by Bert Archer
Last updated: 8:10 AM ET, Tue September 30, 2025
In a lively panel discussion during her third on-stage appearance of the first full day of the WTTC Summit in Rome Monday, the Italian Minister of Tourism, Daniela Santanche, suggested that people should have to pay to see her country’s volcanoes.
“You go to other countries and pay to see fake volcano,” she said during a panel entitled Bridging Continents: Collaborative Tourism Policies for a Connected Future.
”Well, we have real volcanoes, and we're supposed to give it away for free? We want the whole world to see these things, but maybe there is a cost, with exceptions for the elderly and so on."
(Photo Credit: Bert Archer)
Though it is unclear what countries she was referring to that charge to see fake volcanoes, the precedent for her comments was the controversial decision in 2023 to start charging a fee to see the Pantheon, a previously free architectural wonder of Ancient Rome.
Where once there was a free, though voluminous flow through the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome, build 1800 years ago, now there are large lines to buy and show tickets for entry.
For Santanche, the benefits are not only financial, but they allow the government access to data that can help them in the management of the nation’s tourism assets.
So will we have to pay to see Vesuvius soon? Possibly. Will we soon have to pay to see more of Italy’s natural, historical, and cultural assets? Almost certainly.
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