The truth about cruise ships in Venice

4 min readMay 9, 2021

It was the story that made waves around the world: cruise ships banned from Venice.
On March 31, the Italian government issued a decree that would see cruise ships and large commercial vessels banned from the Venetian lagoon, and calling for tenders to be sought to construct a new port outside the lagoon.
Yet just 15 days later, MSC Cruises announced that the MSC Orchestra would be heading up the Giudecca Canal, gliding past St Mark’s Square and docking in the city-center port on June 5.
MSC’s two ships for this season will be joined by one from Costa Cruises. The Costa Deliziosa will use Venice as its homeport from June 26.
So what exactly is going on?
Stories have been swirling for several years about the possibility of cruise ships being banned from the historic center of Venice.
As things stand, their approach to the current cruise port — located on the edge of the city center — sees the ships sailing past the UNESCO World Heritage site of St Mark’s Square.
They then continue along the Giudecca Canal, a body of water separating Venice “center” from the island of Giudecca, which sits opposite the central district of Dorsoduro. The wide canal is already a major thoroughfare for ferry and water taxi traffic.Cruise ships sail up the 4 kilometer (2.5 mile) canal, before turning right to dock at the “Marittima” port on the western edge of Venice’s historic center.
Opponents of cruise ships say that the ships aren’t just an ugly addition to the unique cityscape. They also say that the presence of ships in the lagoon is negatively changing the ecosystem, and damaging the notoriously fragile city with the movement of water they cause.
They also point to accidents such as the one in June 2019, when the MSC Opera nicked the city shoreline on its way towards the cruise terminal, ramming a smaller boat and scraping the sidewalk.
But supporters of the industry point to the number of local jobs that cruises create — around 4,200 related to the cruise industry, according to figures provided to CNN from the port, with over 1,700 working directly with passengers.
“Cruises are extremely important for us,” says Andrea Tomaello, deputy mayor of Venice.
“The port generates income for our city, and it’s a quality income — cruise passengers spend, and stay longer in town.”
Figures for 2018 — the last year of normal cruising, since in 2019 Venice was hit by devastating floods — show that 1.8 million passengers moved through Venice, spending an estimated €55 million ($67 million), he says.
Venice is Italy’s second busiest port, and the fifth busiest in the Mediterranean.
Most importantly, he says, it’s Italy’s biggest homeport — meaning that passengers are more likely to stay in the city before or after their cruise, and fly into the local airport.
“The cruise sector is estimated to represent 3.2% of the local gross domestic product, so lots of workers rely on it,” he says.
A political stalemate
Despite — or perhaps because of — the polarities of the two viewpoints, no progress has been made in recent years, although plenty of stakeholders have pushed for a decision.
But there’s also the problem that there’s no clear compromise solution.
What’s more, the ultimate decisions are being taken in Rome — 330 miles south.
“The problem is that the politicians in Rome who have the power to make these decisions are out of touch with the reality and complexity of Venice’s relationship to the lagoon,” says anti-cruise ship campaigner and environmental scientist Jane da Mosto.
“In the meantime, Venice is crumbling.”As things stand, there are three — or, really, four — suggestions on the table.
One is to allow the ships to continue as they are, sailing up the Giudecca Canal — which is one of the few routes where the lagoon, which can be just centimeters-shallow in places, is deep enough to take vessels of that size.
Another is to move the cruise port to Porto Marghera, squaring off against Venice on the Italian mainland. The commercial port is already located here, on the edge of the industrial center of Marghera.
To get to Marghera, boats don’t use the Giudecca Canal. Instead, they enter the lagoon at the southern end of the Lido (the long sandbar island that divides the lagoon and the Adriatic Sea) — specifically, by the village of Malamocco, squeezing between the Lido and neighboring island Pellestrina.From there, they bypass the city and head to the mainland, past the ferry terminal of Fusina and the factories of Marghera, to dock at the commercial port nearby.

One option, which appears to have been discounted for now, is to route the ships along the commercial route to Marghera, but not dock there. Instead they’d turn right, along the disused Vittorio Emanuele III Canal connecting Marghera to Marittima, and dock at the current cruise port.
Or, finally, there’s the option to build a brand new port somewhere outside the lagoon. This would avoid any environmental impact from the giant ships in the shallow lagoon.
However, any of the new options on the table would need time to build new infrastructure — meaning that for now, any ship coming in must take the current route.

The truth about cruise ships in Venice

Written by Moviengelid