4 million tourists in 1 square kilometer: Cinque Terre is thinking of solutions against the

The recent report on the Cinque Terre Park, entitled Cinque Terre Park. Preliminary Study of Tourist Flows and Design Hypotheses, provides some surprising numbers and food for thought about maintaining a place that is as beautiful as it is fragile. MIC-HUB, an international company with multidisciplinary expertise working on various aspects of mobility and transportation, had been commissioned to prepare a report on visitor mobility in access to the protected area, tourist flows, and design hypotheses for the Park. “The cognitive framework and programmatic solutions that emerged from the MIC-HUB Study represent the starting point for the operational phase defined during the States General of the Cinque Terre Park on sustainable flow management,” said Park President Donatella Bianchi. “The study carried out by a team of experts in innovative strategies related to sustainable mobility, highlighted analyses, statistics and data collected in the field, particularly on peak tourism days, and defined a series of innovative design hypotheses aimed at improving prevention, planning and reception services. After sharing with stakeholders and the States General mobility table, a project path and the first concrete actions can finally be launched as early as 2024.”

The first figure that jumps to the eye of even the least experienced reader, as La Repubblica anticipates, is the quantification of 4 million visitors in the year 2023 that will be concentrated in the places most popular with tourists, which roughly is 1 square kilometer, corresponding to 3 percent of the entire Park area. With the busiest months in summer with 344 thousand arrivals in June, 345 thousand in August, 338 thousand in September. Overall, one million more than in 2022. Recall that there are 1326 inhabitants in Riomaggiore of whom 353 live in Manarola, 711 in Vernazza including those in Corniglia, and 1350 live in Monterosso.

A study that is called “preliminary” by the drafters themselves but nevertheless already provides many elements and arguments about the access strategies to be taken in view of summer 2024, and in fact on theagenda of the same meeting was also an agreement with Trenitalia RFI and the agreement with FAI - Fondo Ambiente Italiano and Municipality of Levanto for the cultural and environmental enhancement of the agricultural settlement of “Podere Case Lovara.” The agreement with the rail carrier is not secondary given that out of the 17 thousand daily visitors on average (although under Easter they reached and exceeded 18 thousand), 11 thousand and 500 arrive by train (with situations in which in Monterosso up to 320 people were counted on the tracks and 200 in the small stations of Manarola and Vernazza), although arrivals by road are increasing especially for foreigners (French, Swiss, northern Europeans) who use their own cars or buses (which are 700 this year while 676 last year). The municipality of Monterosso, having more parking lots, is the one where there is the most impact of motor vehicles with 47 percent of car passages entering the Park. Not counting cruise passengers who also arrive in 1,500 of whom more than half enter the park by train.

“With the go-ahead for the renewal of the Cinque Terre Card service card agreement with Trenitalia then,” the president continues, “also thanks to the willingness of the Ferrovie dello Stato group, new resources will come in that the Park will reinvest in support of the municipalities in projects on safety and flow management,” while with the collaboration agreement with FAI - Fondo per l’Ambiente Italiano ETS and the Municipality of Levanto, concerns the cultural and environmental enhancement of the agricultural settlement of the “Podere Case Lovara,” on the Mesco promontory: “The goal is for the site, rich in historical, naturalistic, and environmental values, to become a weaving point for educational itineraries, educational and immersive activities curated by the Park’s CEA, with a focus on the theme of traditional agricultural practices,” the Park’s note explains.

Returning to the Study, it certifies the massive tourist presence that can be defined as ’overtourism,’ meaning that it risks exceeding the accommodation capacity of this fragile corner of Liguria famous throughout the world with its trails and spectacular sea views. As reported by La Repubblica di Genova, this year on the VerdeAzzurro, between Vernazza and Corniglia, 138 thousand people were registered ,and on the Vettora, between Monterosso and Vernazza, 151 thousand. A mass pouring into the five villages, which is also reflected in the soaring sales of the “Cinque terre card”: 30 percent more than 2022. 300 people pass by the trains between going and returning, and there is no way to warn passengers when trains are full. This criticality is reported in the Study because on peak days there are even 800 people per train d is a source of inconvenience for visitors and complication of flow management. The same criticality also applies to parking lots, if they are full we notice it when we are already there.

