Venice is famous as a heritage city and attracts visitors across the world by its elegant architecture. According to statistics there were a steadily growing number of tourists in the past. In 1952 approximately 500 000 tourists spent 1.2 million bed nights in Venice. The visitors had increased to 1.21 million until 1992 and used up 2.68 million bed nights which kept presenting huge business opportunities (Glasson, Godfrey & Goodey 1997; Page 2007). However, it cannot be denied that there still exists some decrease of tourism demand in Venice. To give some concrete examples, in 1985 and 1986, tourism in Venice was influenced by an unfavourable exchange rate of US dollars as well as terrorism. Furthermore the Gulf War in 1991 also affected the income of tourism. Despite of events, it seems that the number of tourist arrivals is projected to rise steadily and hence there were strong positive effects of tourism in Venice (Glasson, Godfrey & Goodey 1997; Tyler, Guerrier, & Robertson 1998).
Visitors come to the historic centre of Venice on request for the special individual experience ranging from gastronomic tours to cultural tours. For one thing, Venice provides a variety of activities to satisfy different desires and needs such as fine art, galleries or the Carnival.
The essay provides a description of the type of visitors that Venice attracts in the perspective of special interest tourism and gives theoretical background of sustainable tourism management in order to analyse the factors determining it as a successful destination.
It is beyond doubt that Venice is an exotic location which allures countless trippers. Some share identical special interests. For instance, tourists who are culture enthusiasts in Venice would visit St. Mark’s squar ...