Two electronic counters in Venice track demographic decline and tourism pressure. One counter at a pharmacy in Rialto shows residents dropping from 60,704 at installation in 2008 to 47,461 last Tuesday, while another counter at a bookshop shows tourist beds rising to 52,541. Tourists already outnumber residents, and during Covid-19 lockdown no one lived within a 300-metre radius of the pharmacy. Visitor numbers have surged from nine million in 2015 to 34.5 million in 2025, far exceeding other large cities. Daily signs of exhaustion include overcrowded vaporetto and businesses advising faster options. Municipal elections are underway, with blame directed at the long-serving mayor and proposals to limit access to the city.
"In Venice, two electronic counters track its decline. One is on the Morelli pharmacy, in Rialto, in the San Marco district, the most depopulated, and shows the number of residents: last Tuesday it read 47,461 (when it was installed in 2008, the number was 60,704, and in 1977, 100,000). The other is at the Marco Polo bookshop, on the other side of the bridge, in the Campo Santa Margherita, a more residential area. It shows the number of beds for tourists: on Tuesday, it read 52,541. There are already more tourists than people living in Venice."
"Andrea Morelli, the third generation to run the pharmacy since 1906 his daughter is the fourth recalls that during the Covid-19 pandemic, people were only allowed to leave home to go to a pharmacy within a 300metre radius. And no one came here. No one lived within 300 metres. At night, during lockdown, every light was out. The influx of visitors has surged out of control, especially since the pandemic: there were nine million in 2015 and 34.5 million in 2025."
"Signs of exhaustion are everywhere: Venetians on their way to work unable to board the vaporetto because it's already full, or a sign in English at a bar that reads, If you're in a hurry, go to a fastfood place. Andrea Morelli, of the Morelli pharmacy in Rialto, who has run the Venice population counter since 2008, this Tuesday. Many blame that lack of control on the man who has governed the city for 11 years, Luigi Brugnaro, the rightwing mayor who embraced an aggressive, extractive tourism model."
"Municipal elections are being held in Venice until Monday, 3:00 p.m. The vote is considered an existential dilemma, as if the moment to act had finally arrived. Polls indicate a possible victory for Andrea Martella, the centreleft coalition candidate a further sign of the weakening of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's rightwing bloc. Martella is proposing to limit access to the cit"
Read at english.elpais.com
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