Italy: Regulating Tourist Retail - How Venice and Other European Cities are Rewriting the Rules of the Historic Centre

Across Europe’s most visited historic cities, local governments are reasserting control over retail landscapes long shaped by mass tourism. Once dominated by souvenir shops, fast take-away food, and low-investment retail formats, historic centres are increasingly subject to targeted commercial regulation aimed at restoring urban quality, residential liveability, and cultural identity.

Venice stands out as the most data-rich and consequential example to date. Its experimental—and now permanent—rulebook for protecting retail quality in the historic centre has delivered measurable market effects: an 83% reduction in neighbourhood-shop closures, 222 net new openings (largely in high-end fashion, artistic crafts, art objects, and bookstores), and a clear re-orientation of new activity toward protected streets. What began as a controversial pilot has become a reference point.

Other cities—Florence, Rome, Naples, Milan, Barcelona, and Amsterdam—are converging on similar policy toolkits, adapted to local legal frameworks and political priorities. Together, these cases suggest a broader European shift: from passive acceptance of tourism-driven retail homogenization to active, place-based commercial governance.

1. Venice: From Pilot Regulation to Permanent Policy—and Measurable Market Effects

Venice’s approach is widely regarded as the most sophisticated experiment in retail regulation among European tourist cities. The city’s resolution DCC 26/2022—commonly referred to as the anti-paccottiglia (anti-junk) regulation—was initially introduced as a three-year pilot and made permanent in May 2025 after an extensive evaluation phase.

The regulation targets new openings and business transfers within the historic centre. It prohibits:

• most retail food outlets;
• artisan or industrial production, preparation, and/or sale of food products; and
• unattended formats such as self-service laundromats, vending-only shops, and ATMs.

Crucially, the city carved out exemptions for genuine neighbourhood services, including greengrocers, butchers, fishmongers, farm producers, bakeries, patisseries, and gelaterias—distinguishing between resident-oriented commerce and tourist-only formats. In parallel, Venice introduced strict rules on shopfront displays, merchandise spill-out, signage, and visual clutter, framing retail not just as an economic activity but as part of the city’s public decorum.

Implementation was geographically surgical. Rather than applying blanket restrictions, the city mapped pedestrian flows and focused enforcement on the highest-pressure streets—those most exposed to tourist monoculture. The results have been striking. Since the regulation’s launch, shop closures have fallen by 83%, while 222 net new businesses have opened. Notably, 71% of these new openings occurred within the protected grid, suggesting that regulation did not suppress investment but redirected it toward higher-quality uses.

Venice’s experience challenges the assumption that restrictions inevitably hollow out city centres. Instead, it shows how calibrated constraints can reshape market behaviour.

2. Florence: Scaling UNESCO-Area Restrictions Beyond the “Salotto Buono”

Florence has pursued a more incremental but increasingly assertive path. Since 2016, the city has repeatedly tightened rules governing commercial activity in its UNESCO-listed historic centre, responding to the rapid spread of take-away food, souvenir retail, and licence transfers.

In April 2023, Florence renewed a three-year moratorium on new food retail and food-and-beverage (F&B) establishments within the UNESCO area, as well as on licence transfers into the zone. This was followed, in late 2024, by a significant expansion of the regulated perimeter: 42 streets and squares were brought under enhanced controls, including three strategic corridors outside the formal UNESCO boundary.

The new framework differentiates streets by desired function. Selected streets admit only “prestige” activities—bookshops, galleries, antiques dealers, design studios, traditional and artistic crafts, and florists—while others impose outright bans on new food and F&B uses. Importantly, Florence has moved to close the long-standing loophole that allowed businesses to enter restricted areas via licence transfers, a mechanism that had previously undermined regulatory intent.

The Florentine model reflects a shift from symbolic protection of the historic “salotto buono” to a more territorial approach that recognises tourist pressure beyond the busiest zones.

