Celebrities call for ban on cruise ships entering Venice

By Cruise Adviser On Jul 23, 2014 0

Over sixty celebrities, including Sir Michael Caine, Calvin Klein and Jane Fonda, have signed a petition calling for a ban on large cruise ships entering Venice.

The plea comes in the wake of the Costa Concordia salvage operation, which is preparing to tow the ship away after it ran aground off the coast of Giglio in 2012.

The petition’s signatories have also called for a ban on ship’s entering the Giudecca Canal, which runs to the south of the city.

The document has been sent to Italy’s prime minister Matteo Renzi, according to The Daily Telegraph and was also signed by Cate Blanchett, Norman Foster and Michael Douglas.

“For more than 13 centuries Venice has survived flooding, disease and war,” the petition reads.

“But now, in a period of peace, the Queen of the Adriatic, listed by Unesco as a World Heritage site, risks being overwhelmed by these enormous cruise ships, which enter the lagoon on a daily basis, indifferent to the dangers that they bring.”

There are roughly 600 cruise ship calls at Venice each year, bringing in an estimated €536million into the city in 2012.

Last year Italian media reported that as of November 2014, no ship bigger than 96,000 tonnes would be able to enter Venice via the Giudecca Canal.