Merchants of Venice: A Look At the Changes in the Venetian Stores and Tourist Accommodations and Their Impact on the Local Population

The demand in Venice is created by those who occupy its streets. The demographics and number of visitors in Venice have been changing drastically over the past years, with its population steadily declining and the number of tourists constantly increasing. To understand how these changes correlate to the type, number, and location of the stores in Venice, this project noted and compiled the changes in stores within five out of the six sestieri of the historic center of Venice when compared to the database of the stores made by WPI students in the years 2004, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011. The project compiled a single comprehensive database, including pictures of all of the stores of Venice, both extant and closed, in the fall of 2012. The project created web pages for each type of Venetian store and templates for every store in Venice for the new online encyclopedia: Venipedia, modeled after Wikipedia. Finally, the project analyzed the trends in the stores and accommodations of Venice in relation to the trends in the residents and tourists.

Final report See team website