Tour guides in Rome have repeated their calls for a rethink of the summer opening hours of some of the city’s biggest attractions after one of their colleagues died of a suspected heart attack while showing a group around the Colosseum in baking heat.
Giovanna Maria Giammarino, who was 56, collapsed in the amphitheatre at 6pm on Tuesday. Despite the efforts of tourists and the emergency services, she could not be revived and died at the scene.
Her death came weeks after the World Federation of Tourist Guide Associations warned that “extreme heat is no longer an exception; it is a new reality that demands attention, adaptation, and solidarity within our profession”.
As tributes and condolences poured in, Italy’s Certified Tour Guide Association (AGTA) said Giammarino’s death was proof of the physical toll that guiding takes on the body, and urged the authorities to extend the Colosseum’s opening hours so tours could take place in the cool of the early morning or later in the evening.
The Colosseum is open from 8.30am until 7.15pm from the end of March to the end of September.
“First of all, the opening hours of the Archaeological Park of the Colosseum [which includes the Colosseum, the Forum and the Palatine Hill] need to change during summer,” AGTA said in a statement posted on social media.
“It’s useless to talk about a ‘heat emergency’ every year as if this were something new: climate change is a fact and for some years, working at the Roman Forum from 10:00 to 4:30pm has been unbearable.”
The association said that from the beginning of June to “at least the end of August”, the opening hours of the Colosseum area should run from 7am to 8.15pm.
“For three years, we’ve been asking for the opening of the whole park to be brought forward to 7am and for closing to be postponed by an hour,” said AGTA. “These changes would benefit the public health of everyone: visitors, guides and other workers.”
The association said that paltry pensions and economic uncertainty had forced many of its members to push themselves and work at an unsustainable pace in order to be able to support their families.
“[On Tuesday] a guide left for ever, but in recent years too many have left this activity for other ‘safer’ and less demanding jobs,” the statement added. “We need more protection.”
The Colosseum’s authorities offered their condolences to Giammarino’s family and said how much they had appreciated her “professional dedication”. Italy’s culture minister, Alessandro Giuli, said her death “powerfully underscores the human and professional value of those who, every day, contribute to the protection and preservation of our historical and artistic heritage”. In a gesture of respect and mourning, the Colosseum’s lights were turned off at 9pm on Wednesday.
Last month, Italy’s national tour guide federation, Federagit, also requested that the opening of the Colosseum Archaeological Park be brought forward by an hour.
Francesca Duimich, who represents 300 Roman tour guides, said dehydrated tourists often passed out in the summer heat of Rome.
“The forum is a pit; there is no shade, there is no wind,” Duimich told the Associated Press. “Being there at 1pm or 2pm in the summer heat means you will feel unwell.”
