Even the Eternal City is not immune to gentrification.
People living in Rome are turning their rooms or apartments into bed and breakfasts, giving tourists the option to have a central spot within the city at a low cost.
“We are staying in an apartment two blocks from the Colosseum,” said one tourist.
“We always want to be together comfortably. And in the hotel you sleep well,” said another tourist. “It’s always clean. But in the end, B&Bs are always the cheapest, and you still sleep well.”
There are more than 23,000 B&Bs registered in Rome, along with about 12,000 illegal tourist apartments that are neither registered nor regulated.
Many of them are scams, and Italian authorities want to tackle this problem before the 2025 Jubilee.
“We expect the national government to issue a series of regulations, including the Unique Identification Code, which will allow them to find all these illegal businesses,” said Mariano Angelucci, Vice President of the Jubilee 2025 Special Commission. “They evade tourism tax, and it hurts the city.”
Two more big issues have also risen with this increase in B&Bs: less housing available for residents and skyrocketing rent prices.
“Clearly, greater demand means higher prices,” said one resident in the area. “Also, because then there are fewer available apartments. There are some, but they’re all turning into B&Bs.”
The result: residents are forced to move out of the city. This is the case for Matteo, a porter in a building with tourist apartments. He has a long commute to work because he can’t afford to pay for housing near the center.
“This unfortunately affects local people a lot because the cost of rent is very high,” said Matteo Merino, a porter at a tourist building. “I mean maybe for a tourist, it’s a normal price, but for me, living here, it’s a very high price.”
Some are proposing Rome should push for the $5 tourist tax currently in place in Venice.
This tax has raised more than 2 million dollars, but many consider it a failure because it hasn’t regulated the number of tourists coming to the floating city. The tax might even be doubled in 2025 to about $10.
The Jubilee Committee in Rome argues that the Eternal City does not have the resources to levy this tax.
“The entire city of Venice is smaller than the center of Rome, so it is clearly a completely different situation,” Angelucci said. “The issue of tolling is a sensitive issue that is met with difficulties.”
What is clear is that the city of Rome will face major challenges in the coming year: from maintaining the stability of its buildings to tourism control to, above all, ensuring that the city is up to the task of welcoming pilgrims for the Jubilee.