Pompeii limits visitors to protect ancient city from overtourism | Italy

Pompeii is to limit visitor numbers to 20,000 a day and introduce personalised tickets from next week in an effort to cope with overtourism and protect the world heritage site, officials said.

This summer, a record 4 million people visited the remains of the ancient Roman city, which was buried under ash and rock after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79.

The archaelogical park’s director, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, said visitors to the main site now exceeded an average of 15,000-20,000 every day, and the new daily cap would prevent the numbers from rising further.

“We are working on a series of projects to lift the human pressure on the site, which could pose risks both for visitors and the heritage [that is] so unique and fragile,” Zuchtriegel said.

Tickets to the park will be personalised from 15 November, to include the full names of visitors. A maximum of 20,000 will be released each day, with specific time slots during summer.

The park’s managers are trying to encourage tourists to visit other ancient sites connected to Pompeii, including Stabiae, Oplontis and Boscoreale., by providing a free shuttle bus under the Greater Pompeii project.

“The measures to manage flows and safety and the personalisation of the visits are part of this strategy,” Zuchtriegel said. “We are aiming for slow, sustainable, pleasant and non-mass tourism and, above all, widespread throughout the territory around the Unesco site, which is full of cultural jewels to discover.”

In April, Venice became the world’s first large tourist city to charge people to enter, as part of a trial aimed at dissuading day trippers and due to return next year. The €5 (£4.15) levy, which applied on 29 peak days and ended in July, was also an emergency response by local authorities to avoid the Unesco heritage site being blacklisted.