How Venice is faring in its worst year since the plague hit
The past year hasn’t been the worst in Venice’s history – the plague killed 50,000 inhabitants between 1576 and 1577 and the city has seen off various invasions over the centuries – but it has still provided unparalleled challenges.
On November 12 last year, after heavy rain, there was a surge in the semi-annual acqua alta and photographs of a submerged city went around the world. Paolo Lorenzoni, general manager of the Gritti Palace, said they had some serious challenges in reaching the hotel. “My hip-high waders filled with water,” he told Telegraph Travel, “but when the tide went down, colleagues came into help and by 11 o’clock in the morning we were ready to serve breakfast to our guests.”
“Floods are something that happens every year in Venice, we plan for them,” agreed Pierre-Charles Cros, co-owner of Il Experimental Palazzo in Venice’s Dorsoduro district.
“At one point the flood water reached 1.87 meters. Months afterwards, I got an email from someone saying that their child was only 1.2 meters and would he have to swim?
“Some water will always get in but we have metal barriers to put across doors and windows. The floods go down the next day, you clean up a bit and then you get on with it. Two weeks later, you wouldn’t have known anything had happened.”
In December and January though, tourist numbers were down around 40 per cent on the previous year. The pre-Lenten Carnival usually kick starts the year’s tourism but this year it coincided with the start of the coronavirus outbreak. On February 23, it was cancelled with two days left to run. On March 13, along with the rest of Italy, Venice’s hotels closed. Claudio Scarpo, head of the Venice Hoteliers Association, estimated that the losses from both events would eventually run into billions.
Most residents in Venice, directly or indirectly, earn their living from tourism. “It’s been a disaster,” says Matteo Secchi of the Venessia pressure group. “Because we are an island, we were able to isolate so we have had very few cases of Coronavirus but the economic impact will be huge. We have a bad winter in front of us; 80 per cent of our usual customers are not here. I don’t know if smaller hotels and restaurants will survive and it’s important that they do; Venice can’t survive without tourism.”
Venice also has the highest rate of Airbnb rentals to residents in Italy. Jane da Mosto of We Are Here Venice, an environmental pressure group said: "In the space of a couple of generations the resident population has approximately halved. There is potential for tens of thousands more people to live in Venice and by that I mean the historic city and the other islands: Murano, Burano, Torcello, Lido and Pellestrina. Many homes have been converted to tourist accommodation but also there are a lot of empty, abandoned buildings."
On the other hand, few people – whether residents or hoteliers – have missed the cruise ships docking at Venice. Previously, up to 18,000 people could disembark per day in the peak months of June, when tourists often outnumbered locals by up to 300 to 1, contributing little in terms of visiting restaurants, shops or museums but making life hard for those who do live in the city to get around.
When the Gritti Palace reopened on July 1, it did so with a socially-distant concert from the students of the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory on its terrace and opera singers performing from the windows and balconies. “I wanted to give a positive sign to the whole city,” Lorenzoni explained.
Hoteliers have also praised the Italian government for the way it has reopened hotels and restaurants. “They saved the summer,” said one. “There was an effort to make things feel quite normal, while abiding by safety protocol.”
Venice tourism hit a sweet spot this summer for Cros. ‘We had guests who really wanted to be in Venice. They were interested in its history and culture, it wasn’t just a place they were ticking off. The vibe was great. It’s how we’d like the city to be all the time.”
