According to the Daily Telegraph it pays to be extra nice in bars and restaurants in Venice in the hope of having the "turista simpatico" price list applied and not the "turista antipatico" one.
In an article published on Thursday, the British newspaper said Venice's restaurants, bars and shops often charge one price for Italians and another that can be twice as much or higher for tourists. The newspaper says there are actually three price lists - one for locals, one for polite or likable tourists and one for those with a "brutish" behaviour.
"It's an old story about Italian cities ripping people off," said Claudio Scarpa, the director of the Venice Hoteliers Association.
"Four months ago there was a similar article in the New York Times about tourists being charged twice as much in Rome".
Scarpa denied businesses made tourists pay more, but he added that some might give a discount to their regular customers. "In cities where there is a particularly high level of tourism, the cost of living rises," he explained.
"Some bars and restaurants give discounts to regulars and in this way they also encourage people not to move out of the city. "I don't think there is anything wrong with it. It's logical. It doesn't mean the tourist is paying more.
"If would be different if they saw a tourist and increased the price".
Venice has a complex relationship with the 20 million tourists that come to see its artistic and architectural treasures each year.
Indeed many locals take flight for a few days when major events like the Venice Film Festival or the city's Carnival make the flow of visitors particularly intense.
In June the city sent a group of female 'guardians of decorum' into action in a bid to stop tourists going about bare-chested, lounging around in doorways and eating sandwiches in St Mark's Square.
"We are fighting an increasingly intensive battle to make sure that certain standards of behaviour are respected by everyone, tourists and natives," said Augusto Salvadori, a councillor in charge of "decorum".
The city is also working on laws to stop the sale of fast food in St Mark's Square to limit the amount of rubbish that accumulates there and which street cleaners can only remove once a day.
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