AGTA Tour Guides: Introducing named tickets at the Colosseum is likely to be ineffective

Regarding the introduction, as of today, of the named ticket for access to the Colosseum Archaeological Park and the new measures aimed at combating scalping at the Colosseum, we receive from AGTA - Association of Qualified Tourist Guides and publish the following statement.

“New measures aimed at countering ”scalping" at the Colosseum came into effect today.

The news was announced without prior discussion with operators (tour operators, tourist agencies and guide associations), just two days before the new rules came into effect, and without providing the necessary details, simply writing ’The way of booking named tickets for tour operators will be communicated in the coming days, so as not to hinder their professional activity.’ This has obviously thrown agencies and operators, especially foreign ones, into chaos as they were faced with the new situation this morning but without adequate information.

Of the new rules, we welcome the reopening of the box office at the Salara and the doubling of the number of tickets for on-site sale to the public, for all those who did not purchase in advance online or at the call center. In fact, the mode of sale at the cashiers, only to non-“intermediate” visitors (i.e., to the end user and not to the operators in the field) protects the “consumer” from any possible hoarding on site.

We point out, however, that the increase in tickets available for on-site sale is proportional to the decrease in those sold online and at the call center, because the number of total tickets is still the same. Like a blanket that is too short, you increase on one side and take away on the other.

Far more far-reaching is the measure related to the introduction of named tickets, which theoretically should severely limit ticket hoarding. We say “theoretically should,” because it is likely to be ineffective for several reasons.

Named tickets themselves are not new at the Colosseum: they have already been in use for the Underground (and for the evening “Moon over the Colosseum”) since June 2022. They were introduced by the Park Management to counter the problem of unobtainable (and sold at stratospheric prices) Underground tickets, but this has not been the case. Demand is so high relative to supply that the nominal system has not been enough to counteract or even scratch the problem.

Whether, on the other hand, in the case of all other tickets it will work-we all hope it will-it depends on several factors.

First, controls.

The rules work if serious and effective controls are implemented. Even for concerts with tens of thousands of people there are nominal tickets, but only a very small percentage of people are checked for a match between the call sign and the document. If one actually wanted to check the call sign on the ticket and the call sign on the document of every visitor entering the Colosseum with the personnel currently available and with the few gates open, lines of hours would form. So either you are willing to employ much more staff and open more entrances, or you are thinking as of now only of “spot” checks. If the controls are not more than serious, however, the whole measure will be useless, because some rogue individuals will count on being able to get away with it. Above all, the effectiveness of this measure cannot be tied to the discretion of the inspector and the decision of the particular correctional officer on who to select and who not to.

Second, the ticket type.

Currently, the ticket names for the Underground can be changed because they are in pdf (using special editing software). The staff in charge of control (which does not belong to the concessionaire, who is instead responsible for taking reservations and issuing tickets) looks at the correspondence between the name written on the ticket (regardless of whether it is printed or on electronic devices) and the document that the incoming visitor shows at the time, so it is possible to change the names from those provided at the time of reservation.

If you plan to use the same type of tickets, it is a losing battle.

The only serious system that would not allow changes and in fact would help to carry out checks very quickly is the one in use in airline boarding passes, where the bar code contains the passenger’s data and allows them to be compared immediately with those in the passport.

We hope, therefore, that the whole thing will not end in a bubble and that named tickets will not become the screen behind which to hide and say they have taken action.

However, we invite as of now to wait a few months before we can evaluate the effectiveness of the new measure. In fact, already these days, before the new rules came into effect, there were numerous tickets available on the site for the second half of November, simply because by decreasing tourist flows the secondary ticketing platforms are buying fewer tickets. We saw the same phenomenon in August: there were those who rejoiced at an unprecedented abundance of tickets, attributing it to the launch of investigations by the Antitrust Authority. But this was simply the physiological drop in visitor flows that we record every year in August, and in fact in September and October it proved impossible to purchase tickets on the official website.

In any case, named tickets will not be able to solve the situation, because the fundamental problem is that demand outstrips supply at the Colosseum. The real problem, however, which they continue to be unwilling to address, is the disproportion between the number of daily accesses planned by the current management and the demand, considering also the constantly increasing tourist flows. Already for many years there has been a maximum limit of 3,000 simultaneous visitors, calculated on the basis of emergency exits, visitable area and various other elements. In fact, these tickets are not sufficient.

In our opinion, the problem of lack of tickets can only be solved by implementing a set of measures, including, crucially, increasing the number of tickets, which, if desired, can be achieved through multiple options:

- Extending the opening hours, bringing it forward at least to 7:00/7:30 a.m. and postponing the closing time by an hour in summer when the temperature is terrible (little use anticipating now to 8:30 a.m. in winter when there are fewer visitors and it is not hot). It has been done at various Italian monuments; we think it can be done at the Colosseum as well, if the will is there.

- Increase the maximum limit of 3,000 people at the same time, the same for years, adding a fire exit and expanding the area open to the public.

- Reopen the Stern entrance (or others in the vicinity) and provide two different routes at the same time, one very short (ground floor only, with a half circle around the Arena on the Caelian side) and one longer (the current one with ground floor and second floor); this would greatly increase the capacity but not the crowds, in fact it would go to decongest the monument by diversifying the routes.

AGTA has asked repeatedly for months, partly since last year, but to no avail, for all these options, submitting various proposals to the Management, but we have always received refusals.

We renew our request for a permanent Technical Table at the Ministry with the major representatives of the sector’s operators - tour operators, agencies and national associations of tour guides - who have been fighting the monument’s problems for years."

AGTA Tour Guides: Introducing named tickets at the Colosseum is likely to be ineffective

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