We don’t need to go all in on 1 specific strategy. A diversity of tactics will always be best. From the sounds of it, activists are also trying to ban yachts.

Assuming that their concerns are some mixture of:

• More tourism than residents want.

• Tourists not contributing money (because they’re staying on the ship and eating on the ship, so the cruise line has figured out how to capture providing those services).

I’d think that it’d be far simpler to just charge an entry fee, rather than outright banning classes of ships.

If someone’s going to pay an entry fee, then there’s no question that they’re dropping some money into the city. That’s predictable, and they can adjust pricing to throttle tourist traffic to whatever level of traffic they want.

The only time I’d think it’d make sense to ban a class of ships is if there are some problems tied fundamentally to the ship class. I remember reading that one concern in Venice was that the amount of water pressure created by very large ships was creating some kind of erosion problems – I mean, the city’s ancient.

kagis

Looks like they required large cruise ships to disembark at a different center, rather than sailing straight into the city, though they can still visit.

https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/news/story/venice-divert-large-cruise-ships-city-center-51038139

� – After years of studies, protests and legal debates, the Italian government has announced that large cruise ships and other massive vessels will no longer be able to enter Venice’s large canal, preventing tens of thousands of tourists a day from disembarking in the heart of the famous city on the water.

The vessels will now dock in a new passenger facility that will be built in the nearby industrial port town of Marghera on the Venetian mainland. The mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, hailed the plan as a compromise to residents and environmental groups and said the move will not affect the lucrative tourism businesses.

In that situation, sure, then I can see it making sense.