Timed access and restricted hours

Visit the Trevi Fountain for one euro and limit the number of short-term rentals in the historic centre of the eternal city are some of the proposals put forward by the councillor for tourism in Rome, Alessandro Onorato, to combat mass tourism.

“I would be in favor of studying a new access, restricted and by schedulewith a system of booking: free for Romans and paid, with a symbolic euro, for tourists,” Onorato explained in an interview with Corriere della Sera.

The objective of this possible measure would be reduce crowds around the monument and discourage the consumption of pizza and ice cream in the squareto avoid the waste that accumulates on the floor and stairs of one of the largest monumental fountains of the Roman Baroque.

5 euros to access the Pantheon

This is not the first time that the Rome City Council has studied measures to limit tourist access and last summer a fee of five euros to enter the Pantheon, the most visited monument in Italy, although it is free for city residents.

Councillor Onorato would also like to reduce the number of short-term rentals (less than 30 days) which has almost doubled in the capital in recent years, going from 17,000 in 2018 to more than 30,000 currently.

“Tourists risk staying in basements or repurposed garages, with enormous damage to the image of our city,” he warned.

Onorato is calling on the central government of Giorgia Meloni to give regions more autonomy when it comes to granting licences for this type of accommodation, in order to preserve places affected by mass tourism, where there are hardly any residents left and local shops and craft workshops are tending to disappear.

“We can limit the number of restaurants or chip shops in the historic centre, but we cannot prevent the opening of extra-hotel facilities,” the councillor complains indignantly.

“We want to put a stop to it, perhaps for two or three years, safeguarding historical and artistic heritagethe quality of trade and the right to residence, but our hands are tied,” he laments.

Rome was Europe’s leading tourist city in 2023, with some 50 million visitors, according to the report on European urban tourism by the City Destinations Alliance portal.