On December 16th the City Council Tourist Dept, released its yearly report.
In 2007 the City of Venice had 8,842,874 visitors lodged in all kind of facilities (hotels, pensions, b&B, campings) with a 7.2% increase on 2006. 7,415,986 were foreigners and 1,426,888 were Italians.
Reviewing the 2007 data, Venice historical centre reached the pick of 5,875,370 visitors in 2007. Lido beach got 565.862 visitors while the mainland urban areas of Mestre and Marghera got 2.401.642 tourists.
Besides the figures above another 1,003,529 passengers arrived or departed in Venice through the port in 2007.
Figures are getting worse in 2008: in the Jan-Oct frame there were 7,500,000 visitors and a -4.7% decrease on previous year. Final estimation for 2008 indicates that some 8,562,000 visitor will be reached.
Where are they from? By increase: Russia 108.252 visitors +26,4% on ‘07- France 808.594 visitors +7.8% on ’07 – Italy 1,258,828 visitors + 5.5% on ’07. By decrease: USA 1,016,437 visitors -18.4% on ’07 – Japan 230,780 visitors -14.7% on ’07 – UK 694,000 visitors -10.2 on ’07 – Spain 442.814 visitors -8.05% on ’07 – Germany 466.954 visitors -6.2 on ’07. China had 104.148 visitors with a -7.1% decrease.
Still this is only one part of the story since no one can keep sure track of the other millions who get to Venice by coach, train, cars and other vehicles and do not spend even a night in the city either in the historical centre or in the mainland. The Tourist Dept. says then that overall number of visitors in Venice in 2007 could have reached the overwhelming and record number of 20,000,000!!
The enormous increase of tourism in Venice can be seen comparing a few years of statistics.
The following figures are related only to visitors lodging in Venice historical center excluding Lido beach and Mestre-Marghera mainland urban areas. From this data we can see how it took about 27 years to double from 1,0 million to 2,0 million (1950-1977) and to almost double again in only 11 years (1994-2005). Or from 3.0 million to almost 6.0 million in 13 years (1994 – 2007)
1949 – 985.085
1950 – 1.097.366
1955 – 1.420.749
1960 – 1.563.427
1965 – 1.720.660
1970 – 1.940.239
1975 – 1.859.826
1977 – 2.076.229
1980 – 2.487.687
1985 – 2.768.655
1990 – 2.760.068
1994 – 3.063.046
1995 – 3.234.870
2000 – 3.562.728
2003 – 3.829.285
2005 – 4.925.182
2007 – 5.875.370
Sources: Venice City Council statistics dep.t – Venice Passenger Terminal statistics dep.t
