The ancient Roman Colosseum will be the venue of gladiator fights — albeit staged — for the first time in two millennia under a US$1.5 million sponsorship deal with Airbnb that aims to promote “a more conscious tourism.”
However, some visitors to the monument on Thursday, as well as housing activists, were skeptical about the value of the arrangement, citing ongoing controversies in many cities over the role of short-term rental platforms in fueling overtourism and limiting affordable housing for residents and students.
Under the deal announced by Airbnb and the Colosseum on Wednesday, the sponsorship by the short-term rental giant will cover the renewal of an educational program inside the ancient Roman amphitheater covering the history of the structure and gladiators.
Photo: AP
Eight of the platform’s users and their plus-ones will be able to participate in faux gladiator fights after the Colosseum’s closing time on May 7 and 8, taking the same underground route used by gladiators in ancient Rome to reach the arena.
People can apply for the experience on Nov. 27 at no cost, and the “gladiators” will be chosen by lottery.
Colosseum Archeological Park superintendent Alfonsina Russo told reporters that the deal is in conjunction with the release of Ridley Scott’s new film Gladiator II, which opened in Italy on Thursday.
Russo characterized the sponsorship arrangement as one of the many such deals to help finance projects at the park.
For example, Italian fashion brand Tod’s has funded a multimillion renovation of the Roman monument, including a cleaning, replacing the locking system of arches with new gates and redoing the subterranean areas.
Alberto Campailla, the coordinator of the Nonna Roma nonprofit organization that focuses on housing and food for the poor, called the campaign with Airbnb “a disgrace,” and a form of “touristification.”
Airbnb and other platforms offering short-term rentals “are literally driving people out of not only the city center, but also the outskirts and suburban neighborhoods,” Campailla said.
Tourists from other European cities grappling with overtourism also took issue with the deal.
“It seems to me that the purpose of the Colosseum today is to be a tourist attraction, but not to create an amusement park within it,” said Jaime Montero, a tourist visiting from Madrid. “In the end, tourism eats the essence of the cities, here in Rome, as in other capitals.”
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
RSS