Venetians deliver blunt message to tourists: 'You are ruining our city'

While many Venetians, from shop-owners to hoteliers to gondoliers, make their living from tourism, others have become increasingly exasperated with the negative effects of mass tourism on “La Serenissima” as the Venetian republic was once known. Around 22 million tourists visit Venice each year, annoying the dwindling number of locals by crowding narrow alleyways, barging onto crowded vaporetto water buses with backpacks and wandering around during the summer in bikini tops and shorts.