Rome: tourist
shoots scooter from iconic Spanish Steps and wreaks havoc on 25,000 euros
An American tourist has caused €25,000 worth of damage
after she threw an electric scooter down the iconic steps of Rome's UNESCO
World Heritage Site.
Leaks
June 8, 2022,
17:23
Two weeks ago, a
tourist from Saudi Arabia descended the famous Spanish Steps behind the wheel
of a Maserati. Now, an American tourist decided to go down the steps with an
electric scooter by hand, throwing it "three times" along the way,
details La Repubblica, wreaking havoc in the order of 25,000 euros in the
monument, classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The incident in
the Italian capital was filmed by a passerby in the early hours of Friday and
shortly after, local police allegedly caught and fined the 28- and 29-year-old
couple of tourists for paying a fine "of 400 euros each." The pair
were also banned from returning to the monument, consisting of 135 marble
steps, built in the 18th century and restored in 2015 on a budget of 1.5
million euros.
The monumental
staircase that joins the Plaza de España, at the base, to Trindade do Monte
Square, dominated by the façade of the church at the top, is an inescapable
visit on a sightseeing tour of Rome – from so desirable to tourists, it became
forbidden in 2018 to sit on the staircase, with fines that can range from 250
to 400 euros.
After two years
of pandemic, the number of tourists in the Italian capital is returning to
pre-covid values and, with the crowds avid for sightseeing and fun, cases of
disrespect for the rules imposed by the authorities are also resonating.
In April, two
Dutch tourists were fined €1,000 after entering the Trevi Fountain – recalling
the controversial discussion relaunched in 2020 about the possibility of
creating a one-metre high barrier around the iconic fountain to "protect
one of Rome's most important and visited monuments." A few days earlier,
an Argentine had been fined for flying a drone in a restricted zone, after
losing control of the device and it fell on the roof of the Venice Palace, the
15th-century building where Mussolini delivered some of his most famous
speeches.
Are we killing our historic cities?
Started 15/10/2021 Future, Quality
https://www.debatingeurope.eu/2021/10/15/are-we-killing-our-historic-cities/#.YqD39ahBy3A
There is
hardly anything more prestigious for a city than to be included in UNESCO’s
World Heritage List. With over 500 sites listed, Europe is the continent which
boats the most World Heritage sites (no doubt also because of the Euro-centric
selection criteria). In some cases, entire cities or historic town centers are
classified as world heritage, a status that next to reputation also brings
other considerable benefits. Studies have shown that world heritage status has
contributed to economic regeneration, conservation, education, funding and
enhanced civic pride in sites.
Most of the
economic benefits that come along with the status are connected to the rise in
tourism. However, the ever-increasing numbers of tourist have also proved to be
a double-edged sword for historic cities. While tourists bring money to shops
and restaurants, in some cases the stampede of visitors has left cities over-crowded,
and increased demand inflates prices and drives out locals from city centres.
This phenomenon has been termed “Unesco-cide” by Italian journalist Marco
d’Eramo, who criticises the notion that UNESCO preserves historic sites, but
allows the destruction of communities within or around them. So, are we really
preserving our historic cities, or are we actually killing them?
What do our
readers think? We received a comment from Florian, who says that, in the past,
Venice “was a city full of charm and history, and also famed for culture. But
today it’s full of people and you literally cannot breathe. I think we have to
take care of culture cities and bring them back to the roots!”
We put his
comment to Anna Lisa Boni, the Secretary General of Eurocities. Eurocities is a
network of more than 200 cities in 38 countries that works together with the EU
and aims to ensure a good quality of life for all. What does Anna Lisa Boni
think, what are the negative sides of tourism on cities and what can we do to stop
them?
Already for a long time the effects of mass
tourism have been clear and recognised. City centers have changed heavily with
mass tourism: there restaurants go cheaper, houses are filled with tourists on
Airbnb, it gets difficult for local businesses to survive, city centers become
empty of residents and are filled only with tourists, streets start to look all
the same with retailing chains taking shop everywhere… In many Italian cities
you have had this problem for a long time, especially in cities that are not as
big as Rome, for example like Venice and Florence, where space is definitely
more limited.
This is not sustainable for such cities and that
is why local authorities have tried to regulate this for a while. For instance,
by limiting the number of hotel licences in the center, or by pushing for
multinational digital platforms like Airbnb to share data to avoid illegal
rentals etc. They take these actions to avoid that city centers end up becoming
museums or pubs.
In this debate housing is a real issue. Very
often cities have emptied themselves or there have been problems with residents
because private owners rent their homes to digital platform like Airbnb that
cannot be regulated or controlled. So one problem is the impact of unregulated growth
of Short Term Holiday Rentals in local communities. The consequences of illegal
rentals can include reducing the stock of houses intended for residential use,
but also, talking about tourists, the increase of nuisances (e.g. noise
disturbance) especially in city centers, and sometimes breaching other areas of
public safety such as how many people can stay in one location. For these
reasons, at Eurocities we have supported many of our cities to call for a solid
regulatory framework to effectively help them enforce the national, regional or
local rules that are in place, along with appropriate regulatory tools that
should be better defined also at the EU level, for example in the EU’s Digital
Services Act to solve the cross-border nature of online services.