3. Rome: A Layered Regime Combining Structural Controls and Time-Bound Ordinances

Rome’s regulatory strategy is less unified but operates through overlapping layers. At the structural level, the city enforces a long-standing regime for the Città Storica, which restricts new commercial and artisan activities unless they are explicitly protected (to this respect either the activity is a historical one, or in order to be protected it has to request a special authorisation based on a specific application showing the interest for the town, or the cultural or artistic value). Certain categories—such as gambling halls, self-service laundries, and specific fast-fry formats—are banned outright in sensitive urban tissues.

Overlaying these permanent rules are seasonal and time-bound ordinances, particularly targeting alcohol sales. In response to nightlife-related disorder (malamovida), Rome regularly imposes early closure requirements for mini-markets and nighttime bans on alcohol sales in high-pressure areas. While these measures are temporary by design, their repeated renewal has made them a de facto governance tool for managing tourist and nightlife economies.

Rome’s case illustrates how cities with complex administrative legacies often rely on cumulative regulation rather than single, comprehensive frameworks.

4. Naples: A UNESCO “Food Cap” and the Transition Toward Design-Led Control

Naples has taken a more experimental approach. Since 2023, the city has enforced a three-year moratorium on new food-and-beverage establishments and food production/retail within a tightly delimited UNESCO historic centre and its buffer zone. The objective is explicitly to cap food-related saturation and halt the proliferation of micro take-away establishments.

Significantly, the moratorium is not conceived as an end point. Municipal authorities are drafting post-moratorium rules that would introduce pre-opening authorisation, phase out ultra-small take-away models, and impose coherent design standards for shopfronts and outdoor seating (dehors). Targeted exceptions are expected, particularly for traditional or culturally significant activities.

Naples thus mirrors Venice’s trajectory: from blunt, time-limited caps toward a more permanent, design- and quality-oriented regulatory regime.

5. Milan: Zoning Nightlife Through Contingent Openings

Although not a classic tourist city, Milan has become a testing ground for nightlife-focused retail regulation. Its new Public Establishments Regulation, effective August 2024, introduces protected-area maps that classify nightlife hotspots into red, yellow, and green zones.

In red and yellow zones, the opening or transfer of F&B and artisan food activities is no longer automatic but contingent on formal scrutiny and capacity assessments. The map is reviewed every two years, allowing the city to adjust controls as neighbourhood conditions evolve.

Milan’s model emphasizes adaptability and acknowledges that retail pressure can be cyclical and spatially mobile.

6. Barcelona (Ciutat Vella): Countering Souvenir and Cannabis-Shop Drift

Barcelona has long used Plans d’Usos to manage commercial density, but the city is now overhauling the framework for Ciutat Vella. In 2024, authorities suspended new licences for cannabis-related retailers, manicure and pedicure studios, and mobile-phone-case shops—establishments seen as contributing little to local life while accelerating retail monoculture.

At the same time, a Rambla-wide freeze on new commercial licences remains in place, with narrow exceptions for cultural activities. The emphasis is increasingly on channelling ground-floor space toward uses that reinforce cultural identity rather than extract tourist footfall.

7. Amsterdam (De Wallen): Regulating Consumption as Much as Commerce

Amsterdam’s Red Light District, De Wallen, represents a distinct but related approach. Rather than focusing primarily on retail mix, the city has targeted patterns of consumption. Measures include public-consumption bans for cannabis, earlier closing times for coffeeshops and nightlife venues, and time-window restrictions on alcohol sales.

These rules aim to restore residential liveability and rebalance the district away from pure entertainment consumption. While retail regulation plays a role, Amsterdam’s strategy underscores that commercial governance increasingly intersects with public-order and health considerations.

Conclusion: Toward a European Model of Place-Based Retail Governance

Taken together, these cases point to a shared recalibration of urban policy. European cities are no longer treating tourist retail as an inevitable by-product of success, but as a domain that can—and should—be governed with precision. Venice’s experience demonstrates that well-designed restrictions need not stifle economic activity; on the contrary, they can redirect investment toward higher-value, culturally aligned uses.

As tourism continues to rebound and intensify, the question is no longer whether historic centres should be regulated, but how finely and how courageously. The emerging European consensus suggests that the future of tourist cities lies not in laissez-faire, i.e., unrestricted, retail, but in deliberate, data-driven stewardship of the ground floor.

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