Italian Pompeii will limit number of daily visitors to 20,000 in an effort to preserve the site and fight against over-tourism. This measure, along with the introduction of personalized tickets, will come into force from November 15. TASR informs about it according to the report of the DPA agency.
The archeological park approached the change after on one Sunday, when admission was free, more than 36,000 people visited Pompeii. They attracted more than four million visitors last year, which represents a year-on-year increase of 33.6 percent, according to data from the Italian Ministry of Culture. The daily average is approximately 11,200 people.
According to Reuters, the new restriction follows attempts by other popular tourist destinations to regulate the number of visitors. One of them is the Italian Venice, which for this purpose at the beginning of the year introduced entrance fees as the first ever city in the world. The director of the Pompeii Archeological Park, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, says reducing tourist pressure on the ancient site is important for its preservation and safety.
According to the spokesperson of the park, the threshold of 20,000 visitors per day is exceeded only on Sundays with free entry and during three or four normal days. On the first Sunday of the month, entry to Italian museums is free. The regular ticket to Pompeii moves differently from 18 euros.
The ancient city of Pompeii, located approximately 240 kilometers south of Rome, destroyed in AD 79 by the explosion of the nearby volcano Vesuvius. However, archaeologists are still discovering something at this place, for example, in October they found an unusually small house in which frescoes with mythological scenes are perfectly preserved.