The study points out how under-exploited sea transportation is: in fact, boats reach, every day, 100% occupancy from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., on a 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. operating band. By sea 18% of people arrive, with total passengers reaching 500,000 by the end of 2023. Data indicate that about 70 percent of visitors arrive by train, 15 percent by boat, and less than 10 percent by car or motorcycle: “if the tool of fare increases is a lever to alleviate flows,” President Bianchi had this to say at the meeting convened by the President of the Region, Giovanni Toti, at the request of the Park Authority, in the presence of theCouncillor Augusto Sartori, the Mayors of Riomaggiore, Fabrizia Pecunia, of Monterosso Emanuele Moggia, and of Vernazza, Francesco Villa, “must be thought of in a logic of integrated vision so that the pressure does not shift to another vector, for example to road transport, which is unsustainable for the orographic conformation of our territory.” Hence the importance of varying fares by linking increases to peak travel times.

Among the issues highlighted by the Park was the enhancement of the Cinque Terre Service Card within the proposed tariff revision with the maintenance of the sale of the daily ticket exclusively associated with the Card; the staggering of tariffs linked to the periods of maximum affluence; the inclusion of CETS Mark facilities among the criteria of the discounts applied to the Card; and the introduction of the Park in the Protocol of Understanding between the Region and the Municipalities. “We wanted to bring our contribution to the discussion table,” said Park President Donatella Bianchi, “starting from the data elaborated in the MIC-HUB study that took a comprehensive snapshot of the mobility system of the Cinque Terre, precisely to stimulate an overview and an in-depth study of the parameters used to identify pressure levels, beyond which management problems and risks are created for the safety and livability of both tourists and residents.”

From the meeting emerged the Region’s intention to the maintenance of the daily train ticket exclusively associated with the Cinque Terre Service Card, an initiative that safeguards this indispensable tool of the Park to experience the territory in its multi-dimensionality and pillar to self-finance, through resources from tourism, essential services for residents and tourists, maintenance projects, research and risk mitigation and support for the agricultural sector, with significant employment spin-offs in the environmental sector.

In recent days, a resolution of the Liguria Region was also approved that establishes an increase in fares for the ’Cinque Terre Express’ tourist train from March 31 to November 2, thus seeking to deseasonalize by differentiating fares according to the Tyrrhenian season, from which would result in revenue of about 5 million that will allow to make rail passes free from January 1 for under-19s residing in Liguria, to discount by 50 percent those for young people aged 19 to 26, and by 80 percent passes on the Levanto-La Spezia route for residents or owners of second homes in the Cinque Terre municipalities.

“We have approved the new fare plan for 2024 for regional public transport by rail,” comments President Toti, “we are using the money that tourists pay to travel to particularly valuable places in Liguria to guarantee the most fragile segments of the population residing in Liguria preferential treatment, and we are segmenting the fares of the ’Cinque Terre Express’ to put rules to the phenomenon of overtourism. We do not expect a drop in tourist flows to the Cinque Terre of more than 10 percent, we do not expect any damage to the regional economy.”

The one-day Cinque Terre Park Card, for unlimited train travel and access to the trails, may be modulated on prices ranging from 12 to 32 euros depending on the days and peak tourist numbers. “There is no question of maintaining and renewing the agreement between the Park Authority and Trenitalia, which has been active since 2003, even downstream of recent agreements revised to reflect new flow management needs,” Bianchi stressed. “We have asked the Region to include accommodation facilities certified with the Environmental Quality Mark of the European Charter for Sustainable Tourism, as an additional criterion to which to apply the discount on the prices of the Cards, a bonus already introduced by the Park to encourage visitors to stay in virtuous facilities in the protected area that have adhered to a path of improving their environmental performance and raising the quality of the offer.” Among the possible hypotheses to be undertaken is pointed out in the Study that of “one-way directions” on the trails, increased people counters, and even the installation of turnstiles to create a limit beyond which no one would be allowed to enter anymore.

4 million tourists in 1 square kilometer: Cinque Terre is thinking of solutions against the

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