Virus lockdown gives Venice a shot at reimagining tourism

In Venice, a city famous for being visited by too many and home to too few, children’s play w fills neighborhood squares, fishermen sell ir catch to home cooks, and water buses convey masked and gloved commuters to businesses preparing to reopen.

At same time, famed lacquered black gondolas remain moored to quay; hotel rooms are empty, museum doors sealed; and St. Mark’s Square — rmally teeming in any season — is traversed at any given moment by

For years, Venice has faced an almost existential crisis, as unbridled success of its tourism industry threatened to ruin things that have drawn visitors for centuries. w coronavirus pandemic has dammed off tide of tourists and hobbled city’s ecomy.

Residents hope crisis has also provided an opportunity to reimagine one of world’s most fragile cities, creating a more sustainable tourism industry and attracting more full-time residents.

pandemic — following on heels of a series of exceptional floods in vember that dealt a first ecomic blow — ground to a halt Italy’s most-visited city, stanching flow of 3 billion euros ($3.2 billion) in annual tourism-related revenue, vast majority of city's intake. Promised government assistance has been predictably slow to arrive.

city that has inspired painters like Canaletto and Turner is w a blank canvas.

“This allows us to rethink life in historic center,” said Mayor Luigi Brugnaro, speaking in empty piazza in front of St. Mark’s Basilica this week.

population of historic center

Brugnaro also wants to create a center to study climate change, given

He would like to resize

“Venice is a slow city,” Brugnaro said. “ slowness of Venice is beauty of Venice.”

Visions for Venice’s future include calls to offer tax breaks to bring tritional manufacturing back to historic center. Civic groups have suggested incentives to restore tritional ways of Venetian life, like standing rowboats used for centuries by residents but that struggle to compete with motorized boats. re is hope that tourist trap shops that disappeared after shutdown will be replaced with more sustainable businesses.

Bevilacqua — maker of luxury textiles used by fashion houses such as Dior, Valenti and Dolce&Gabbana — is only manufacturer in operation on Grand Canal.

“To relaunch, Venice must return to its past,” said Rodolfo Bevilacqua. “You cant, and I will use a heavy term, profane it daily. That is, people who don’t clean up after mselves.”

While pandemic has offered a glimpse at a cleaner, slower Venice, alrey re are signs of how hard it will be to maintain that, let alone implement grander plans. Jane da Mosto, executive director of NGO We Are Here Venice, tes that bars that have begun to reopen are serving with disposable plates and cutlery — t more sustainable alternatives.

Debates over how to man tourism have always been heated in Venice and are especially fraught w. Venice's

mayor and tourism officials estimate it will be at least a year until tourists — who have numbered 30 million a year — return in any significant numbers. While many are reveling in drop in ise pollution and improved air quality, a year without tourists also means many jobs will be wiped out.

“It will be a fight for survival,” said Claudio Scarpa, he of Venetian hotel association.

docking of cruise ships is halted for this year. Gondoliers aren’t being permitted to glide through canals until June 1, and many are struggling, having received just one payment of 600 euros from government.

ir future even after that date remains uncertain. gondolier's position at rear of boat allows eugh distance to spare m mask requirement. But Andrea Balbi, he of association representing city’s 433 gondoliers, said that rules so far won’t permit m to help tourists on and off rocky boats. extended hand is t just a courtesy, Balbi said, but a condition of insurance cover.

Arrigo Cipriani, owner of Harry’s Bar, said he is t even thinking about opening wood-paneled, canal-side bar me famous by Ernest Hemingway until health restrictions are relaxed. His bar offers some of best people-watching in Venice over peachy Bellini cocktails — but it is just 9½ meters by 4 meters (30 feet by 13 feet), which under current rules would allow only a fraction of usual clientele.

“Hospitality means freedom. It means an absence of imposition,” Cipriani said — and doesn't happen over a mask.

Nearby, Hotel Saturnia is spacing out its bar tables to reopen next Monday. “We want to send a positive mess,” said owner Gianni Serandrei.

Brugnaro, mayor, is hoping to send a signal of recovery by staging popular Redeemer’s festival in July. annual event celebrates end of plague in 1577 — one of most disastrous episodes in Venetian history — with a regatta and a spectacular fireworks display.

“It will be something out of this world to see," he said, "watching from a boat in St. Mark’s Basin.”