An admission charge may be needed along with your passport and train ticket the next time you decide to visit Florence. According to new regulations accounced last week during the III National Conference for Tourism, each Italian municipality now has the right to apply a city tax of 5 euro per visitor.
Only Florentine citizens and official residents will be exempt from this new rule. The tax is meant to make profit from the masses of tourists who already visit or commute through Florence regularly.
The tax is optional and may not be enforced in Florence unless it is approved by residents. The money would go toward the citys service sector to supplement funds needed to manage Florences upkeep.
No one is sure how this new law will be carried out by the Florentine tourism sector. Selecting exemptions such as study abroad students could prove to be a problem.
Tourism experts such as counselor Silvano Gori believe technology will play a major role in implementing the new tax law.
"I think we have the technological means for determining who is exempt from payment. We just have to study the best way to put the system into effect," Gori says.
Florentine residents may soon watch as their city becomes a Renaissance amusement park complete with admission and turnstiles. No one knows the exact effect this law will make, but tourists and citizens alike will be touched by this new city tax. At last Florence can officially call itself a Renaissance Disneyland.
Alyssa Teague
