Venice’s Big Money Conundrum to Solving Its Cruise Ship Crisis

The headlines sounded promising in early August when reports suggested that Venice had found a solution its cruise ship problem. "Venice to Give Cruise Ships a Wide Berth," said the Financial Times. "Venice Bans Large Cruise Ships from its Historic Center" said the BBC. In fact, the only thing that's changed this summer is the apparent urgency surrounding the issue whether or not cruise ships should be removed from Venice, and if so, how. Tensions spiked in June when the MSC Opera crashed into a river boat and dock. Weeks later, another cruise ship, the Costa Deliziosa, had a similar very near miss during a storm. Though many Venetians have long objected to the leviathans, these recent events made maintaining the status quo untenable for public officials. As Tommaso Cacciari, an activist with the anti-cruise ship group No Grandi Navi (No Big Ships), said to Skift in July, "[officials] cannot say in front of the world, in front of the city anymore — and they used to say this —