Assailed by an army of digital robots, the Colosseum is equipped with a new ticketing system

The Eternal City grapples with a very modern problem. For several months, the online ticketing of the Colosseum - and those of other iconic monuments of Rome such as the Villa Borghese and the Vatican Museums - has been taken over by an army of computer bots responsible for snatching up tickets as soon as they are released. sale. Result: no tickets available on the website of the official reseller, Societa Cooperativa Culture (CoopCulture). It is therefore impossible to get your hands on these precious keys without queuing at the counters for long hours... or obtaining them on private operator sites. Except that this welcome opportunity for the clueless tourist is worth its weight in gold. Because secondary resellers such as Musement, GetYourGuide, Tiqets and Viator sell discounted tickets at high prices. To access the archaeological park - which includes the Flavian Amphitheater, the Roman Forum, the Domus Aurea and the Palatine Hill - you had to pay almost fifty euros, or almost three times the base price.

So much so that the illustrious monument had to review its entire ticketing system to equip itself with a new system. Since October 18, entry into the archaeological park can only be done with a personal ticket that can be purchased on the website www.colosseo.it. In doing so, it is impossible for resellers to monopolize the coupons as soon as they go on sale. Added to this is a restructuring of the number of places allocated: only 25% will go to tour operators, 55% to the official platform and 20% to physical ticket offices (i.e. double the usual percentage).

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A major cleaning “to fight against speculative practices on entry prices to the archaeological park” announced in September by Gennaro Sangiuliano, the Italian Minister of Culture, who then declared: “We have inherited a situation of impasse and of a significant tangle that we are rapidly unraveling. Announced last week, the introduction of the nominative ticket is “a central measure to free one of the symbols of our historical-cultural heritage from this fraudulent manipulation of the market,” said the minister.

An announcement welcomed by the Italian media. “No more bots and the underground market”, headlined the daily La Republica, while the Roman edition of Corriere della Sera repeated the words of the Minister of Culture: “a new era begins”. It must be said that the response from the transalpine authorities was eagerly awaited. Alerted at the start of the year by the cries of outrage raised by tourists and the transalpine press, the executive was forced to tackle the problem head on. The competition and market authority (Agcom) was then contacted and an investigation targeting both the official store and the four resellers was opened last July. “According to the Authority, consumers would not be able to buy tickets on the website of the official reseller CoopCulture because they would be purchased en masse by secondary resellers,” specified the Italian press agency ANSA. Searches were even carried out by the Special Antitrust Unit of the Guardia di Finanza, the Italian customs and financial police.