Since Florian also speaks of culture, it is also
about working in a renewed way with cities’ cultural heritage. Rediscovering
and revitalising historic downtown neighbourhoods as a way to spark the wider
city centre revitalisation can be very important. For instance revitalising
neighbourhoods by giving it to creatives, using open calls from cities to
support the growth of creative businesses and an attractive city centre. At the
same time though, cities must renovate and pedestrianise public areas. Or see
cultural spaces, bars and cafes with a local flavour and managed by small
businesses as a way to revitalise and attract tourists to creative districts.
Cultural investments should be seen as essential to local economic development
(real estate, industrial or service-based) and territorial attractiveness and
cultural policy should make the most of local cultural and creative industries
(working with the local game company, for instance, in developing story-telling
and interactive apps or with local artists – street art and festivals).
In short, cities should see culture as a key
element in the experience economy to make places attractive to visit, settle or
invest in.
Our reader
Civis, on the other hand, thinks that cities don’t have much of a choice other
than embracing tourism. He says “tourism is the only serious income for many
historic cities which have lost their previous roles. I can’t imagine Venice or
Dubrovnik without tourism.” Is Civis right? What does Anna Lisa Boni, Secretary
General of Eurocities, think?
We were obliged to imagine – and actually even
witness – Venice and Dubrownik without tourism, during COVID-19, which is,
fundamentally, an urban pandemic and it has exposed a number of systemic urban
vulnerabilities: access to basic services and rights, healthcare, housing,
digital rights in particular, but also economic and environmental
sustainability and resilience. European city centres, shaped by mass tourism
for decades, were shown to be fragile when lockdown measures and travel
restrictions emptied them of tourists and the deep economic recession brought
hotels, shops and restaurants to close. The pandemic has highlighted the need
to rethink these urban areas and transition towards greater socio-cultural,
economic and environmental sustainability.
Urban tourism was hit harder by the pandemic than
any other urban economic activity. That is why European city governments have
devoted numerous efforts to supporting businesses and the tourism sector
through a range of types of policy measures. But they are also aware of the
need to diversify local economies in order to ensure greater resilience and
economic sustainability, particularly in city centres, while at the same time
rethinking the urban tourism model so that it better reconciles residents’
well-being with quality tourism.
In order to foster this change in city centres,
however, this endeavour has to go hand in hand with measures undertaken in other
policy sectors such as housing, governance and sustainability. Transforming
urban centres in mixed, sustainable and resilient neighbourhoods entails
dealing with issues beyond the urban economy, such as ensuring urban
polycentrism (decentralised provision of services, labour opportunities,
transportation options, green areas, etc.), boosting local commerce and
ensuring diversity of housing opportunities (social, public and private housing
in the different urban areas). It also means that long-term strategies must be
drawn up in a way that build on the previous experiences with overtourism in
cities.
So, in short: we must really think that firstly,
mass tourism is not an answer to a city’s problems of economic development and
secondly, the traditional model has to be rethought .
Finally,
our reader Nadl has some suggestions how we could all help to reduce the impact
of tourism on historic cities. She says: “Travelling is amazing, you will get
to know new culture, people, idea, life styles… You learn a lot from
travelling. However, there are always some difficulties of coexistence of the
tourists and the locals. Often cities are polluted and the residents are
aggravated by the tourists. My opinion: Stop to pollute – and just enjoy your
trip!” Is less pollution and sustainable tourism the answer for cities who
suffer from tourism? What does Anna Lisa Boni think?
Tourism, as it has been conceived in the last
decades, is per se not sustainable. Often the way people travel is the problem.
The forms of environmental-friendly tourism are still too much of a niche and
do not fly. Tourists can be a problem, because of the way they travel, the way
they consume and the way they stay. So, it is important to really support those
cities that do their best to move to different forms of tourism that are linked
to a positive urban development of their city.
For example, those cities, that try to rebrand
themselves, through their cultural offers and heritage for instance, use
cultural heritage much more, and cultural heritage for mixed uses as well for
instance citizens engagement or economic activities so culture is connected to
tourism but also to other activities that are done and used by the residents.
Or those cities, that try to organise the housing market, so that city centers
are not only covered with multinational digital platforms related
accommodations. We also need to support cities that aim to connect tourism
policies with the urban regeneration of some areas so that new itineraries are
created, cultural heritage is valued and new parts of a city get promoted and
known. And finally, we need to support cities in their efforts to go carbon
neutral and therefore make an effort also to reach the targets in the tourism
field.
Are we
preserving or killing our historic cities? Can historic cities even survive
without tourism? What can we do against the negative side effects of tourism?
Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below!
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