Rome May Start Charging Tourists to See the Famous Trevi Fountain

Another day, another city fighting to stop overtourism.

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Rome is considering charging travelers for access to the famous Trevi Fountain to counter an influx of increasingly ill-behaved visitors, as reported by Bloomberg .

The historic, Baroque-era landmark, which Giuseppe Pannini completed in 1769, has become a must-see for travelers visiting the Italian capital. Visitors customarily throw coins into the fountain’s basin to ensure their return to the Eternal City. (The coins are scooped up and donated to a Catholic charity called Caritas Roma that supports the needy in Rome.) The symbolic act has, however, become so popular that tourists are flooding the surrounding piazza, disrupting the Trevi neighborhood, and upsetting residents.

As a result, Rome’s tourism commissioner Alessandro Onorato has suggested the city implement a timed entry system to the fountain’s square with a cap on the number of visitors per hour. Tickets would be free for residents, while non-Romans would pay a €1 ($1.11) fee. Onorato sees the “symbolic euro” as a way to slow the flow of tourists rather than a revenue generator for the city. Bloomberg notes that Italy’s national tourism minister has expressed support for the proposal, meaning the new measure could be rolled out next year for the city’s Jubilee.

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This isn’t the first time Rome has added fees to once-free attractions. Last year, the city started charging those from abroad €5 to visit the Pantheon, for example. The Trevi Fountain proposal is different, though, as it would charge for entry not to a building but to a public space that has been frequented since ancient times. (Water-seekers have been gathering at the fountain since the 18th century, Bloomberg notes.) The move comes as record numbers flock to the Eternal City: Some 35 million people visited Rome in 2023 and even more are expected in 2024.

Rome isn’t the only heavily touristed city working on ways to manage an unprecedented volume of visitors. Several popular destinations have enacted anti-tourism policies to quash growing crowds: Amsterdam has banned the construction of new hotels, and Venice has introduced day-tripper fees. Locals have also begun to protest against overtourism, with some Barcelona residents spraying visitors with water guns to get their point across. That certainly makes a €1 price tag more appealing.

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