This summer, visitors keen to experience the turquoise water and white sand of Pelosa Beach will have to pay €3.50 and wear a biodegradable bracelet.
With its turquoise water and white sand, Pelosa Beach is a firm favourite for holiday-makers in Sardinia but visitors will now need a ticket and a biodegradable bracelet to access it.
The measures taken last week by the council of Stintino aim to reduce overcrowding and protect the environment. They will come into effect for the summer season starting on June 1.
Visitors over the age of 12 will now have to pay €3.50 for a day ticket, with the number of entries limited to 1,500 people daily.
"It's the number of bathers which, as already highlighted by a series of studies carried out in previous years, can be considered adequate for the beach to support," Stintino mayor Antonio Diana said in a statement.
"Until now, the beach has experienced overcrowding, with peaks of daily attendance that have exceeded 5,000 people," he added.
Employees manning the entrance will deliver a biodegradable bracelet — of a different colour every day — to ticket holders and ensure that rules are respected such as the smoking ban and the no pet policy.
The money will be used to pay for the rinsing water at the disposal of visitors as well as for the upkeep of the beach — cleaning it and maintaining walkways — and the protection of dunes.
Tourism in Sardinia has been booming with more than 3.1 million tourists visiting the Mediterranean island in 2017.
But although it's a boom to the local economy, tourism has also brought its lot of inconveniences.
In 2017, the island criminalised taking sand from its beaches with fines of up to €3,000 after receiving years of complaints from islanders.