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Venice gets none of the cash levied on the cruise liners' operators so the city is introducing a tourist tax to help plug the funding gap
Bare brickwork on many of the finest homes in Venice graphically illustrates the funding crisis gripping Italy.
Forced to copy the costly techniques of their forebears by regional heritage regulations, homeowners have chosen instead to let their 15th-century palaces crumble.
Before the banking crisis there were subsidies that helped buy costly pink and mauve plasters, pay artisan builders and erect canal-side scaffolding, but Giulio Tremonti, finance minister and chief cost-cutter in Silvio Berlusconi's government, has spent the last three years quietly stripping Venice residents of central government support.
Sandro Simionato, deputy mayor of Venice and its finance chief, says the historic city has seen almost all its central government grants disappear over the last three years, forcing local politicians to introduce means-tested social care for the first time for its rapidly ageing population.
Simionato, a member of the leftist Democratic party, argues that the head-in-the-sand attitude of Berlusconi has forced Rome into a headlong panic that has turned a measured programme of cuts into a torrent. The biggest losers are local governments.
It is the same story in many parts of Europe, where politicians look for the easiest and least painful, at least form their perspective, ways of reducing government debts.
The picture is closely mirrored in the UK, where local authorities must cope with larger cuts than Whitehall departments and over a tighter timeframe.
In Spain, local municipalities have collectively run up debts of €35bn (£31bn) and are struggling to pay their bills. The Zapatero government says it cannot afford to help out.
The scramble for funds in Venice is intense. Tax receipts are down after the collapse of the local casino business. Five years ago casinos provided €104m in taxes to the city; last year it fell to €70m and this year is expected to hit €60m. Simionato hopes to make up the shortfall with a tourist tax he announced last week, which could raise €25m a year from people staying in hotels and apartments. The tax should also limit a surge in tourism that has trebled visitor numbers over 20 years from four million people a year to 12 million in 2010.
Much of the tourism boom comes from the popularity of cruise ships that dock in the port and churn their way between St Marks Square and the Lido for a good look at the city. All the cash from the cruise operators goes to the port authority and not the city coffers.
Other Italian cities are facing a similar squeeze. Rome and Florence have introduced tourism taxes. Berlusconi's administration has also pursued tax rises. A tax on banks and insurance companies is expected to raise €1.8bn over the next three years. The plan raises the corporate tax rate by 0.75 percentage points for banks and by two percentage points for insurance companies. This year the tax authorities warned that it planned to chase €50bn in unpaid tax on money sent abroad, mostly to Switzerland and Luxembourg.
However, many commentators said the situation was likely to worsen after the government agreed to increase capital gains tax (CGT) from 12.5% to 20%. Cost-cutting is also well underway. Teachers have been told to expect larger class sizes of 30 to 35 in the coming year after decades of schooling 25 children a class at most.
Education cuts and the CGT rise are part of a wider €45.5bn package of measures designed to balance the budget and try to convince investors the country can tame the region's second-biggest debt.
Further cuts to local and regional government are also planned – saving €9bn over two years – along with an extra 5% tax on people with incomes of more than €90,000 a year and 10% on incomes exceeding €150,000.
What is left of the Venice subsidy could disappear this year. Tremonti has told Venice that a previous commitment to build a £3bn flood barrier, named Moses, consisting of 78 giant steel gates and due to be completed in 2014, has meant an end to all other subsidies.
According to Simionato, there will not be much of a city to defend if a lack of maintenance funds means all the damaged buildings have crumbled into the lagoon.