an overwhelming amount of tourists has prompted the emergence of tourist rentals, second homes and B&Bs.
This phenomenon is having a repercussion on residents, according to Fabio Dadati, the president of the local enterprise Lariofiere.
He told Italian magazine Panorama last year: “There has been a real explosion of the phenomenon [of second homes and b&b], as it has happened in other tourist destinations.
“This has emptied the historic centre [of its residents].” While, he continued, some lakeside municipalities have been “filling up in certain periods of the year”, during high tourism season, they then find themselves struggling to fill up primary schools’ classrooms due to the absence of permanent residents.
Overtourism is also having an impact on the local cultural heritage. Daily entries to Villa del Balbianello, a historic lakeside villa featured in the James Bond and Star Wars franchises, have been slashed from 2,000 to 1,200.
The Italian Fund for the Environment, which manages the property, has called this a “drastic decision” but necessary to protect the villa from an “excess of tourism that has an ever greater impact on Lake Como”.
