The ancient Roman Colosseum will be the venue of gladiator fights — albeit staged — for the first time in two millennia under a $1.5 million sponsorship deal with Airbnb that aims to promote “a more conscious tourism.” But some visitors to the monument Thursday, as well as housing activists, were skeptical about the value of the arrangement, citing ongoing controversies in many cities over the role of short-term rental platforms in fueling overtourism and limiting affordable housing for residents and students. Under the deal announced by Airbnb and the Colosseum on Wednesday, the sponsorship by the short-term rental giant will cover the renewal of an educational program inside the ancient Roman amphitheater covering the history of the structure and gladiators. FILE PHOTO: A gener...
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Italian authorities are looking for a tourist who scribbled graffiti on a wall of the Colosseum, with Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano calling for exemplary punishment for the so-far unidentified man. The tourist was caught in a video, posted on social media on Saturday, scratching his and his girlfriend's name with a key on an internal wall of the ancient Roman stone amphitheatre. He left the inscription "Ivan + Hayley 23". Visitors take photos of the Ancient Colosseum in Rome, Tuesday, June 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini) The message appeared on the Colosseum at a time when Romans already were complaining about hordes of tourists flooding the Eternal City in record numbers this season. A fellow tourist, Ryan Litz, of Orange, California., filmed the incident and posted...
Read More"The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the Senate, it's the sand of the Colosseum," the Roman senator Gracchus said in the 2000 Oscar-winning movie "Gladiator". The towering 2,000-year-old stone amphitheatre, the biggest in the Roman empire, is Italy's most popular tourist attraction, drawing 7.6 million visitors in 2019. View of the Colosseum dungeons which have been restored in a multi-million euro project sponsored by fashion group Tod's in Rome, Italy, June 24 2021. REUTERS/Remo Casilli But its own beating heart, the underground passages, cages and rooms where prisoners, animals and gladiators waited to pass through trapdoors to enter the arena above their heads - itself long gone - only opened to the paying public on Friday after lengthy renovations. More than 80...
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