Venice initiates entry fee for day-trippers

The City of Venice has launched a pilot run of an entry fee for visitors to the city who don't stay overnight.

In 2024, the fee of 5 euro per person per day will be charged only on certain days in the city's high season of 25 April - 14 July. See the Venice website for specific dates, and for the opportunity to prepay online.

Note that for overnight visitors to avoid the fee they need to register for an exemption.

US District Court judge upholds right of Bar Harbor to limit cruise ship passenger visits to 1000 per day

In a complaint filed in December 2022, the Association to Preserve and Protect Local Livelihoods (APPLL) sought to block implementation of a new Bar Harbor ordinance that would limit cruise ship passenger disembarkations into the town to 1000 per day.

Members of APPLL include BH Piers LLC, Harborside Hotel and Bar Harbor Whale Watch - all businesses likely to see revenue reductions as a result of limits on cruise passengers coming into the town. With the new ordinance in place, Bar Harbor businesses in aggregate could be seeing an annual tourist-spend loss of 60%-90% vs. pre-COVID 2019.

In a Decision and Order handed down Thursday, US District Judge Lance Walker found:

• The Bar Harbor ordinance limiting cruise-ship passsenger landings to 1000 per day is "a lawful exercise of home rule authority under the Maine Constitution".
• The ordinance "does not violate the Due Process Clause or the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution".
• Insofar as cruise ship passengers are concerned, "the 1,000-person cap survives challenge under the Supremacy Clause."
• "Plaintiff and Plaintiff-Intervenor fail to demonstrate cause to invalidate the Ordinance insofar as it operates as a restriction on passenger disembarkations."

Under a Memorandum of Agreement currently in place between Bar Harbor and the cruise lines, passenger disembarkations are limited to 3800/day in May, June, September and October and 3500/day in July and August. This MOA had been scheduled to expire at the end of 2023, but the Town Council voted to extend it to the 2024 cruise season for existing bookings. No new bookings are being accepted under the existing MOA for 2024 or 2025.

How will the 2024 season go, and what will a new MOA for 2025 (if any) look like? Stay tuned.

Non-refundable VAT hitting UK visitation by Chinese shoppers hard

New research by Oxford Economics and the Association of International Retail (AIR) finds that the UK is losing 750M GBP ($921M) annually because tourists from China are spending less money on shopping in the country.

Independent research by the Centre for Economics and Business Research finds that non-refundable VAT is discouraging 2M tourists per year from coming to the UK.

Prior to Brexit, visitors to EU countries (including the UK) from outside the EU could get refunds of VAT paid on purchases of merchandise done in the EU. But in 2021, following Brexit, then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak ended tax-free shopping for foreign visitors by no longer refunding the 20% VAT paid at time of purchase.

Also since Brexit, the exchange rate of renminbi vs. sterling has been less favorable for the Chinese than that of renminbi vs. euro.

The end result is that it is now merchandise bought in the UK by Chinese visitors is10-12% more expensive (after currency exchange and payment processing fees) than purchases made in the EU.

Accordingly, in summer 2023, Chinese visitors to Europe did most of their shopping in Italy, France, Spain and Ireland, and significantly less in the UK.

In 2019, pre-COVID, the UK received 880,000 visitors from China who stayed at average of 16.33 nights and spent 1937 GBP ($2379) per person, making China the country's #2 most valuable source market in terms of spend.

Local opinion swings to anti-cruise-passengers

Bar Harbor voters have approved by a substantial margin the institution of a 1000 per day limit on cruise ship passengers disembarking at the town.

A similar measure proposed for Portland failed with only 27% voting in favor.

In a survey of residents taken last year 55% of respondents said cruise ships have a negative effect on Bar Harbor: a lot of congestion, but not much money spent.

174 ships - including a substantial number carrying more than 1000 passengers - are expected to have visited the town this year by the end of November. And according to Portcall.com, 127 port calls have already been schedule for 2023.

Since Bar Harbor is the #1 cruise port in Maine, a legal challenge by the cruise industry is likely.

How the new ordinance will be enforced is yet to be determined.

Watch this space for further developments.

Venice delays start of tourist entry fees

The City of Venice has announced the postponement to 16 January 2023 of the launch of its anti-overtourism 'contributo di sbarco' entry fee for daytrippers, which had been scheduled for June 2022.

Cruise-ship passengers, especially, were targeted for this entry fee, which visitors would have been able to avoid by booking a hotel stay (and paying the municipal room tax).

Tickets would have been priced at $3.14 to $10.56 per day, depending on season, and 500 CCTV cameras will aid in enforcement. Also capacity limits would have been imposed on the inner city, which could have resulted in some tourists being turned away.

Pre-pandemic, Venice hosted as many as 80,000 tourists EACH DAY.