Some 1.5 million tourists flocked to the city last summer
Florence, Italy:
Goldsmith Tommaso Pestelli has been evicted from his historic Florentine workshop to make way for a luxury hotel, a victim of what critics say is the ravaging mass tourism industry this Italian city.
Calls for urgent action to protect the city center, a UNESCO site, grew louder last month after a museum director said “hit-and-run” tourism had turned Florence into a “whore”.
Some 1.5 million tourists flocked to the city last summer, a 6.6% increase on the previous year, while an increasing number of independent shops and residential apartments are being converted into fast food restaurants and holiday homes.
“We’ve been open since 1908. If you get rid of us and a lot of people like us, you take away part of the spirit of this city,” Pestelly said. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all goldsmiths before him.
Pestelli, 55, managed to find another small workshop nearby, but he said many fellow artisans were not so lucky.
Official data shows average monthly residential rents soared 42% between 2016 and 2023, while the number of apartments listed on Airbnb jumped from about 6,000 to nearly 15,000.
Even in February, lines of tourists snake through the Duomo Quarter and gather around Michelangelo’s David.
“Florence is turning into an empty box” as locals are forced out and traditional shops disappear, Pestri said.
Elena Bellini, 47, who sells works by local artists, said the decline in the number of long-term residents is damaging the community and leading to more crime, such as attempted burglaries.
“Florence is dying!” reads a notice in a jeweler’s window stating that the city has been “sold” to big business.
Airbnb ban
The Tuscan capital is not alone. Other popular destinations such as Venice and the Cinque Terre in northwestern Italy have also seen locals driven away by astronomical rents, overcrowded venues and endless souvenir shops.
While Venice is trialling a ticketing system that charges day visitors admission during peak season, Florence’s center-left city council has launched a campaign to lure tourists away from the city center.
Deputy mayor Alessia Bettini told AFP: “People are increasingly looking for ‘experience-based itineraries’, so we have to promote… other historical, artistic, natural and gastronomic points of interest. “
The number of tourists visiting surrounding villages, castles and monasteries rose by 4.5% in January, while the number of hikers on the Path of the Gods, which crosses the Apennines to Bologna, rose by 22% last year.
The council is also trying to free up housing for locals and prevent further spikes in rents by banning the construction of new short-term private holiday homes in the historic centre.
The measure, passed in October, also includes tax breaks for landlords if they switch back to a regular lease.
‘Gone never to come back’
Despite the ban, a dozen craftsmen were evicted from a workshop in a building near the Ponte Vecchio that was planned to be converted into a tourist industry.
“The tradition of goldsmiths in Florence was going to collapse very quickly,” Pestri said.
A few streets away, Gabriele Maselli, president of the Historical and Commercial Association of Florence, hand-painted a gold picture frame as rows of brightly colored jars and powders lined the shelves behind him.
A large cross stands on one wall, and nearby restorers are repairing the surface of a damaged painting.
“People come to Florence to find high-quality items that are handcrafted with care,” said Maselli, 58.
“If one business is forced to close, it affects the entire production chain. The whole world is closed and gone forever”.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
