UNESCO watches as Venice grapples with over-tourism amid return to normalcy post pandemic's ravages

After a 15-month pause in mass international travel, Venetians are contemplating how to welcome visitors back to their picture-postcard canals and Byzantine backdrops. Private investment has converted the forgotten public island just a 15-minute waterbus ride from St. Mark’s Square into a multi-faceted urban park where Venetians and Venice conoscenti can mix, free from the tensions inherent to the lagoon city’s perennial plague of mass tourism. “Everyone knows the first song of the A-side of our long-play, almost nobody, not even the most expert or locals, know the lagoon as an interesting natural and cultural environment.” It may be now or never for Venice, whose fragile city and lagoon environment alike are protected as a UNESCO world heritage site. The proposal, submitted in March, aims to make Venice a “world sustainability capital,” and hopes to tap some of the 222 million euros in EU recovery funds to help hard-hit Italy relaunch from the pandemic. “Venice without tourists became a city that could not serve its own citizens,” said Anna Moretti, an expert in destination management at Venice’s Ca’ Foscari University.