ITALY’S flame-haired tourism minister, Michela Brambilla, has announced a campaign to stop her fellow countrymen ripping off holidaymakers after a Japanese couple were charged nearly €700 (£605) for a seafood lunch in a historic restaurant in Rome. The worldwide headlines that the exorbitant bill attracted could not have come at a worse time for the Italian tourist trade, already suffering from a drop in foreign visitors because of the economic downturn and swine flu. The Japanese tourists – a 35-year-old man and a 26-year-old woman – complained to police last month after they were made to pay the bill, including a €115.50 tip that was imposed on them. The meal consisted of spaghetti with lobster, sea bass, ice-cream and a bottle of sauvignon at the century-old restaurant Il Passetto, off the picturesque Piazza Navona. Hygiene officials shut down the restaurant days later after an inspection, ending a culinary era during which it has served the Queen, Charlie Chaplin, Grace Kelly and Leonardo DiCaprio. Gianni Alemanno, the mayor of Rome, promptly ordered police to make checks across the capital to prevent such fraud. Last week Brambilla, 41, a former beauty queen and television journalist who is the director of a family steel business, wrote an open letter “to tourists from Japan and the whole world” announcing the creation of a commission that would monitor prices and services across Italy. From now on, tourists who wanted to complain could go to the commission, which would operate under her authority. “A holiday in Italy is an experience you will always remember and the Italian government is firmly resolved to guarantee the best of stays,” Brambilla wrote. She was extremely sorry about the Japanese couple’s bill and offered them a holiday in Rome at her ministry’s expense, so they could “verify that we offer the best hospitality”.Despite Brambilla’s assurances, however, tourists are often overcharged from the moment they arrive at Fiumicino airport, where unlicensed taxi drivers charge €100 for the trip to the city centre instead of the official €40. A Japanese newspaper listed other woes for visitors to the Eternal City, from obscure menus to poor service, dirty streets, pickpockets and “ancient Roman soldiers” who harassed tourists at the Colosseum to be photographed with them – for a fee. Foreigners are charged up to €6 for an ice-cream cone near the city’s most popular sights. Italy’s tourism sector, which accounts for 10% of gross domestic product, shrank by about 5% in 2008 and is expected to diminish further this year. The Italian tourist board predicted this month that the number of British visitors would remain steady, although Italy is seen as a costly destination. Despite a €1.6 billion boost in state loans to the industry, there are other worrying signs. In the Bay of Naples, the fall in tourist numbers has been fuelled by fears of pollution following the breakdown of a water purifying plant. “This is a terrible summer; I’ve got only nine beach umbrellas open out of 200,” said Mario Morra, the regional head of the seaside resorts union. Operators predicted a fall of up to 60% in the number of beach-goers this summer. In Florence, three and four-star hotels have seen turnover fall by 20% in the first six months of the year. Several hotels are considering closing for a few weeks, unprecedented at the height of the season. At Montecatini in Tuscany, famous for its thermal baths, hotels saw a 13% fall in visitors in the first four months of the year, with the number of foreigners down by 14%: Americans stayed away in droves, while Germans headed for cheaper destinations such as Croatia. Brambilla was appointed by Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister, in May, but has yet to distinguish herself as tourism minister. She is nicknamed La Rossa, the redhead, and her pets include 25 cats, 14 dogs and 200 pigeons. One of her first measures was to set up a website listing hotels, restaurants, campsites and beaches where cats and dogs are accepted.
Wow, that's just messed up, for that price I better be getting something out of this world, I wouldn't had paid and called the cops right away. I think a lot of these crocks had gotten away with it for a very long time and the dam gov't finally did something cause of the economy and the bad press.
& i bet the amount of spaghetti they served is about one fist, culinary art T_T pay me 20 & i'll cook you tons of pasta in different flavors i guess i aint going to visit David until Italy fixes itself.
omg, thats just daylight robbery. With that amount I could probably eat somewhere else which probably has the same great quality and can enjoy 10 meals instead of that 1
If they really gonna charge that much... at least make them feel like they're paying the price that they deserve...
