Detailed Look At the Changing Venetian Retail Sector

Since World War II, the entire face of the Venetian retail sector has changed quite considerably. Since 2004, student teams from Worcester Polytechnic Institute have studied the evolution of stores in the whole city, revealing that there were at least 4506 shops in Venice of which 856 are now closed. Moreover, many stores that used to meet the needs of locals have since been converted to cater to tourists. There are multiple reasons for these transformations including the demographic decline, the huge increase in the number of visitors, and the advent of supermarkets. This project collected the current status of storefronts in the Castello area and created a solid baseline for future data collection and analysis, allowing for stronger conclusions to be made.