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In Venice, housing has a significant impact on the city’s environment, especially from a social perspective. Here are some tips and best practices for finding a place to live without contributing to the deterioration of the residential housing stock.
It’s not just transportation that has an impact when you travel. In Venice, where the arrival of Airbnb has wreaked havoc, this is quite obvious: according to figures from OCIO (the Civic Observatory on Housing in Venice), the number of tourist beds has reportedly exceeded the number available to residents. With virtually no regulation, tourist rentals make it extremely difficult for locals to access housing, create precarious jobs (housekeeping staff or “check-in agents” working as independent contractors), and disrupt the lives of neighbors with the constant coming and going of suitcases. As tourist housing becomes more widespread, neighborhood businesses are changing: “pasta-to-go” shops are replacing the cobbler, and luggage storage facilities are moving into spaces vacated by the produce stand. Yet, there are positive alternatives. We’ve selected a few of them.
This platform offers rooms or accommodations for short-term rent, but with a slight difference from traditional rental sites. When you book, you pay a fee, half of which goes to Fairbnb to cover its administrative costs, and the other half to the nonprofit of your choice. For example, we support the nonprofit We Are Here, Venice, which is dedicated to protecting the lagoon, or Venice Calls, a network that promotes volunteer efforts to make a difference in the city and take action to improve its environment.
Inside Venice is a media outlet run by a team of Venetians for visitors to their city. Founded by a family of hoteliers, it promotes local culture, offers authentic experiences with Venetians, and rents rooms in three different properties: Hotel Flora, a charming guesthouse behind St. Mark’s Square; Casa Flora; and Novecento, apartments that require a minimum stay of three days. By promoting local businesses and banning single-use plastics in their rooms, these three properties are leading the way toward a greener hospitality industry.
Flora Hotel
Camping is obviously more eco-friendly, since it requires neither the construction of buildings nor the conversion of homes into vacation rentals, making it a good way to reduce your environmental impact. That said, in Venice’s historic center, there’s no way you can pitch a tent—it’s prohibited. For that, head to the mainland, at the Fusina Campground, connected to Venice by public transportation. The advantage is that you stay right on the edge of the lagoon, with a view of Venice on the horizon. If you’re traveling without a tent, you can also rent a bungalow there—which is always more eco-friendly than a room in one of Mestre’s hotels, which have sprung up like mushrooms over the past decade.
View of Venice from Camping Fusina
While Venice was built around the Grand Canal, the lagoon that surrounds it is, in a way, its countryside. On the agricultural islands, a few homes nestled in the countryside help foster a more sustainable approach to tourism. This is the case on Sant’Erasmo, a vegetable-growing island where a local variety of purple artichokes is cultivated. Here, you can stay at Basego, a country house renovated into an “agriturismo”—the Italian term for these types of accommodations that combine agricultural production with tourist lodging. On the island of Mazzorbo, connected to the more famous Burano by a bridge, there is also a sustainable project that combines vineyards, a vegetable garden, and lodging. Venissa, as it’s called, features two restaurants—including a Michelin-starred one that showcases local lagoon produce—a vegetable garden, and several vineyards on the islands... For lodging, you can choose between a room above the small vineyard and the “albergo diffuso,” a type of accommodation consisting of several rooms scattered across the island of Burano. It’s an appealing idea: instead of adding to the throngs of tourists who flood Burano every day only to leave before sunset, you take the time to spend at least one night living at the island’s own pace.
As we have seen, Airbnb has a significant impact on Venetians’ access to housing and benefits only a few property owners (70% of listings come from users who manage multiple properties, according to data from Inside Airbnb). We’ve moved from the “sharing economy” to a system where rentals are concentrated in the hands of just a few landlords. If you really have no other choice, then look for a room in a private home—these make up only 20% of the listings. In this case, renting out a room can provide the owner with supplemental income and truly allow for a shared experience. Be careful, however, to make sure it’s truly a room in a resident’s home, because often the apartment is shared—but with other tourists—like a B&B disguised as an Airbnb.
Bonus: If you stay overnight, you’re exempt from the entrance fee charged to day visitors on certain days in the spring and summer. You only pay the lodging tax for your accommodation!
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