Anyone who fancies taking a selfie in the “drawing room of Europe,” as Napoleon famously called the Piazza San Marco in Venice, or on a gondola across the Grand Canal should be prepared to pony up.

Venice, the European city that most closely resembles a theme park, will in a matter of months become one in everything but name thanks to a recent decision by the city council to charge tourists an entrance fee.

Starting in January, any tourist who wants to come to the lagoon city of dark canals and sparkling palazzi only for the day will have to pay for the privilege. 

The fees will range from about $3.15 to $10.50 per person depending on how congested the city is — the busier it gets, the more it will cost. Just how busy it is will apparently be forecast by the number of would-be visitors who will have to log on to an official website, where they will state their intention to visit and receive a QR code that will give them the right to enter.

In Italy, rules from on high tend to bend a bit in practice, and hopeful tourists could still try to travel to Venice without a QR code, but any who are found strolling about without one risk a fine as high as $315.

Despite the sweeping change to how many people will now get their first taste of what is arguably the most unique city in the world — few others have streets made of water and, if they do, Venice had them first — there will be no caps on the maximum number of visitors allowed and no turnstiles at the entrances to the city. At least, no plans for such were announced.

The AP reported that at a news conference the deputy mayor, Simone Venturini, said, “We won’t talk about number cutoffs. We’re talking about incentives and disincentives.” He also said that Venice is the only city in the world putting such a system for day visitors in place.

More than a decade ago, some were already calling Venice the first urban theme park, and for better or worse the council’s initiative pushes the city, which already resembles an elaborate film set, one step closer to full on Disneyfication.

During the two years of the pandemic, which had as its European epicenter the Lombardy region west of Venice, tourism in the city came to a virtual standstill. In the summer of 2022, however, overtourism is once again rearing its head.

The rationale for charging visitors to see Venice is that they now vastly outnumber residents. About four-fifths of all tourists come to Venice just for the day. In 2019, around 19 million day-trippers visited Venice, against a local population that has dwindled to no more than 50,000.

Day visitors provide just a fraction of the revenue of those staying for one night or more, with locals complaining that many of them even bring their meals to eat outside instead of frequenting the restaurants and cafes packed into the city’s minuscule two square miles. Often, the visitors don’t bother to clean up, locals claim.  

Mr. Venturini said that the city wants to reduce frictions between day visitors and residents, but the imposition of fees could also be seen as a move to court not just longer staying but higher-spending tourists.

It is not clear what enforcement mechanisms will be put in place,  and there are also a number of exemptions. Children under 6 and people with disabilities will not have to pay, nor will those on airport layovers.

Hotel guests already are hit with a lodging tax, usually demanded on checkout and in cash, and will not have to pay for or present a QR code next year. Cruise ship passengers, who often throng the classic Instagram hot spots like Piazza San Marco and the Rialto bridge for only a few hours at a time, will have to pay. 

Will Venice’s money-hungry moves set a precedent for other popular spots full to bursting with tourists after the lean pandemic years? It is too soon to say. It’s worth noting, though, that before the Covid crisis there was talk of local authorities charging tourists to see the sunset from one clifftop section of Santorini, as a way of managing overcrowding on that popular Greek island.

Let’s hope that officials there and  in other tourist magnets such as, say, Lower Manhattan, take note of all this — or, rather, that they do not.